July 27, 2011 by Jim Spickard.

Film Info: “The Performed Word” (1982) – Center for Southern Folklore (Memphis) – 58 minutes

Distributor: ??????????

Summary:   Black religious styles in their cultural context –especially sermon, music, and preaching styles.

Film notice taken (with permission) from the “Teaching Resources” list in Meredith McGuire’s Religion: The Social Context, third edition. Her 5th edition (available from Waveland Press: see www.religionthesocialcontext.com) does not contain the resource list. I have only traced some of these films to current distributors. Please post updated information about them, if you have it. – JS

Posted in Worship Style, African American Religion, Christianity, North America | Print | No Comments »

July 27, 2011 by Jim Spickard.

Film Info:  “Onward Christian Soldiers” (1989) – 52 minutes

Distributor:  Formerly Icarus Films.  Currently ??????????

Summary: Portrays inroads made into traditionally Catholic Latin American communities by evangelical Protestant preaching through the mass media.

Film notice taken (with permission) from the “Teaching Resources” list in Meredith McGuire’s Religion: The Social Context, third edition. Her 5th edition (available from Waveland Press: see www.religionthesocialcontext.com) does not contain the resource list. I have only traced some of these films to current distributors. Please post updated information about them, if you have it. – JS

Posted in Missionaries, Televangelism, Older Films, Pentecostals, Evangelism, Evangelical Protestants, Latin America & Caribbean, Conversion, Catholics | Print | No Comments »

July 27, 2011 by Jim Spickard.

Film Info: “The New Klan” (1978) – Corinth Films – 58 minutes 

Distributor: ??????????

Summary:   Vivid images of the contemporary Ku Klux Klan.  Useful for discussion of symbols and rituals in a quasi-religious secret society

Film notice taken (with permission) from the “Teaching Resources” list in Meredith McGuire’s Religion: The Social Context, third edition. Her 5th edition (available from Waveland Press: see www.religionthesocialcontext.com) does not contain the resource list. I have only traced some of these films to current distributors. Please post updated information about them, if you have it. – JS

Posted in New Christian Right, Quasi-religion, Ethnic Identity, Older Films, Conflict, North America | Print | No Comments »

July 27, 2011 by Jim Spickard.

Film Info:  “My Town – Mio Paese” (1989) – 26 minutes

Distributor:  ??????????

Summary:   Religion and ethnic identity among Massachusetts immigrants from Palermiti, Italy; focuses on the celebration of the patron saint’s feast day.

Film notice taken (with permission) from the “Teaching Resources” list in Meredith McGuire’s Religion: The Social Context, third edition. Her 5th edition (available from Waveland Press: see www.religionthesocialcontext.com) does not contain the resource list. I have only traced some of these films to current distributors. Please post updated information about them, if you have it. – JS

Posted in Ethnic Identity, Feast Days, Celebrations, & Events, Worship Style, Older Films, Catholics, Christianity, North America | Print | No Comments »

July 27, 2011 by Jim Spickard.

Film Info:   Journal Films (1968) – 26 minutes

Distributor:   ???????

Summary:  Shows portions of sermons, speeches, and interviews with Martin Luther King, Jr., linking his philosophy of non-violence with Biblical themes.

Film notice taken (with permission) from the “Teaching Resources” list in Meredith McGuire’s Religion: The Social Context, third edition. Her 5th edition (available from Waveland Press: see www.religionthesocialcontext.com) does not contain the resource list. I have only traced some of these films to current distributors. Please post updated information about them, if you have it. – JS

Posted in War/Pacifism, Social Activism, African American Religion, Christianity, North America | Print | No Comments »

July 27, 2011 by Jim Spickard.

Film Info: WGBH TV “Religion in America” series, 1974 – 28 minutes

Distributor: ???????????

Summary:  Brief documentary about Brooklyn’s Hassidic Jews.

Film notice taken (with permission) from the “Teaching Resources” list in Meredith McGuire’s Religion: The Social Context, third edition. Her 5th edition (available from Waveland Press: see www.religionthesocialcontext.com) does not contain the resource list. I have only traced some of these films to current distributors. Please post updated information about them, if you have it. – JS

Posted in Ethnic Identity, Judaism, Sects, North America | Print | No Comments »

July 27, 2011 by Jim Spickard.

Film Info: Part of “The Long Search”, a 1977 BBC series hosted by Ronald Eyre – 52 minutes

Distributor: Ambrose Videos has the entire series on DVD for $99

Summary: In this episode Ronald Eyre asks himself some questions. It is not a film in which he hands out diplomas to believers of the religion that pleased him best. The search, for him, began long before this series got off the ground and will continue long into the future. There are no winners and no losers. There is an element of personal stocktaking, however, and before doing so, Eyre reveals his own background, the mental furniture that he of necessity packs whenever he goes on search.

Posted in Older Films, 1 - World Religions | Print | No Comments »

July 27, 2011 by Jim Spickard.

Film Info: Part of “The Long Search”, a 1977 BBC series hosted by Ronald Eyre – 52 minutes

Distributor: Ambrose Videos has the entire series on DVD for $99

Summary:   The spiritual impulse of the time steps beyond the boundaries of religious tradition - so wrote Theodore Roszak, spokesman for the counter-culture, who is Ronald Eyre’s guide to the new religious concerns of people living in the San Francisco Bay area. Here religious ideas and life styles of East and West mingle and people brought up in a largely Christian cultural climate look East to Taoism and Hinduism for inspiration.

Posted in Older Films, New Religions, North America | Print | No Comments »

July 27, 2011 by Jim Spickard.

Film Info: Part of “The Long Search”, a 1977 BBC series hosted by Ronald Eyre – 52 minutes

Distributor: Ambrose Videos has the entire series on DVD for $99

Summary: In our search for Chinese religious experience, we go to Taiwan. A whole pantheon of gods both local and imported from the mainland are worshipped in thousands of Buddhist and Taoist temples. Several strands make up the religious life of the village: a Confucian respect for past and the ancestors, the cosmic pattern of the Tao that permeates all levels of existence and manifests itself through oracles, the local gods who dispense justice and favors, and the hungry ghosts of the dead who have to be placated.

Posted in Taoism, Worship Style, Older Films, East and South Asia | Print | No Comments »

July 27, 2011 by Jim Spickard.

Film Info: Part of “The Long Search”, a 1977 BBC series hosted by Ronald Eyre – 52 minutes

Distributor: Ambrose Videos has the entire series on DVD for $99

Summary: The Zulu Independent Churches in South Africa. When Christian missionaries took the Gospel to Africa they also tried to suppress African religion and subvert African culture with their own. But since World War I, and with increasing vigor in the last 20 years, Africans have been rediscovering their lost religious identity and have been forming independent churches with their own festivals, prophets and rituals and greater or lesser devotion to Christ.

Posted in Worship Style, Older Films, New Religions, Christianity, Africa & Middle East | Print | No Comments »