Adore Him (2026)
Directed by Donald J. Johnson
In a cinematic landscape crowded with documentaries urging audiences to reckon with their privilege, examine their biases, and compost more aggressively, "Adore Him" arrives as something of a curveball.
Consciousness Markers
The film is, by design, a sustained theological argument delivered by a parade of clergy and Catholic speakers. The lecture energy is real, though its ideological direction points firmly away from progressive social consciousness, making it a rare case of high-intensity sermonizing that scores low on every other marker.
The documentary features a geographically and ethnically diverse roster of Catholic speakers, spanning multiple continents and including figures like Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers. This diversity appears to reflect the global scope of the Catholic Church rather than any conscious casting agenda.
No LGBTQ+ themes, characters, or commentary are present. The film operates within a traditional Roman Catholic theological framework, which is, to put it gently, not the most fertile ground for this particular marker.
No feminist themes are identifiable. Women appear in the film as interview subjects and historical figures within a traditional scriptural context, with no commentary on gender dynamics or patriarchal structures.
The film makes no gestures toward racial consciousness as a social justice framework. The diverse cast reflects Catholic universalism, not a critique of systemic racism.
There is no climate content whatsoever. The film is concerned with eternity, which operates on a timescale that renders carbon footprints somewhat academic.
No anti-capitalist messaging is present. The film's critique of modern culture is spiritual rather than economic, targeting disbelief and distraction rather than late-stage capitalism.
Body positivity is entirely absent as a theme. The body's most notable appearance is in the doctrine of the Real Presence, which is a different conversation altogether.
No neurodivergence themes or representation are present. The film does not engage with this marker in any discernible way.
The film presents a traditional, orthodox Catholic reading of salvation history with no revisionist intent. If anything, it is aggressively non-revisionist, which is its entire point.
Why it received this score
In a cinematic landscape crowded with documentaries urging audiences to reckon with their privilege, examine their biases, and compost more aggressively, "Adore Him" arrives as something of a curveball. Its central demand is not that you attend a workshop or diversify your bookshelf, but that you sit quietly before a consecrated host and consider the possibility that God is present. This is, by the metrics of contemporary progressive culture, a deeply countercultural act. The film's social consciousness, such as it is, points entirely inward and upward, with no discernible interest in the horizontal axes of identity, power, and representation that animate so much modern documentary filmmaking.
The production, a spiritual sequel to the 2024 documentary "Jesus Thirsts," deploys the familiar grammar of the faith-based docudrama: reenactments in soft golden light, testimonials delivered with practiced sincerity, and a score that suggests the imminence of the transcendent. The cast of speakers is geographically diverse, spanning Chicago parishes and Viennese archives, and includes figures of varying backgrounds. This diversity is, however, in service of Catholic universalism rather than any taxonomy of lived experience. The film's agenda is evangelical in the oldest sense of the word, which is to say it predates the current usage by approximately two millennia.
Scored against our ten markers of contemporary progressive sensibility, "Adore Him" achieves something close to a perfect inversion. It lectures, certainly, but the lecture concerns transubstantiation rather than systemic injustice. It features diverse voices, but their diversity is incidental to the argument, not the argument itself. It is, in the taxonomy of our rubric, nearly pristine. We note this not as praise or condemnation, but as a matter of classification. The sommelier does not judge the wine for failing to be a cheese.
Analysis generated by our Consciousness Algorithm
Synopsis
Through cinematic reenactments that span salvation history and intimate modern-day interviews from around the world, this film explores the transforming power of meeting the Creator of the Universe face to face. From encountering the Ark of the Covenant as it traveled across the wilderness to bumping into Jesus as he taught in the marketplace, this story builds to a culmination in the Eucharist, and today millions are finding out how much God truly loves them as they adore Him in the Blessed Sacrament. He is here. Will you come?