“Fall From Grace”

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.

The Journey: From Faith to Action in Brazil

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

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

Martin Luther King: A Man of Peace

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

Romero

Film Info:   “Romero” (1989) – Directed by John Duigan, starring Raul Julia – 105 minutes

Distributor: Available from Amazon (www.amazon.com)

Summary:   Feature film based on the story of Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero, 1980 victim of a political assassination.

From the review by Roger Ebert:

  • Romero was shot to death while celebrating mass. He was, at the time, not only the spiritual leader of El Salvador’s Catholics but one of the most outspoken critics of the government – a government portrayed in this film as little more than a holding company for the economic exploiters of the country. But Romero was not always a critic, and the movie follows his career from the day when he is selected as archbishop because he is considered a “safe” and “moderate” man who will not rock the boat.
  • The radicalization of Romero is shown in terms of his responses to a series of personal experiences. He counsels trust, but then he sees deception. He would like to consider the government honest, but he is lied to. He sees the evidence of murder and repression, and he cannot ignore it any longer. His conscience eventually requires him to speak out against a government that is denying basic human freedoms to its citizens.

Sanctuary

Film Info:   “Sanctuary” ( 1983) – PBS Frontline – 60 minutes

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

Summary:  Examines the 1980s Sanctuary Movement, which engaged in civil disobedience to Immigration Service regulations by giving assistance to refugees from political oppression in Central America.

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

Solidaridad: Faith, Hope, and Haven

Film Info:  “Solidaridad: Faith, Hope, and Haven” (1989) – 57 minutes

Distributor:  ??????????

Summary:   A documentary about the work of the Vicaria de la Solidaridad, a Catholic organization in Chile that has provided support for victims of human rights abuses.

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

Thank God and the Revolution

Film Info:   “Thank God and the Revolution” (1981) – 57 minutes

Distributor:  ???????????? (formerly Icarus Films, but it’s not in their current catalog)

Summary:  Outstanding illustration of many theories about the role of religion in social change in Nicaragua.  It includes Liberation Theology, base Christian communities, a brief historical background, and interviews with people from all strata of society – rural villagers to cabinet officials.  The folk hymns in the soundtrack are moving.

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