New book tackles Faith and Film

CANADA – A new academic book on faith and film features contributions from three Lutheran Church–Canada pastors.

Film, Philosophy, and Religion is a new book from Vernon Press’ Series in Philosophy of Religion. Serving as editor for the book is Rev. Dr. William (Bill) H.U. Anderson, Professor of Pop Culture and Religious Studies at Concordia University of Edmonton. “Hollywood is a $40 billion annual business, one that is highly influential in culture,” notes Dr. Anderson in his introduction. “If we want to know who we are as individuals and a society—who we are, what we believe, and what we value—we need to know and understand Hollywood and film. Make no mistake: Hollywood is neither philosophically, politically, nor morally neutral.”

“The more philosophical and analytical we are about movie watching, the more we will be able to know where they are coming from and how to combat any bad ideas with which they might be trying to indoctrinate us,” Dr. Anderson continues. “That can be just as much fun as watching the movie itself!”

In addition to editing the book, Dr. Anderson contributes an essay entitled “King David as a Biblical ‘Goodfella’ and ‘The Godfather’: Cultural-Social Analogies with Monarchy and La Cosa Nostra.” The essay compares the biblical stories of David with gangster films, as a way of drawing out cross-cultural analogies that help us better understand the biblical text.

“The more philosophical and analytical we are about movie watching, the more we will be able to know where they are coming from and how to combat any bad ideas with which they might be trying to indoctrinate us,” Dr. Anderson continues. “That can be just as much fun as watching the movie itself!”

Also contributing to the book is Rev. Ted Giese, pastor of Mount Olive Lutheran Church in Regina and film critic for The Canadian Lutheran and Issues Etc. Rev. Giese writes an essay entitled “A Confessional Lutheran Approach to Reading Film: Where the Metaphysical Meets the Phantasmagorical.” This chapter formulates a Lutheran hermeneutic for interpreting movies, exploring the tension between the dangers of antinomian freedom on the one hand and moral absolutism on the other.

Finally, Rev. Dr. Jonathan Strand, Professor of Philosophy at Concordia University of Edmonton, contributes an essay entitled “Aristotle at the Movies: Epistemic Virtue in Film.” This chapter suggests that virtue epistemology—the idea that it is virtuous to conform our beliefs only to what the evidence tells us is true or likely—is not always the correct course of action. Indeed, sometimes we do better to emulate our favourite film heroes and carry on in faith and hope, even when the evidence tells us the chance of success is small.

Other essays in the book tackle such subjects and films as the depiction of Jesus in twenty-first century film, Ready Player One, science and religion, the Alien movies, theologies of beauty and cinema, Disney’s Frozen, cinema in Zimbabwe and Nigeria, and various others topics.

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