Christian Film

The Scriptures Visualized: Archives of Christian Film

/ Emily Banas / Leave a comment
Cover of the film catalog of Scriptures Visualized Films (later the C. O. Baptista Film Mission), ca. late 1940s. Collection 225, Box 1, Folder 1.

In the 20th century, Archives became museums of obsolete technology, collectors of valuable records in formats no longer commercially viable or practical. This growing list includes wax cylinders, wire recordings, analog audio tapes, audio cassettes, microcassettes, Dictaphone disks, 1” and 2” video reels, U-Matic video cassettes, VHS and Beta cassettes, as well as 8mm and 16mm films.

From the mid-1930s through the late-1980s, 16mm film was a very popular medium for schools, businesses, churches, and parachurch organizations. The Evangelism & Missions Archives has hundreds of movies in these formats (especially 16mm), as well as the production and correspondence files of evangelical film companies. Meant to be shown in church or at church events, these movies were particularly thought to be a means of attracting young people to church. 

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Little Hollywood on the Prairie

/ Emily Banas / 1 Comment

Was Wheaton, IL once a headquarters for cinema in the Midwest? Well, perhaps not quite. But it is true that in the middle decades of the 20th century, Wheaton was the center for the regular production of dozens of films, pioneered by the Scriptures Visualized Institute, also know as the C. O. Baptista Film Mission and C. O. Baptista Films, among other names.

Embracing their central slogan, “The Old Gospel in Modern Technique,” C.O. Baptista films represented one effort among many by Christians in the 20th century to use the possibilities of ever advancing new technologies – from recorded sound on wax cylinders to instantaneous communication via the internet – as new channels for the gospel.

The records of the Baptista Film Mission, including selections of its film catalog, are available and open for research at the Wheaton College Billy Graham Center Archives.

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