Category Archives: Worship Style

Welcome to Clinton County

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Film Info: “Welcome to Clinton County” (1979) – Part of the”Profiles of Rural Religion” series produced by P.J. O’Connell for the Rural Documentary Project and Penn State Broadcasting – 58 minutes

Distributor:   Pennsylvania State University Media Sales DVD – $25

Summary: An introduction to the religious makeup of Clinton County, PA. From the ethnic Catholics of Renovo, through the fundamentalist Baptists of North Bend and the struggling Jews of Lock Haven, to the consolidated Lutherans of Nittany and Sugar Valleys, this is a survey of religious conditions and outlooks in this rural county. The film also serves to set the scene for the remaining films in the “Profiles of Rural Religion” series.

Go and I’ll be with You

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Film Info: “Go and I’ll be with You” (1979) – Part of the”Profiles of Rural Religion” series produced by P.J. O’Connell for the Rural Documentary Project and Penn State Broadcasting – 58 minutes

Distributor:   Pennsylvania State University Media Sales DVD – $25

Summary: At 33, Paul Wonders was a successful dairy farmer, with a wife, six children, and a farm that had been in his family for four generations. He “got saved” at an evangelistic meeting in 1948, sold the farm, became an itinerant tent preacher and later an ordained minister. Today, he is pastor of the Gospel Tabernacle Assembly of God in Hammersley Fork, an unincorporated crossroads community in the most sparsely populated corner of Clinton County, PA. The Wonders have built a new church building; they hold four exuberant services a week for their congregation of less than 100. They and their church are flourishing. This is an exploration of a minister and his wife–co-ministers–and the joyous brand of evangelism they conduct in their lives and in their church

Three Who Care

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Film Info: “Three Who Care” (1979) – Part of the”Profiles of Rural Religion” series produced by P.J. O’Connell for the Rural Documentary Project and Penn State Broadcasting – 58 minutes

Distributor:   Pennsylvania State University Media Sales DVD – $25

Summary: Religious involvement can be casual; in these three cases, it is not. Sue Jensen is a seminary intern, encountering the Salona Lutheran Church. Sue is suburban-raised, Princeton-educated, and a woman serving as pastor of a small, rural congregation. She is, to say the least, in contrast to her congregation’s expectations. Connie Richardson is a rural activist in the Gospel Tabernacle Assembly of God. She sings; she plays the organ; she teaches Sunday school; she is a missionary to her neighbors. And Connie believes: in the biblical “gifts”, in prayer, in healing, in her power to perform miracles “in the name of the Lord.” Celeste Rhodes Larsen is a nonbeliever in a strongly religious community, a former Jew in a predominantly Christian population, and a creative dance professor at a small teachers college. Her skepticism counterpoints prevailing attitudes. Rural religion is varied, intense, and decidedly alive.

Profiles on Rural Religion: Last Words

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Film Info: “Last Words” (1979) – Part of the”Profiles of Rural Religion” series produced by P.J. O’Connell for the Rural Documentary Project and Penn State Broadcasting – 58 minutes

Distributor:   Pennsylvania State University Media Sales DVD – $25

Summary: To conclude the “Profiles of Rural Religion” series, the series consultants, sociologists Don Crider and Joe Faulkner, come to the TV studio for some analysis and some dialogue with the subjects of the six documentaries. But the dialogue develops most strongly between the subjects themselves, as questions of diversity and religious choice become prominent. And the program provides a final, frontal encounter between Suzie Andresen and Glenn Stover (see “Separate Realities”). Their quite different religious views, untempered and forcefully put, illustrate the range and intensity of religious expression in Rural America.

“Enlarging the Kingdom: African Pentecostals in Italy”

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Film Info:  “Enlarging the Kingdom: African Pentecostals in Italy”  Directed by Annalisa Butticci and Andrew Esiebo  35 minutes, 2012

Distributor: Annalisa Butticci, http://www.pentecostalaesthetics.net/documentary/

Film Summary (from the website): 

Enlarging the Kingdom explores the encounter, interactions, and conflicts between Catholicism and African Pentecostalism. By putting in conversation Nigerian and Ghanaian Pastors and Catholic Priests the documentary looks at their diverse understanding of evil forces, authorized and unauthorized forms of relating to the Divine, the making of idols and icons, religious leadership and authority, women access to the pulpit and religious politics of the Italian Nation State. Enlarging the Kingdom offers a unique insight into the challenges of African Pentecostals in Italy and the role of Pentecostal Churches for African immigrant communities.

Yo Soy Hechicero // I am a Sorcerer

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Film Info: A film by Ron Stanford and Ivan Drufovka.  48 minutes.  Spanish with English subtitles.  1997/2004.

Distribution: Ron Stanford at http://www.hechicero.com

Film Summary: Juan Eduardo Nuñez is a Santaria practitioner living in suburban New Jersey.   It focuses on his work, his beliefs, and the rituals he performs for people who come to him for healing.  Here is the film website’s description:

What can an outsider ever hope to understand about “Santería,” the widespread but little known constellation of Afro-Caribbean religions and cults which are mysterious by their very nature? In an attempt to unlock the mysteries of this mixture of Christianity, Yoruba religion, and spiritism (and others as well) the producers are drawn to Juan Eduardo Núñez, a Cuban refugee who came to the US in the 1980 Mariel boatlift.

     The viewer meets Eduardo in his inner sanctum, a South Jersey backyard garden shed in a subdivision near Atlantic City: Eduardo enters numerous trances; a gunshot victim seeks treatment; Eduardo, possessed by a spirit named Miguel, tells us that he was captured as a slave in 1490; a young woman seeks romantic advice; Eduardo’s wife, a Pentecostal, tells us that her husband is an instrument of Satan.

     Yo Soy Hechicero views the subject on its own terms. It captures the intensity and confusion of the producers’ own experience as welcomed outsiders at a variety of spirit possessions, animal sacrifices, love advice, healing, ancient songs and chants, and mythic storytelling, as well as everyday events that surround the ritual. It is an unusually intimate look at a community full of tumult, not just economic and physical, but spiritual as well.

     While almost entirely in Spanish, the video is accessible to an English-speaking audience. Large, easy-to-read subtitles make often esoteric Cuban dialects comprehensible, yet the viewer is able to hear the original language throughout. It is presented entirely without “expert” narration.

Having seen the film several times, this summary captures it well. — JS

Film website at http://www.hechicero.com

“Born Again: Life in a Fundamentalist Church”

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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!

I find the shorter version more useful for the classroom, as it leaves time for a quick debriefing in an 80-minute class period. The discussion during the next class period works best if I give students study questions and ask them to relate the film to their reading.

Leave plenty of time for talk! Most students need it.  (JS)

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

Holy Ghost People

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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.)

Black Delta Religion

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Film Info: Black Delta Religion – Center for Southern Folklore, Memphis (1974) – 15 minutes, B/W

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

Summary: A brief but lively depiction of a wide range of Southern black religiosity, including ecstatic dance, singing, preaching styles, social-community context.

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

Bronx Baptism

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Film Info: Bronx Baptism – 1980 – 27 minutes

Distributor: Icarus Films

Summary: Film document, without narration, of a Pentecostal worship service in a Puerto Rican community in the South Bronx.  Fine presentation of Pentecostal worship 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