Review: Sacred Matters-Chapter 1 Film

Laderman begins this chapter by summarizing what he calls the slow decentralization of the sacred in the history of the United States. He argues that from the beginning Americans have been inclined to search out sacred resources outside of the normal theistic religions they are generally associated with. I think experiences of the sacred and religious life associated with the sacred have never been centralized, but due to the overwhelming influence of Protestant Christianity in the culture of the early European immigrants to the United States this country's religious history has looked like a kind of decentralization progressively moving to a sort of religious pluralism. This pluralism is made even more varied with Laderman's insistence on the validity of atheistic religions as mediators of sacred experience.

Included in the first chapter is a brief overview of the history of film, including its connection to religion through the clergyman Hannibal W. Goodwin who first invented celluloid photographic film and the biblical stories which have fascinated moviegoers since the earliest days of film. But religious impulses have found expression without connection to any god through the language used to describe movie theaters as temples or cathedrals and through moviegoers’ expression of their sometimes unexplainable experiences in the dark rooms where they worship a screen alongside other expectant congregants.

Laderman argues that the sacred values of film have been expressed through everything from Disney movies, to the Wizard of Oz, to Star Wars. These movies do more than just tell stories, they explain attempt to answer the big questions of life; they invite us into them and shape our realities. Films often function to create communities, teach ethical values, transform their viewers and offer experiences of transcendence; all of this often with no mention of god.

I would argue that in many ways movies have become the new primary medium for storytelling in our age. Just as Homer first recited the Odyssey and the Iliad to hearers long ago now Spielberg and Lucas, the Wachowski brothers and Ridley Scott draw us into the stories they tell. While Laderman's book is first and foremost descriptive I would be interested to find out whether the influence of movies in today’s culture is positively or negatively affecting society. Maybe that is another book altogether.

Should traditional theistic religions and their institutions be threatened by these new mega-blockbuster myths being told repeatedly in theaters all over the country and even the world?  Only if they are afraid that somehow those stories give a truer account of how things really are.  Maybe instead of fearing the messages these movies teach and the sacred nature of their culture we can enter into conversation with the stories they tell; we just might have something learn, as well as something to offer in return.