Flight of the Dove

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

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

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

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

The Long Search

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

Protestant Spirit: USA

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.

Catholicism: Rome, Leeds, and the Desert

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: Catholicism, especially since Vatican II, has undergone many changes. In this episode filmed in Rome, Spain and England, we discover the diversity and the unity of the religious experience labeled the Holy Catholic Church.

Orthodox Christianity: The Rumanian Solution

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.

African Religions: Zulu Zion

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.