Mystified

            A number of things puzzled me as I read Clive Marsh’s Theology Goes to the Movies. First, the subtitle: An Introduction to Critical Christian Thinking. Whatever did this have to do with the movies? Second, the term God-talk. What did this irreverence point to? Third, a preoccupation with non-believing students of theology and religion. Did they need a special invitation?

            Pieces fell into place when I read the last chapter, “Theology and God,” whose first subheading is, “Why ‘God’ Matters.” Marsh is writing from the perspective of language about God, which can be used by anyone. Believers and nonbelievers today live in a world where cultural products, including movies, evoke images of Christianity. This can be enriching for both. “It should come as no surprise,” writes Marsh, “that a longstanding religious tradition might have something to offer a person wanting to reflect on the meaning of life” (165). He offers his book as a sort of training manual in critical approaches to the meeting of theology and film.

            On the last page Marsh says of himself, “I … am a particular (Christian), critical realist who accepts a strong dose of soft agnosticism within the faith I hold and in the way I use the theological tradition I seek to inhabit” (176). These words are based on a list of “types of belief in God”:

            Atheism “denies the existence of God, and of the value of God-talk” (174). Hostile atheism asserts that such talk if harmful.

            Non-realism is the conviction that language about God reflects nothing more than human imagination. God is a human creation.

            Agnosticism is the belief that the human mind cannot know whether there is a God. Soft agnosticism sees “the value of carrying on with God-talk so long as it proves useful in human flourishing.”

            Critical realism “begins from the assumption that God is.” It acknowledges that our attempts to reflect on God are “mediated by language or imagery, and thus always [reflect] the time, place and culture within which such encounter with the reality of God occurs” (175). Particular critical realism occurs within a religious tradition, e.g., Christian or Jewish. General critical realism looks beyond specific traditions in claims about the divine.

            Naïve realism describes belief in the literal interpretation of religious statements, e.g., the prospect of the faithful being caught up in the clouds to meet Christ at the Second Coming (1 Thess. 4:16-17).

            I found Marsh’s book helpful in my movie reflections, but I am mystified by his self-description and approach to theology. What gets him out of bed in the morning? Living and writing in the UK, he seems to reflect the expanding climate of secularism there. Every book reveals something of its author, but nothing in Theology Goes to the Movies indicates Marsh’s emotions with respect to his professed faith; no talk of awe, wonder, religious experience or transcendence; no sign of attachment or affection.

.