TITLE: Film: True and True-ish AUTHOR: Joe Johnson DATE: 2:45:00 PM ----- BODY:
While developing the Watching Theology podcast, I expected to be a bigger defender of using the arts to think through theology. Although that is partly the case, I've found a few problems with the approach.

As a person who spends a disproportionate amount of time with movies, I'm at odds with the medium. On one hand, film offers the culmination of a number of art forms - writing, visual and music. It tells stories in ways that were completely impossible only a century ago. Since my generation is addicted to stories, film plays into an insatiable appetite. They are convenient ways to satisfy blunt attention spans while making me believe I've learned something.

Film, like other visual arts, is about shades and moods - not precision. We can flock to a movie portrait of William Wallace (Braveheart) or the Persian/Spartan war (300) and come away with a hint of some truth. We cannot, however, trust that hint. It isn't something we can defend as fact. Even in Carl Dreyer's landmark The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), which says that all dialogue is taken from court transcripts, the viewer understands that the film interprets. It does not record.

Some of my favorite films are biographies: A Man Called Peter (Peter Marshall), Luther and the aforementioned Passion of Joan. But, even in the most faithful telling, I know I'm getting an interpretation - an idea of an artist's concept of a person. There's nothing more unnerving than hearing actual tapes of C.S. Lewis's voice, disappointed that he wasn't a bit more like Anthony Hopkins (Shadowlands).

As unlimited as the films are in the ability to depict people and places, they are constantly confined to a certain language and palette. Like other stories, they can convey truthfulness, but have limits on truth. Films can be real, capturing an indescribable angst or impulse, but they have difficulty with details - with precise technical language.

Several theologies of the late twentieth century have capitalized on the power of the arts, but have forgotten limitations. As we speak about getting truth from a film or song, we tend to forget that the truthfulness isn't very detailed. Worship music conveys the idea of emotional interaction with the Divine, but it rarely goes beyond mood.

My fear of films comes from their power, especially after Gibson's The Passion of the Christ (2004) created a frenzy of hyperbole and adoration. There were stories about encountering Jesus in a personal and real way "that had never happened before." People were coming away from the film believing they knew more about Jesus and the heart of Christianity. In truth, they knew more about Mel Gibson. Was there truth in the art? Of course. But that truth was limited. In some points, it was anti-factual.

Christianity remains a religion of the word. It is doctrinal and even has this strange devotion to preaching - through speaking texts and propositional statements. At some level, this seems like an outdated idea, but perhaps it's always been that way. St. Paul refers to preaching as "foolishness", so maybe the people of his day were no less enticed by poetry, music and plays than we are by The Matrix.

But Christianity's dependence upon written texts is undeniable. Art has always been supplemental to Christianity; it has never had authority. As such, the new dependence upon the arts, even for teaching, is tangential. When it takes the front position - as it did in much of Europe a few centuries ago - it disorients and obscures. It's an assistant, but not a reliable guide.

Like it or not, Christianity is bound to things like theology, doctrine, creeds and confessions. The movies - even the really good ones - can bring us someplace, maybe even to a place that feels more real than any biblical story. But they are ultimately missing the ability to comfort that comes from exact words - promises. The texts let us know, while the arts can make us feel. Of course, feelings can be a good thing - if they're based on truth. Otherwise, they're just drugs.

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