Scholarship
July 3, 2025
Film & Religion: An Introduction
- Author
- Flesher, Paul V. M. and Robert Torry
- Publisher
- Abingdon Press, Nashville, TN
- ISBN
- 9780687334896
- Table of Contents
-
Acknowledgments
Preface for Teachers
Introduction
ch. 1 Christmas Films: The Search for Meaning
...How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1967)
Section One: Ultimate Destruction and the Cold War in the 1950s
ch. 2 Religion, Science Fiction, and the Bomb
...When Worlds Collide (1951)
...The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
ch. 3 Making Rome Christian
...Quo Vadis (1951)
...The Robe (1953)
ch. 4 The Ten Commandments and America's Fight against Tyranny
...The Ten Commandments (1956)
Section Two: Filming Jesus
ch. 5 The Messiah of Peace
...King of Kings (1961)
ch. 6 The Accidental Superstar
...Jesus Christ, Superstar (1973)
ch. 7 Tormenting Christ
...The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)
ch. 8 Violence and Redemption
...The Passion of the Christ (2004)
Section Three: Varieties of Religion in American Film
ch. 9 The Devil: Screening Humanity's Enemy
...The Exorcist (1973)
...The Omen (1976)
ch. 10 God as Alien: Humanity's Helper
...2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
...Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
ch. 11 Religion and Scandal, Crime and Innocence
...Agnes of God (1985)
...The Apostle (1998)
ch. 12 The Religion of Baseball
...The Natural (1984)
...Field of Dreams (1989)
Section Four: World Religions in Film
ch. 13 American Dharma
...Little Buddha (1993)
...The Legend of Bagger Vance (2000)
ch. 14 Jewish Films: Finding the Path Between Torah and Modernity
...The Chosen (1982)
...The Quarrel (1990)
ch. 15 Islam and Fanaticism: Only in the Eye of the Beholder?
...Destiny (1997)
...My Son the Fanatic (1997)
Appendix
Filmography
Is there such a thing as too much historical context? Flesher and Torry, both academics, make an important point at the start of these loosely confederated essays about the religious themes of American major-release films since World War II: that it is crucial to understand films in the historical context in which they were written and released. Fair enough, but the execution can be clunky and obvious: historical overviews about religion in America could be more seamlessly integrated into the much better discussions of various films, ranging from the overtly religious (The Last Temptation of Christ; The Ten Commandments; Little Buddha) to the prophetically spiritual (Field of Dreams; Close Encounters of the Third Kind). The book is worth it for the film discussions, because whether they are analyzing supernatural horror flicks like The Exorcist and The Omen or dissecting the surprising Hindu themes latent in The Legend of Bagger Vance, Flesher and Torry often have valuable and incisive observations about the ways films both reflect and shape religious culture. Though of use primarily for the college classroom (and with a teacher's preface to this end), serious students of film and religion will discover interpretive nuggets. (June) (From the Publisher)