When I saw a new mystery-horror film with historical relevance boasting a 7.8 on IMDb and a stunning 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, my curiosity was instantly piqued. Trapped on a long flight with nothing to do but sink into a story, I thought I’d struck gold. By all appearances, this movie promised a gripping meditation on the timeless struggle between good and evil, the kind of story that sharpens perspective and even shapes worldview. At the very least, I expected a coherent narrative to carry me through

But Sinners (2025), starring Michael B. Jordan, attempts to blur every line until nothing makes sense. The film mashes genres, shifts tones, and dabbles in half-baked moral questions without resolving a single one. With Michael B. Jordan playing two twin brothers, it presents like a confused and racially charged Parent Trap (1998). Instead of telling a story, it shrugs at the very possibility of moral clarity.

Normally, I’d chalk that up to bad writing. But in today’s cultural moment, this isn’t just sloppy art—it’s reckless. America is in the middle of a moral identity crisis. Families, schools, and even laws are tangled in debates over truth, values, and the meaning of life. In this moment, we need stories that anchor us, not ones that reflect confusion back at us with a smirk.

The problem at the heart of Sinners is the problem at the heart of our culture: moral relativism. The idea that right and wrong are just opinions, shaped by culture or personal preference. But relativism collapses under the weight of its own contradictions. If morality is relative, you can’t condemn slavery, genocide, or abuse. Not across cultures, not across history. You can’t speak of moral progress, only moral change. And when relativists say “there are no objective moral truths,” they make a claim that they expect to be taken as an objective truth. It’s fallacious.

Relativism not only poisons philosophy classrooms—it poisons art. When storytellers stop believing in right and wrong, they stop telling stories that matter. They create noise, not meaning. Sinners is a perfect example: a film with style but no soul, tension with no resolution, characters with no moral weight.

So what’s the alternative? If morality really is objective, where does it come from? The best answer humanity has ever found is God. Not an arbitrary deity who makes rules on a whim, but the God whose very nature is goodness. Justice, love, mercy…these aren’t social inventions. They are reflections of who God is. When we say something is right or wrong, we’re not describing our feelings. We’re appealing to a standard higher than any human culture.

And this is why morality matters so deeply for storytelling. Narratives are the backbone of culture. They shape how we imagine ourselves, what we aspire to, and what we condemn. A story without morality is like a building without a foundation: it might look intriguing for a moment, but it cannot stand. Every enduring story, from Homer to Shakespeare to Tolkien, is built on moral stakes. Remove morality and you remove meaning.

Sinners could have been a story about redemption, sacrifice, or justice. Instead, it chose relativism. And in doing so, it mirrored our culture’s confusion rather than offering a way through it.

Art matters. Stories matter. Morality matters. And if we want to tell stories that matter again, we need to return to the source: to God, the foundation of all beauty and goodness. Without HIM, we get only noise—in movies, and in life.