Reel faith

Christian Century, March 22, 2003 by John Dart

ON THE FIVE Saturday nights before the 2003 Academy Awards show on March 23, a young adult group at a large church in Pasadena, California, has been discussing the five Oscar nominees for best picture. "What do Hollywood's best films have to say about our culture, our values and ourselves?" was the question inviting churchgoers to the series at Lake Avenue Church, aligned with the Conservative Congregational Christian churches.

Not far away, on a pre-Lenten Friday, liberal All Saints Episcopal Church screened Antwone Fisher, followed by a conversation between Rector Ed Bacon and the real Antwone Fisher. The next day included a film-clip -enhanced look at "movies and meaning," and the Sunday morning program featured a forum with a Los Angeles Times film critic.

Okay, they go ga-ga in La-la-land around Oscar time. And many churches in southern California include members of the entertainment industry.

But in churches throughout the U.S. the riveting art form of the motion picture is being spliced into liturgies or used to illuminate morality and biblical verities. And there are more and more resources to help churches make use of film clips in worship and in teaching.

"We tend to watch films mostly for entertainment, which is fine," says David Rhoads, professor of New Testament at Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. "But good filmmaking also takes a slice of life and eliminates all irrelevancies, allowing us to focus on some conflict or situation that may illuminate or critique a biblical theme."

He added that he and his wife identified with two different characters in the Oscar-nominated film The Hours. "While the film is not about God at all, she experienced the grace of God wrapped up in a wonderful, tearful release," he said. "I was able to identify with a different character and find myself able to think about choices that I can make, whereas [before seeing the movie] I had been feeling stuck."

Rhoads has teamed with colleagues to teach a film-and-faith course four times in the past 10 years, once with Robert Jewett, author of St. Paul Goes to the Movies. The literature on theology and movies is extensive, including books by Margaret R. Miles, dean of the Graduate Theological Union, in Berkeley, California, and Bernard Brandon Scott of Phillips Theological Seminary in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

At Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, the class "Reel Spirituality" is the first to fill up. The course is taught by Robert Johnston, a professor who authored a textbook with the same title, and screenwriter Craig Detweiler.

At a clergy retreat last fall for the Episcopal Diocese of San Diego, Detweiler suggested that movie images be woven into the liturgy. He cited Signs, in which Mel Gibson plays an Episcopal priest who has lost his wife and his faith. A suspense thriller "that ends in a surprising, faith-affirming manner," Signs has "a six-minute scene about faith and doubt--where God is when bad things happen--that could be used by any congregation," he said.

"Craig was fabulous at getting people to think about the possibilities of using video," said Shannon Jenny Vervynck, a priest in the diocese. "I can't say I know of parishes putting together something yet, but his talk was important for people, to [help them] think about the church not fighting the culture but engaging it [from its own perspective]," she said.

In Lockport, Illinois, pastor and confessed movie buff Kelly Fryer employs Hollywood movie clips in services at the Cross of Glory Lutheran Church, where attendance averages nearly 300 adults. The church, which emphasizes outreach, has a big screen in the sanctuary that is used not only to display words to hymns but also movie scenes to introduce a liturgical segment or illustrate a sermon point, she said.

"One of my favorite clips is from Sixth Sense in which a young boy sees dead people all around who do not know they are dead," said Fryer. "Though he is afraid, he discovers his job is to help them." The pastor said she sees an analogy to the way "Jesus sees us walking around--some of us dead to life, empty despite material wealth, or some desparately poor and hurt--all needing help and healing."

People in her congregation, part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, are mostly 25 to 50 years old, and 70 percent were not raised Lutheran. Fryer herself selects the film clips used in the service about two Sundays a month. "We don't want to do it too often--it would get old," Fryer said. When people hear about her use of movies in church, she rarely gets a disparaging or indifferent response. "Most questions are: `How?'"

Woodland Hills (California) United Methodist Church uses a 45-inch television set for a monthly Saturday night showing and discussion--large enough for a dozen participants. "We got some flak for showing Pleasantville," said Pastor Tom Griffith, who prepares viewers in advance for potentially upsetting sequences.

Pastor Kay Barre, 32, at St. Paul's United Methodist in Encino, California, hopes to begin a multi-media "alternate service" like one she did at a previous pastoral assignment. A movie scene can serve as a sermon illustration or as a backdrop for a scripture reading. "Some call this `worshiptainment,'" Barre said, "but this is the visual language that the younger generation speaks. For the survival of the church, we need to speak the vernacular."