Reel Spirituality: Theology and Film in Dialogue (Engaging Culture) (Paperback)

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Product Description

The motion picture is an art form that has significantly influenced human culture. Films can shape our perceptions-from relationships and careers to good and evil. They are often a window into the human soul, a glimpse that can be both terrifying and holy.

In view of the increasingly powerful role that movies play in our cultural dialogue, Robert K. Johnston, professor of theology and culture at Fuller Theological Seminary, has written a book to guide Christian moviegoers into a theological analysis of and conversation with film. Reel Spirituality: Theology and Film in Dialogue is the first title in the new Baker Academic series Engaging Culture.

Intended for use in the college and seminary classroom, Reel Spirituality helps Christians interpret movies through the eyes of faith. It provides the theological underpinnings for this art form and fosters both dialogue and discipleship.

Among the more than 200 movies Johnston cites are American Beauty, The Apostle, The English Patient, The Godfather, Life Is Beautiful, The Sound of Music, To Kill a Mockingbird, and The Truman Show.

The Engaging Culture series is designed to help Christians respond to our contemporary culture. Each volume will seek to explore particular cultural expressions with regards to God's presence in the world today and help readers become better involved in sympathetic dialogue and active discipleship.

From the Back Cover

"Robert Johnston has written the most comprehensive survey currently available on theology and film. . . . A must-read book for anyone interested in the rapidly expanding field of exploring the theological dimensions of contemporary film." -Robert Jewett, professor emeritus, Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary

"Reel Spirituality will not only help us develop a Christian wisdom about film; in turn, it will make us ask searching questions about the Christian faith and the way we express it. Throughout, the book is accessible and engaging. I commend it most warmly." -Jeremy Begbie, director, Theology through the Arts, University of Cambridge

"Reel Spirituality is a perceptive and provocative survey of why and how Christians . . . should take film seriously as a cultural force and as a vehicle for understanding how God keeps showing up in life-and in the movies." -Roy M. Anker, professor of English, Calvin College

"As a filmmaker, I am sometimes too close to my own movies and the process to step back and see the perspective of a movie's impact in our culture. That is what Rob does so insightfully. He is accurately describing the intersection of culture and Christianity-a vital issue not all Christians have embraced yet." -Ralph Winter, producer of Star Trek IV-VI and X-Men

"A lively and provocative dialogue that bridges the worlds of Christian truth and visual images. . . . Johnston guides his readers in seeing and understanding film from spiritual perspectives." -Terry Lindvall, professor of film, Regent University

"At various points in my life movies have been an evil to avoid, an entertainment to enjoy, a source of instruction to learn from. Rob Johnston's fine book now helps me understand why now movies allow me to see God at work in our world . . . and makes me long to see ever more clearly and deeply." -Leighton Ford, president, Leighton Ford Ministries

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Baker Academic (December 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 080102241X
• ISBN-13: 978-0801022418
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #381,597 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

38 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Evangelical theologian recognizes a wideness in God's grace, July 10, 2002

By	www.DavidLRattigan.com (United Kingdom) - See all my reviews

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 accurately, the mainstream of the mainstream) was a kind of misconceived snobbery. Johnston's appreciation of film from every corner of the film industry helped me to see my own short-sightedness in this regard.

This is a book I would recommend not just for film-lovers, but for theologians whose knowledge of film may not be particularly wide, but are willing to let the pursuit of the knowledge of God lead them into dialogue with other possible sources of inspiration, namely, the cinema. Johnston presents an accessible overview of film criticism and, in doing so, demonstrates how films can be, in a broad, but real way, means of grace for a Christian wanting to let the knowledge of Christ invade his experience of his culture.

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Church, Seminary, and Cinema in conversation., April 17, 2001

By	Victor McCracken (Atlanta, GA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A handbook on film criticism from a theological perspective, May 18, 2001

By	Tom Hinkle (Tulsa, OK USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Despite the rather "punnish" title of the book, this is a thoroughly academic work, and as such it is not what one would call easy reading. Yet, it is enlightening for all who would take time to grasp the concepts presented here. The author advocates first attempting to understand what a movie is trying to convey on its own terms and then reflect upon it theologically. Basic concepts of film criticism are covered, as well as different theological approaches one may take to evaluting films. A good book for those who want to look at movies at a deeper, less superficial level.