Category Archives: Religion and …

Battle for the Bible

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Film Info:  Battle for the Bible – PBS “God and Politics” series (1987) – 60 minutes.

Distributor ??????????

Summary:  Illustrates a contemporary conflict between Christians who want to enforce a conservative orthodoxy in their denominations versus others who want to maintain their denomination’s tradition of freedom of conscience for individual believers.  Focused on the Southern Baptist Convention.

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

The Bible Belt: Politics of the Second Coming

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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

Flight of the Dove

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Film Info: Flight of the Dove – (1989) – 29 minutes

Distributor: ?????????? (Formerly available from University of California Media, but that source is no longer available.)

Summary:  Religion and ethnic identity among Portuguese-Americans in rural southern California.

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

Holy Terror

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Film Info: Holy Terror – CGuild (1986) – 58 minutes

Distributor:  ??????????

Summary:  Portrays the religious legitimation of the New Right (esp anti-abortion) activism of the 1980s.

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

The Hutterites

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Film Info:  The Hutterites – National Film Board of Canada (1964) – 28 minutes B/W

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

Summary:  Documentary (without shooting restrictions) of life in a Hutterite colony in Western Canada.  [See also the color documentary Hutterites, from the Canadian Broadcasting Company (1984), 59 minutes.]

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

The Journey: From Faith to Action in Brazil

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Film Info: “ The Journey: From Faith to Action in Brazil”  — (1984) – 29 minutes

Distributor:  Icarus Films

Summary: Shows the action of Base Ecclesial Communities in a poor neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro and includes interviews with the bishops of the area, as well as pastoral agents and residents.

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

Keeping the Faith

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

Distributor:  PBS

Summary: Depicts two black churches in Chicago, 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.

The larger congregation — Trinity United Church of Christ — is pastored by Jeremiah Wright, the man whom President Barrack Obama said brought him to Christ.  The film was shot nearly 20 years before the controversy over Wright’s political remarks before the 2008 election.  One gets a very good sense of Wright’s drive, his charisma, and his solid theological grounding.  It seems clear to me (JS) that the whole ‘controversy’ was a political hatchet job designed to turn White voters against Obama’s candidacy.

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

Hinduism: 330 Million Gods

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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: Traces the Indian religious experience in two highly contrasting locations: the bustling city of Benares where millions come to bathe in the holy waters of the Ganges, and the small village of Bhith Bhagwanpur, unvisited except by professional story tellers and itinerant priests. The film concentrates its attention on the Hindu approach to God. But which God? For there are 330 million of them.

Orthodox Christianity: The Rumanian Solution

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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 Orthodox churches in Eastern Europe seem to be bound to the Communist states in essentially loveless marriages, except in Rumania. The Rumanian Orthodox Church is still seen as an important aspect of Rumania’s cultural heritage and ethnic identity. The Orthodox liturgy is one of the oldest and longest in Christendom, and the spirituality of the services intensified by the Byzantine splendor of the setting and the beauty of some of the most inspiring choral music to be heard in any church in the world.

Judaism: The Chosen People

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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: What is it that makes a Jew a Jew? In New York, Elie Wiesel, author and survivor of the concentration camps, tries to define it. In London, Nobert Brainin and the Amadeus Quartet carry the argument further, both in words and music. Inevitably the search takes us to Jerusalem, where Dr. Pinchas Peli, tenth generation rabbi and fourth generation Jerusalemite, explains the meaning of prayer and acts as our guide through the religious schools, the synagogues and a museum for the survivors of the Holocaust. We also see Western (Wailing) Wall, a place of prayer and pilgrimage sacred to the Jewish people.