An Open Letter to the Producers of “Redeeming Love”

*Disclaimer: Magdala can not in good conscience recommend this movie to anyone, including our community of women here. The following is a reflection on the movie specifically, not the novel by Francine Rivers. For more information on the problematic nature of this movie, you can find the podcast episode between Rachael and Shelby talking about the film here.

To the Director, Producers, and Writers of “Redeeming Love”,

You broke my heart.

You broke my heart when you chose sensuality over intimacy. Intensity over severity.

You broke my heart when you decided to bring light to the horrible realities of abusive relationships not through sensitivity and gentleness, but through explicit sexual content. 

This story has so many beautiful messages, and there’s a lot of healing that can come from victims of abuse, like me, watching this story of redemption unfold. But I can’t recommend this to any of them. And that truly breaks my heart.

You could have made this so good. You could have made it an exploration of the eternal love of our Father, and a testament to the healing power relationships can have on our wounds. Michael is a truly heroic character, one who never fails at loving Sarah as the Father wants him to. Watching his persistent forgiveness and a keen awareness of anything remotely resembling lust was powerful to witness, and when Sarah returned to him in the end - finally accepting a love she never dreamed she deserved -  it moved me to tears.

This movie was like watching the destruction of every fear I’ve ever had about a man not loving me because of my past. But even so, I can’t pretend there aren’t parts I wished I hadn’t seen.

You didn’t have to show sexual acts to completion, knowing that a vast amount of your target audience are people trying to be free from pornography and sexual compulsions. You didn’t have to show violent acts of aggression. You didn’t have to ask those little, seven-year-old girls to scream for help. You didn’t have to put those actors, especially the ones under the age of 14, in situations of immersive trauma. 

But you did anyway, and these scenes ruined every transformative, good, and healing aspect of this film.

I wish so much that I would’ve been in the writer’s room when these decisions were being made. I wish I could’ve told you how harmful your choices were to a message that so many women need to hear. I wish I could’ve stopped you from making this project reflective of the world when it so desperately desired to be of the Kingdom. 

But I couldn’t, and that breaks my heart. 

Sincerely,

A Sister of Sarah

*If you’re looking for true, redemptive messaging about hope following abuse or lust-filled relationships, please do not seek it in this movie. Instead, I recommend you go straight to the Book of Hosea, on which this story is based. Cling to scripture, and know that you are so loved.