Category Archives: Worship Style

African Religions: Zulu Zion

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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 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.

Taoism: A Question of Balance

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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: In our search for Chinese religious experience, we go to Taiwan. A whole pantheon of gods both local and imported from the mainland are worshipped in thousands of Buddhist and Taoist temples. Several strands make up the religious life of the village: a Confucian respect for past and the ancestors, the cosmic pattern of the Tao that permeates all levels of existence and manifests itself through oracles, the local gods who dispense justice and favors, and the hungry ghosts of the dead who have to be placated.

My Town–Mio Paese

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Film Info:  “My Town – Mio Paese” (1989) – 26 minutes

Distributor:  ??????????

Summary:   Religion and ethnic identity among Massachusetts immigrants from Palermiti, Italy; focuses on the celebration of the patron saint’s feast day.

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 Performed Word

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Film Info: “The Performed Word” (1982) – Center for Southern Folklore (Memphis) – 58 minutes

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

Summary:   Black religious styles in their cultural context –especially sermon, music, and preaching 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

Two Black Churches

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Film Info: “Two Black Churches” (n.d.) – Center for Southern Folklore (Memphis) – 21 minutes

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

Summary:  Images of black religious expression in two very different churches: one in rural Mississippi, the other in urban New Haven, Connecticut.  Includes inspired preaching, faith healing, glossolalia, ecstatic dance.

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

Separate Realities

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Film Info: “Separate Realities” (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: Suzie Anderson attends St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Lock Haven, PA. Glenn Stover attends First Baptist, just across a 25-foot alleyway. But their religious beliefs and practices are separated by a far greater distance. Suzie is a “seeker”; she is exploring her religious commitment, asking questions, questioning the answers. Glenn is “born again.” There are no questions in his settled and serene religious faith. This film develops the religious viewpoints of two very different–but strongly committed–individuals and offers the opportunity to compare these two variations on the ages-old question of “proper” religious behavior.