The Spirit and the Screen 1: The Spirit Glows Where It Wills
first part of a series on pneumatology and cinema
Last week I attended the annual Society of Pentecostal Studies meeting in ATL. We had the first meetings of a new Worship & Arts interest group and a session dedicated to the book Steven Felix-Jaeger and I co-edited: The Spirit and the Screen: Pneumatological Reflections on Contemporary Cinema. A second volume in this series, The Spirit and the Song, is in the works now.
I’ll be sharing over the next week or so the papers given in that session. At the end, SFJ and I will do a podcast sharing our reflections on the papers. Here’s the TOC for the book:
And here is the Introduction I wrote:
Beginnings and Aspirations (or: The Spirit Glows Where It Wills)
Several years ago (the pandemic has forever altered my experience of time, so I cannot recall exactly how long), Steven hit upon the idea of launching a new interest group for the Society for Pentecostal Studies, and convinced me (without much difficulty, I must say) to join him in making it a reality. The following year at the annual meeting, we hosted a screening of John Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath (Fox, 1940). And after watching the film together, several of us, including Jeffrey Lamp, Blaine Charrette and Kimberly Alexander, shared brief remarks on the film, and opened the floor for conversation. Several of the authors in this volume were present at the screening. The upshot of that experience convinced us we needed to dedicate ourselves not only to further work on theology and film but specifically to the question of the Spirit and cinema. What you are reading now is a first-fruits of that dedication—thankfully, others have agreed to share that original commitment with us!
It is worth pausing here at the beginning to ask ourselves what, and whom, we mean when we speak of “the Spirit.” The Christian doctrine of the Trinity identifies God as the one who is Spirit, Son, and Father, three “persons” in one “nature,” their personal distinction revealed in and through their essential oneness. In the language of the Nicene tradition, particularly, the Spirit is consubstantial with the Father and the Son—equally glorious, equally worthy of worship, eternally co-operating with and infinitely participating in the Father’s work in and with the Son. The Holy Spirit, in other words, co-operates with and participates in all that the Father is and does in the Son, completing, as it were, the at-one-ing being and work of the Lord who is one.
Startling as those claims may be, the truth is that the Christian tradition, right from the start, has identified the Spirit as the creator and sustainer of all things. As can be seen, for example, in the writings of Paul and John, the Spirit has been worshipped as the source not only of all inspired/prophetic speech, but also of all goodness, truth, and beauty. When Christians confess their confidence in the Spirit, they affirm the Spirit as “Lord and giver of life”—the source, guide, and goal of all things. They also confess the Spirit as the one who rests upon and dwells in Christ, through whom all things are reconciled and perfected, and the empowerer and guide of God’s People, the one who is always and in every way making possible their relation to God and neighbor, “anointing” believers for their share in Christ’s intercessory and sacrificial service. Thanks to the teachings of Jesus, and the apostolic witness to his life, Christians have always understood themselves to be living lives not only from and to the Spirit but also in the Spirit, carried along from first to last by the movements of God, enlivened by the jubilant liveliness of the triune life. Thus, praying in the Spirit, and trusting that the Spirit also praying for them in ways they do not know how to pray, Christians invoke the Spirit as the accomplisher and bringer of final restoration and the renewal of all things that all creatures desire. And it is this confidence in the Spirit as creator that undergirds, energizes, and pilots Christian engagements with human creativity.
For these reasons, we believe pneumatology can be an especially generative theological starting point for studies concerning culture and the arts. And we consider it unfortunate that this line of inquiry has been by and large neglected. Although there are several books positing theological engagements with cinema,1 and works without end that speak of “Christ figures” in film, there are no major works that engage cinema pneumatologically—with a concern for the Spirit as Spirit.2 So, what you will find in the following pages is an attempt to redress that misfortune.
Robert Jenson has argued that Christ is the Father’s art. In his own words, “the Son is the Father’s labor on a real world which obtains just in that this experiment is conducted; and that the Father is indeed an artist, the artist from whom all artists take their name, in that he knows the real world precisely and only by the experiment the Son is.”3 The Spirit, for Jenson, is the possibility—the Freedom—in which this artistry plays. And to live by faith is to live with abandon, trusting to that Freedom: “It is to ride the great Painter’s brush, to skip about between the great Composer’s hands on the keyboard.”4
Arguably, however, the Spirit is not only the condition or “atmosphere” of true art and artistry for God and creatures; the Spirit is also both art and artist—always, everywhere, acting with the Father and the Son in and through and upon all things. And if that is true, then films, actors, writers, filmmakers, critics, and viewers are all called both to rest in and to body forth the Spirit’s freeing, non-anxious presence, trusting that their own work belongs somehow in the mystery of grace to the works of the God who is Trinity.
Bearing all that in mind, the goal we set for ourselves as editors and those who agreed to collaborate with us was this: we aspired to engage contemporary films from a pneumatological perspective and with a concern for celebrating the worthiness of the Spirit, in hopes of affording theologies of culture fruitful new perspectives, perspectives that begin and end with the Spirit rather than with the common theological contact points—Christology, soteriology, ethics, etc.
This project explores pertinent pneumatological issues that arise in film, as well as literary devices that draw allusions to the Spirit. Thus it offers three main contributions, which have shaped the arrangement of the book: first, it explores how Christian understandings of the person and work of the Spirit illuminate the nature of film and film-making; second, it shows that there are in fact “Spirit figures” in film (as distinct from but inseparable from Christ figures); even if sometimes they’re not intended as such, “Spirit-led” characters, are moved to act “prophetically,” against their inclinations and in excess of their skill or knowledge and with eccentric, life-giving creativity; third, it identifies subtle and explicit symbolizations of the Spirit in pop culture, symbolizations that requires deep, careful thinking about the Christian doctrine of the Spirit and generate new horizons for cultural analysis.
Historically, the emphasis has been on Christ figures in film or on “incarnation” as a principle for film-making. So, it is no small shift for this project to emphasize Spirit figures, seeking to show how the Spirit—as distinct from although inseparably related to Christ—might gain our focus of attention. The chapters in the following pages seek to identify and reflect on characteristics of the Spirit and what might be called “the en-Spirit-ed life” in film, raising a number of charged theological questions about the Trinity, the knowledge of God, and the limits of theological inquiry, as well as renewing not only our appreciation, enjoyment, and criticism of art but also our theology, preaching, and praying.
Structurally, the book is arranged in three main parts: the first is more philosophical and historical, devoted to the Spirit and the nature of film/film-making; the second is primarily theological and exegetical, devoted to Spirit figures; the third is mostly pastoral and ethical, devoted to explorations of the Spirit-led life in popular films. Taken together, the chapters work to present a kind of mosaic, portraying the Spirit in ways that are often unexpected, offbeat—but just for that reason full of fresh promise. And the several readings offered here have something to say both to cinephiles and theologians, as well as believers living in and between the worlds of art and theology.When aesthetics was invented in the eighteenth century, “the thought was that art contributed beauty, hence gave pleasure to those with taste.”5 But the late twentieth century middle-America Pentecostals who reared me put no store by “taste”—and they had less than no time for aesthetic pleasure.Indeed, they, like Moses of old, aspired to forsake all the pleasures of sin—including the pleasures of movies and TV. We loved craft, to be sure, but we were suspicious of “art,” at least much of it. Our deepest worry, however, the thing that truly fretted us, was entertainment; we feared it would not only distract us from the prize but out-and-out corrupt us, body and soul.
Strangely, that was not quite true of the first Pentecostals, the mothers and fathers of the movement out of which my churches sprang. As Walter Hollenweger observed, theirs was a blood-and-wound mysticism, a devotion to Jesus as the friend in adversity, an eagerness to be with him elsewhere, out of this world, finally free of all troubles. Paradoxically, out of that seemingly otherworldly mysticism arose not only a new theology but also new arts, new artistic sensibilities.6 In a sense, then, the Hegelian pattern was reversed in them: art did not open out toward the religious, but the religious could not help but create art—like a volcano makes lava or a tornado leaves destruction in its wake.
The anti-aesthetic aesthetic I knew as a child had precious little left in it of the verve of that original or originative blood-and-wounds Pentecostalism. We did not want to change the world or save it; we wanted to be changed by the Spirit, made peculiar—to be saved from the world. We awaited the Rapture, and ached for the little raptures of revival in the meantime. I say all that to draw attention to the fact that this book, edited by two Pentecostal theologians, and full of contributions from scholars of various Christian traditions, testifies to the fact that much has changed—I believe much for the better. But the hope is that these essays signal something of a turn in pneumatological scholarship vis-à-vis popular culture, and a creative return to the heart of Spirit-saturated spirituality, which the first Pentecostals would have recognized as “the move of God.”
It should be said, however, that while The Spirit and the Screen pursues distinctively Christian and renewalist interpretations of the Spirit, our concept of the Spirit, insofar as we are faithful to it in our reflections and constructions, does not delimit us from ecumenical and inter-religious dialogue. The Spirit is the Spirit who speaks by the prophets, after all. Thus, the repertoire of symbolization within Christian thought has been broad and wide-ranging, not only resisting rigid dogmatization but actively subverting it. Precisely because we assume that the Spirit is holy—that is, free from any and all would-be creaturely control—Christian pneumatology can orient itself openly and undefensively in relation to other traditions and the unique what makes the inclusivity possible, intelligible, and sustainable.
Finally, this book is dedicated and addressed to theologians who care about film and film enthusiasts who are also concerned with matters of Christian belief and practice in cinema, as well as theological and spiritual issues related to broader popular culture. With those aims in mind, therefore, the book offers not only a new sort of theological engagement with film, but also raises a platform for scholars to speak to perennial themes and pressing current affairs in a different light. We are glad to have had the chance to give space to these voices, some of whom have a long track-record in the theology-and-film or faith-and-culture conversations, and others who have not previously engaged in them at all. Our hope is that this work as a whole will not only equip believers for thinking more carefully and more appreciatively about the relation of pneumatology and cinema, but also spur readers to praise of and participation with the creator Spirit.
See, e.g., Clive Marsh, Theology Goes to the Movies (London: Routledge, 2007); Christopher Deacy and Gaye Williams Ortiz, Theology and Film (Hoboken: Wiley- Blackwell, 2008); Clive Marsh and Gaye Ortiz, Eds., Explorations in Theology and Film (Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 1997); Robert Johnston, Ed., Reframing Theology and Film (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007); Kelton Cobb, The Blackwell Guide to Theology and Popular Culture (Hoboken: Wiley-Blackwell, 2005); and Douglas Beaumont, The Message Behind the Movie (Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2009).
While there are no major works that look at the Spirit in film, Birgit Meyer utilizes sociological tools to assess how film is being used globally. See Meyer and Moors, Eds., Religion, Media, and the Public Sphere (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006); Meyer, “‘Praise the Lord’: Popular Cinema and Pentecostalite Style in Ghana’s New Public Sphere,” American Ethnologist, Vol. 31, No. 1 (2004), pp. 92–110; Meyer, “Pentecostalism, Prosperity and Popular Cinema in Ghana,” In S. Brent Plate, Ed., Representing Religion in World Cinema (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003). Other works are more devotional by nature and look to see the Spirit’s work in Hollywood. See Lisa Jones Townsel, “When the Holy Ghost Moves on the Big Screen,” Charisma, Vol. 40 (2014), pp. 60–66; Taylor Berglund, “How the Holy Spirit is Producing in Hollywood,” Charisma, Vol. 41 (2016), pp. 50–56; Troy Anderson and Anne Mount, “Hollywood, Jesus and the Holy Spirit,” Charisma, Vol. 40 (2015), pp. 20–34.
Robert W. Jenson, “Christ as Culture 2: Art,” International Journal of Systematic Theology 6.1 (2004): 69–76 (74).
Robert Jenson, Theology as Revisionary Metaphysics: Essays on God and Creation, Stephen John Wright, ed. (Eugene: Cascade, 2014), 196.
Arthur Danto, What Art Is (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2013), x.
See Daniel Castelo, Pentecostalism as a Christian Mystical Tradition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2017).
The kiss of blessing on this! : )
And having grown up Lutheran how did I not stumble upon Jenson?
I’ll have to sit where I’ve stumbled and ‘listen’ to him for a time. (All that I’ve heard you share of him through the years, I’ll keep in mind.)
I love this. The reminder that the Spirit is not only the atmosphere of the Father’s artistry but is Himself artist and art is fruitful. It reminds us, as Richard of St. Victor does, that the Spirit is not only Love in the Classic Augustinian triad of lover/beloved/love but also co-lover/co-beloved. Art is thus not confined to the medium, it extends out into art-ful interpretations and critical review. The Spirit extends the art of the artist out into each of us and makes us artful, co-artists if you will, in the act of receiving and savoring the art.
In other words, there’s so much value in what you’re doing here. Training us to receive art spiritually, is itself an art! Thank you