Reel Spirituality: Theology and Film in Dialogue

PRAISE: What I enjoy most about this book is its attention to good interpretation, and an interface between theology and spirituality. Balanced appeal to critical and aesthetic reflection. SUMMERY: Robert Johnston argues for the positive attitude of the Christian towards film, particularly in virtue of its unique quality as an art form but also as a medium of cultural connectedness. In the first chapter, Johnston introduces the subject by recognizing film's place in contemporary culture highlighting its relevance, but also recognizing that, while many may see film as mere entertainment, it has the potential for transformative value. As examples he tells how the movie Schindler's List allowed a security guard of a Swiss bank to recognize, understand, and reveal documentation of property stolen from Jews during World War II; of how the Disney movie Beauty and the Beast helped a young girl grieve her mothers death, and how the movie Becket brought Johnston himself perspective and inspired him to go in ministry. The second chapter illustrates a brief history of the relationship between film and the church. It highlights the religious usefulness of film from its beginning at the turn of the century, through the controversial use of the illicit and the continuing confrontation with the church. This chapter continues to the evolution of the rating system (originating within the Catholic church), and the challenge behind identifying tasteful art. Chapter three is an overview of theological approaches to film. It begins with avoidance, the now unpopular view that sees film (at least some of it) as corrupted and having damaging effects. The second approach is caution, the careful encounter with movies "from a clearly defined ethical and religious stance."(45) The third approach, what Johnston calls dialogical, is first recognized, differing from the previous two, by the willingness to view the movie on its own terms and "let the images themselves suggest meaning and direction."(49) Appropriation is the move of allowing movies to add to one's perspective of human reality and only then move on to a fuller theology, and finally divine encounter recognizes film's sacramental power in its artistic expression. In chapter four, Johnston gives five reason's for a Christian's engagement with movies. The first is that recognition of God's common grace that present throughout human future. The second is that theology should acknowledge the Spirits work in the world, that "If the Spirit is active in and through the human spirit, then the potential for the sacred is present across human endeavors."(69) Third, that Christians ought to hear God's voice within and among non-Christians, just as God used the Assyrians to speak to Israel. Fourthly, God communicates through image as well as word, though many may see image as idolatrous and also hold reverence to the rationality of word. Fifthly, theology's narrative shape makes

I enjoyed this book. I was glad it wasn't too academic or too technical since I am not an expert on film making or movie criticism. There was good historical information and many examples from a variety of films to help illustrate the author's point of view. I agree Christians need to become more critical consumers of film. Since 95% of people see at least one film per year, it shows that there is tremendous potential for spiritual dialog with friends and family by talking about film. I plan to think through some of the concepts in the "Theological Approaches to Film Criticism" and "Becoming a Film Critic" chapters as I continue to grow in my understanding of film making.

Rob has a wonderful grasp of the topic of putting Theology and Film into dialogue with each other. I encourage you to read this book if you have any faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. God is in the world and we are missing out of Him if our eyes are not fully open. Please open your eyes to a God that is bigger than everything the eye can see.

This volume by Fuller Seminary professor Robert K. Johnston is a readable introduction to film criticism from a thoroughly Christian perspective. Johnston is evangelical in outlook, and yet does not sacrifice his love for cinema to a fearful, fundamentalistic disdain for human culture. Rather, from the outset, he affirms the Christian truth that God's grace is to be found everywhere (what theologians have called 'common grace') and that cinema can be an occasion for a 'revelatory event'. Just as all life is 'sacramental' (that is, every aspect of the world has the potential to show us God), so the movies can help us to transcend to a deeper understanding of God and humanity.Johnston rightly affirms that a film must first be approached on its own terms (as opposed to viewing it through the lens of a preconceived agenda). Once the audience has participated in the world of the film, then is the appropriate moment to begin the dialogue with theology. For this reason, Johnston's approach is to walk us through the basics of film criticism before applying that to the Christian study of film. On a few occasions, I worried that the author was taking us too far away from the book's stated intention (ie. a book about theology and film in dialogue), but Johnston always seems to be able to bring the material back round to assessing its relevance to the task of theological application.His examples are far-ranging: theologically, his sources draw from every stream of Christian tradition; his choice of films to be analyzed is eclectic. He frequently homes in on a specific film (eg. Shane, Smoke Signals, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) or set of films (eg. the films of Peter Weir) in order to illuminate and illustrate the points he makes. Overall, Johnston exhibits a healthy attitude towards film, and is a breath of fresh air in an evangelicalism that too often regards films with suspicion and a superficiality that is likely to oversimplify issues of content and theme (such as sexuality and violence).This book helped me to clarify my own method in approaching film. I have long been a lover of the cinema, and have sometimes found it hard to escape the incongruity of some aspects of this with voices from my fundamentalist past. Johnston is a man after my own heart, and seems able to encapsulate my feelings about film and how the movie experience is essential to the formation of my theology. In one chapter, Johnston addresses this role of cinema in theological method, and provides useful comparisons with various models of theological method (such as the Wesleyan quadrilateral).I can also credit this book with changing some of my views. For example, I have long had a suspicion of mainstream cinema, almost amounting to a disdain at times. Johnston showed me the fallacy of associating commercialism with artlessness, however. After all, he reasons, didn't Michelangelo paint the Sistine Chapel on commission? In a sense, my aversion to mainstream cinema (or, perhaps more

Johnston, professor of theology and culture at Fuller Theological Seminary, has put together a fine introduction to cinema through the lense of Christian faith. He notes that for the most part the cinema has displaced the church as the location where we come to wrestle with the deeper questions of meaning, God, and what it means to be human. After chronicling the sometimes testy relationship between the church and the movie industry, Johnston offers a typology of Christian approaches to cinema (basically a relabeled Niebuhr typology). The typology is both a strength and a weakness of the book. Like Niebuhr, it may well be that Johnston is allowing the typology to become little more than a way of stereotyping different approaches that he finds unsatisfactory. That said, I myself found the typology helpful.Perhaps the greatest strength of the book is the quality of the reflection that Johnston brings to the various movies he addresses. The book itself models the sort of theological reflection that should be going on in churches and seminaries. There is no knee-jerk reaction to violence or language in this book. Rather, Johnston encourages the audience to watch movies on their own terms before passing judgment on their orthodoxy. This book is a welcome and accessible introduction to the growing interaction between theology and cinema in America. I strongly recommend it as a primer for Christians interested in starting a cinema studies group in a church or seminary.