Bruce Feiler - Where God Was Born, Abraham, Walking The Bible

God at Sundance
Sunday, January 21, 2007

Having just spent a week in Hollywood, I know firsthand that religion is still an active topic in the entertainment industry. The projects seems to follow the model one sees on the bestseller lists these days: Pro or con. Meaning they are either going after the population that is interested in religion, usually in a way that Hollywood perceives is reverential, like the recent film on "The Nativity", or they are attacking religion, often by portraying religious conservatives as hypocritical, like the recent documentary "Jesus Camp." The pro or con framework is tired and largely reflects the bias of the media. It fails to capture the much more interesting things going on in the middle, where faith and doubt, church and state, mingle in more complicated and fascinating ways.

Still, it continues, as this week's Sundance Film Festival illustrate. A piece in the Salt Lake Tribune today captures the headlines:

Opening Sunday night at the Sundance Film Festival is Karslake's "For the Bible Tells Me So," a documentary in the independent film competition. The production, which took more than three years to complete, was funded in large part by Orem-resident Bruce Bastian, co-creator of the word-processing software that became WordPerfect. The film shows how the Bible's verses have been used to justify, over centuries, various forms of discrimination, and how today religious conservatives use the Good Book to back anti-gay rhetoric.

For gay and lesbian people who grew up steeped in Scripture and tied to church communities, this rhetoric - something referred to in the film as "a modern invention" - has been especially painful. Not just for them, but for their families.

The piece goes on to list the other films vying for attention and distribution at Sundance.

"Save Me" -- Scott, a young gay man living the wild life, is checked into a Christian "ex-gay" ministry where he and his mentor, Mark, become torn between their feelings for one another and threats of damnation.

"The Island" (Russia) -- A Russian barge worker, left for dead by Germans during World War II, is rescued by monks and 30 years later still lives at the monastery as a hermit. His antics and questionable sanity disturb the monks, but locals trust in his healing powers and believe he can see the future.
"The Monastery: Mr. Vig and the Nun" (Denmark) -- Mr. Vig, an 82-year-old virgin living alone in rundown castle, partners up with a headstrong nun to fulfill his dream of turning his home into a Russian Orthodox monastery.
"On a Tightrope" (Norway/Canada) -- The Uighur people, China's largest Muslim minority, live under Chinese government control. Four Uighur orphans try to learn an ancient tightrope walking tradition, a metaphor for the Uighur people's struggles.

Labels: The Bible in Pop Culture

Posted by B Feiler at 9:08 AM
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