Film theorists help Christians follow the plot
 |  |
| |
| |
Connecting faith to life is becoming increasingly
important as society moves away from traditional forms of communication. How is
the church to speak to a generation weaned on computers, iPods, Playstation 2,
DVD and video phones?
Authors Robert Johnston and Catherine
Barsott believe that, as "church" is becoming increasingly irrelevant
in society, it is of paramount importance to use popular culture to speak to the
lives of younger people and to teach older people how to begin that dialogue.
For over a decade they have encouraged Christians to engage with culture
or else become extinct. Their passion is to communicate the gospel through the
filter of film.
Robert's book Reel Spirituality: Faith and Film
in Dialogue is one of the foremost texts on how faith can dialogue with film.
In the early '90s, at Fuller Theological Seminary in Southern California,
they gathered a number of professionals in Hollywood who met once a month for
discussion. They discovered that pastors who told stories through their sermons
and filmmakers who told stories were perhaps the two primary storytellers in society.
Robert and Catherine have since helped stage a film festival known as "The
City of the Angels", which this year celebrates its tenth anniversary.
They also formed The Reel Spirituality Institute to meet the need for theological
and educational discourse on popular culture. Its courses are consistently in
high demand.
Insights talked with Robert and Catherine about
their new books - Finding God in the Movies and Useless Beauty -
when they visited Sydney in August to speak at a number of universities and colleges
(including United Theological College).
|
"The
first chapter of Finding God in the Movies gives readers the theological
basis for why we use culture as a resource. The rest of the book is 33 short chapters
and 33 movies that we hope will give enough resources to minister to youth workers,
small group leaders and pastors. We hope if someone has seen the movie, they can
be helped to zero in on the centre of the movie and to be given some ideas about
how they might craft or tailor a discussion, or even dialogue with a film in a
sermon.""In the history
of the church there has really been very little thought about how the spirit of
God is working outside the church," said Robert. "All of us recognise
that this is God's world and therefore He is working both inside and outside the
church.
"In one of our first conferences, we had Brother Gregory
Elmer who was a monk and who specialises in using film in spiritual formation
and we brought him together with Tom Shadyack - the director of Ace Ventura, Liar
Liar, Patch Adams and Bruce Almighty - and they talked about how they created.
What was interesting was that the monk and Tom had very similar ideas and approaches.
"Since then we've had conferences on the move from word to image,
how that affects both the church and Hollywood, when dialogue becomes less important.
This year's conference will be on the use of music as a purveyor of the transcendent."
The Reel Spirituality Institute gathers Christians working in filmmaking.
They share the philosophy that they can speak back into the entertainment industry
with integrity and honour Christ by being excellent at their craft.
"One
of the reasons the institute started was to be responsible stewards of the opportunities
that God had put before us," Robert said. "We should be engaging the
world in which we live, and the world in which we live in Southern California
is the entertainment industry."
Robert and Catherine have their
critics, particularly those who believe they put too much emphasis on entertainment
and culture.
Some students expect to be watching The Lion, the Witch
and the Wardrobe and question seeing films like Magnolia. They ask,
"Shouldn't we protect ourselves from this?"
Catherine said,
"Our approach, with the books and our courses, is to be pragmatic. We are
about the work of the gospel and Jesus Christ."
"From my
perspective," said Robert, "what is key in scripture is the Christian
story and that the story can be told with print, it can be told orally and it
can be told visually.
|
"Useless
Beauty is about looking at the book of Ecclesiastes through the eyes of contemporary
film. If there's a conversation that needs to go on between scripture and culture,
is it possible that we can move from "general revelation" to "special
revelation" rather than always the reverse? Could postmodern movies that
assume life's messiness and yet life's preciousness be the "eye glasses",
in Calvinist terms, that allow us to go back and read Ecclesiastes with new insight
and understanding? Having done that, would Ecclesiastes in turn be "eye glasses"
that would further break open a particular movie?"There's nothing radical in thinking that in
the 21st century we would be moving to alternate ways of engaging our story with
God's story. It's always threatening when we're in a time of transition, but the
notion of engaging our culture with the gospel is as old as the gospel itself.
"Students and faculty will report that scripture is taught well and
the mission of the church is taught well, but the 'general revelation' is not
taught well … I think there is an increased awareness that if we're not connecting
the people where they are, we're in the last generation of the church."
Robert said, "The interest in film and in other forms of popular culture
as a way of connecting Christians with non-Christians is really bourgeoning. For
every critique, there are four or five light bulbs going off."
Another
important issue for Robert and Catherine is the need for parents to connect with
their children.
"Most people realise we have to be able to talk
to our kids, we have to connect with them and film is the way to do this,"
said Catherine. "It's amazing what the average 16-year-olds see, when given
some questions and structure to unpack a movie, because they are so visual. It
is just phenomenal. They know how to read images, because they have grown up with
them, their entire lives have been computers.
"Thirty-year-olds and above just don't see the same things as younger people."
Adrian Drayton is available to talk to churches about how they can use films as a way of engaging more effectively with society.