Animated
32 min. / 2005
Rating: 6/10

“The Torchlighters” is a series of animated films created by Voice of the Martyrs to teach children from 8-12 about the many people who have been persecuted for their love of God. The animation is consistently solid, and while the topic matter – persecution – is somber, the depictions of torture are quite age-appropriate.

This isn’t a blanket recommendation of the series. Several of the other films in the series depict Jesus talking to one of the characters (Augustine, Perpetua) which skirts uncomfortably close to the Second Commandment, and in other cases the biographical target has significant troubling aspects to their theology (the Arminian John Wesley, for example).

But the subject of The William Tyndale Story isn’t troubling. The film is highly educational, and reasonably entertaining, or to put it another way children should see this, won’t mind seeing it, but likely won’t want to watch it again and again. So this is an excellent resources for Christian schools, but not ideal for the family video library.

The strength of Tyndale is in the film’s simplicity. The vast cast of characters featured in an earlier live-action version, God’s Outlaw, is, in this animated retelling, cut down to only the half dozen most important. So now even children will be able to follow the story and learn about how Tyndale translated the Bible into English at the cost of his own life.

Watch it for free below.