July 27, 2011 by Jim Spickard.

Film Info: “Shrine under Siege” (1985) – 42 minutes

Distributor: Icarus Films

Summary:  SHRINE UNDER SIEGE describes the coalition formed by Fundamentalist U.S. Christians and militant Israeli Jews to destroy the Dome of the Rock, Islam’s third holiest shrine, and to build a new Jewish temple in its place. The documentary explores the theological background to this unusual coalition and places it within the context of the increased political power of fundamentalism in the U.S., and the rise of extremist religious parties in Israel, as demonstrated by the election of Rabbi Meir Kahane to Parliament

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, Older Films, New Christian Right, Conflict, Politics, Africa & Middle East, Islam, Judaism, Evangelical Protestants | 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 25, 2011 by Jim Spickard.

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

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

Summary:  In the 1100 churches of Indianapolis, we see bewildering multiplicity of Protestantism. Churches with the seating and styling of deluxe first-run theaters. Services conducted with the professionalism of television spectaculars. And congregations that occupy every seat at four staggered services every Sunday. All are features of the US church-going boom. We discover that religion is not in a state of apathy in America; in some quarters it is decidedly big business.

Posted in Congregations, Older Films, Worship Style, Pentecostals, Churches, Sects, Mainline Protestants, Evangelical Protestants, North America | Print | No Comments »

July 25, 2011 by Jim Spickard.

Film Info: “The Long Search” – BBC/Time/Life (1977) – a series of 13 programs, 52 minutes each

Distributor:  Ambrose Video – $99 for the entire set on DVD

Summary:  A documentary on world religions and new religions, narrated by Ronald Eyre (who is irritatingly obtrusive in several instances).  Especially useful are Orthodox Christianity – the Rumanian Solution, which is helpful for illustrating religious symbolism and ritual, the pervasiveness of religion in people’s lives, and the place of religion in one then-Communist country; and African Religion – Zulu Zion, which focuses on new religions in South Africa, emphasizing the importance of dreams, ancestors, and place.  Other useful films in the series include Protestant Spirit: USA; Catholicism; and Judaism.  The film on Alternate Lifestyles in California is disappointingly shallow.

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 Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Eastern Orthodox, New Religions, Worship Style, Older Films, Pentecostals, Islam, Christianity, Evangelical Protestants, Catholics, Mainline Protestants, 1 - World Religions, Europe, Latin America & Caribbean, Africa & Middle East, East and South Asia, North America | Print | No Comments »

July 24, 2011 by Jim Spickard.

Film Info:  “Keeping the Faith” – by Sherry Jones — PBS (Frontline series) (1987) – 58 minutes

Distributor:  PBS

Summary: Depicts black churches in a Midwestern city, with particular focus on one middle-class congregation and a secondary focus on a lower-class congregation.  Examines these congregations as sources of vitality, activism, community, and identity.

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 Social Activism, Congregations, Older Films, Ethnic Identity, African American Religion, Christianity, Mainline Protestants, Evangelical Protestants, Churches, Sects | Print | No Comments »

July 24, 2011 by Jim Spickard.

Film Info: The Bible Belt: Politics of the Second Coming – Canadian Broadcasting Company (1972) – 90 minutes

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

Summary:  Examines the rise of fundamentalist Protestant sects in Western Canada during the 1920s and 1930s and their impact on Canadian politics then and now.

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 Older Films, New Christian Right, Politics, Evangelical Protestants, Sects, North America | Print | No Comments »

January 30, 2008 by Jim Spickard.

Film Title: God’s Angry Man — by Werner Herzog (1980) — 44 minutes

Distributor: ???????

Summary: A documentary about Dr. Gene Scott, televangelist, who used ranting anger to raise money on his nightly Festival of Faith. Tom Sutpen, in a review posted at Bright Lights Film Journal, writes:

A good deal of Herzog’s film is taken up with scenes of Scott live on the air, angrily rifling through pledges from viewers that were just called in — none of which are ever less than three figures — eventually flying into a hardcore Old Testament fury at the foul stinginess of the apostate public when he sees they haven’t coughed up that extra thousand he told them he needed. … In other hands, scenes like these would be used to advance the ever-fashionable cliché of television evangelists as mammon-obsessed charlatans…, but Herzog’s portrait of Dr. Gene Scott isn’t concerned with exposing hypocrisy … . God’s Angry Man is neither an exposé nor a malediction, and Scott is never branded a crackpot…. And for all his volcanic on-air bluster, he reveals a great deal of genuine vulnerability when he’s interviewed by Herzog.

Read the whole review here.

Posted in Televangelism, Evangelism, Evangelical Protestants, North America | Print | No Comments »

January 28, 2008 by Jim Spickard.

Film Title: Holy Ghost People, by Peter Adair (1967) — 57 minutes

Distributor: Available from GPod

Summary: Holy Ghost People describes the beliefs and practices of a snake-handling Pentecostal church and shows candid shots of the congregation during a service, including snake handling and glossolalia. In a dramatic ending, the leader is bitten by a rattlesnake.

For a longer review, see the above GPod link, which has posted most of a review by Gary Morris from: Bright Lights Film Journal.  (Click here, then scroll down the page to find the full review.)

Posted in Congregations, Older Films, Pentecostals, Christianity, Sects, Evangelical Protestants, North America | Print | No Comments »

April 13, 2007 by Jim Spickard.

Film Title: “Fall From Grace” — by K. Ryan Jones — 2007 — 71 minutes
Distributor: www.fallfromgracemovie.net

Summary: (from the producers)

“God hates fags,” “You’re going to Hell,” “Thank God for 9/11,” “Thank God for dead soldiers.” Even in the darkness, the picket signs glow, not simply because of their neon hues, but because of the incandescent hate with which they are branded.

This shocking rhetoric flows from the Reverend Fred Phelps and his followers at the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas - smack in the center of America’s heartland. Whether it’s on their toxic website www.godhatesfags.com or at one of the 22,000 demonstrations they’ve staged over the last fifteen years, the Church is focused on one key message: America is doomed because, for too long, it has tolerated homosexuality and allowed it to thrive. Church members picket daily in the city of Topeka and often travel abroad. Most recently, Pastor Phelps and his followers have targeted military funerals for soldiers killed in the war in Iraq as a venue to preach God’s wrath against a nation that has apparently been “taken over by the fags.”

Directed by first-time filmmaker K. Ryan Jones - currently a senior at the University of Kansas - Fall From Grace is the first in-depth documentary feature film to focus on Pastor Phelps and his hate group, and features unprecedented access, interviews with Pastor Phelps and other members of the Westboro Baptist Church. Fall From Grace also includes interviews with the myriad of dissenters: Topeka leaders and officials, ministers, theologians, and two of Pastor Phelps’s adult children who have chosen to leave the church and their family.

Westboro Baptist Church is led by Pastor Fred Phelps, a lawyer who was disbarred in the mid-90s for witness intimidation, who started the church fifty years ago. It is a small group, comprised mostly of members of the Phelps family, but their hatred is prolific. They demonstrate anywhere they feel that their message is applicable, like the funeral of Matthew Shepard, a Wyoming student who was killed for being gay and most recently, at the funerals of military servicemen and women killed in Iraq.

Fall From Grace takes the viewer inside this surreal world with rare interviews and footage of several pickets and church services. The film focuses on a group that represents a variety of contemporary American issues, including intolerance of homosexuality, the right to freedom of speech, separation of church and state, and the War in Iraq.

Posted in Conflict, Gender, Evangelism, Congregations, Gays/Lesbians, Family, Social Activism, Sects, Evangelical Protestants, Christianity, Politics, North America | Print | No Comments »

March 30, 2007 by Jim Spickard.

Film Title: “Born Again: Life in a Fundamentalist Church” — by James Ault and Michael Camerini — 1987 — 2 versions: 87 minutes and 58 minutes
Distributor: James Ault Productions — www.jamesault.com
Summary:

An engrossing and detailed look at a small Fundamentalist congregation in Massachusetts in the mid- 1980s. It follows several families, detailing their views of their religion and of the world. It provides an insider’s view without varnishing away negative details. First rate!

Keywords: Fundamentalism, worldview, conversion, family life, sects

Posted in Conversion, Congregations, Older Films, Family, Christianity, Sects, Evangelical Protestants, North America | Print | 1 Comment »