Reel Spirituality
An Essential Lens
Theology and Film is a young field, and we are working to create more published resources for both film scholars and film lovers who want to read a more intelligent, engaging interaction between films and the Christian faith. We believe the theological lens is an invaluable one for understanding cinema from across time and from around the world.
An Essential Lens
Theology and Film is a young field, and we are working to create more published resources for both film scholars and film lovers who want to read a more intelligent, engaging interaction between films and the Christian faith. We believe the theological lens is an invaluable one for understanding cinema from across time and from around the world.
Books
The Aesthetics of Atheism
Atheism offers profound and necessary theological insights into the heart of Christianity itself. To get at these truths, Kutter Callaway and Barry Taylor dive into the aesthetic dimensions of atheism, using everything from Stranger Things to Damien Hirst’s controversial sculptures to the music of David Bowie, Nick Cave, and Leonard Cohen.
Breaking the Marriage Idol
Through an examination of Scripture, cultural analysis, and personal accounts, Kutter Callaway reflects on how our narratives have limited our understanding of marriage and obscured our view of the life-giving and kingdom-serving roles of single people in the church.
Come & See
In 250 concise devotions on the greatest films of all time, Come & See: A Christian Guide to the Greatest Films of All Time provides a model for how to view film history with your spiritual eyes wide open. Come & See is a comprehensive film history and an inspiring testament to the Spirit’s work in the lives of cinema’s most esteemed artists.
Deep Focus
Building on the success of Robert Johnston's Reel Spirituality, the leading textbook in the field for the past 17 years, Deep Focus helps film lovers not only watch movies critically and theologically but also see beneath the surface of their moving images.
Finding God in the Movies
An enthusiastic guide for the individual movie lover or small group, Finding God in the Movies contains production notes and film synopses, relevant Scripture texts, theological reflection, recommended video clips, discussion questions, and more. It will deepen your fervor for film and for God.
God in the Movies
Following a format similar to Barsotti and Johnston's successful Finding God in the Movies, this completely new book covers different films spanning four decades. It is as a treasure chest for hours of film viewing, discussion, and ministry. Clips from the movies referenced in each chapter are available on FULLER studio.
God's Wider Presence
Drawing in part from the author's theological engagement with film and the arts, God's Wider Presence helps Christians understand personal moments of experiencing God's transcendence and accounts for revelatory experiences of those outside the believing community.
How to Talk to a Movie
In a few brief chapters, How to Talk to a Movie will forever change the way you watch movies by opening your eyes and ears to what movies are saying, how they are saying it, and how God might be speaking to you through them.
Reel Spirituality
The foundational text in Theology and Film, Reel Spirituality traces the powerful role that movies play in our cultural dialogue and guides Christian moviegoers into a theological analysis of and conversation with film. It successfully heightens readers' sensitivity to the theological truths and statements about the human condition expressed through modern cinema.
The Reel Spirituality Monograph Series
Edited by Kutter Callaway and Elijah Davidson, this series features a collection of theoretically precise essays on a diverse set of film-related topics. The series consists of popular-level introductions to key concepts in the Theology and Film discipline and rigorous investigations of theologically significant films, filmmakers, film genres, and topics in cinema studies.
Reframing Theology and Film
The study of theology and film has been in existence for fewer than three decades. What, then, does the future hold for this evolving subject? Robert Johnston has drawn together more than a dozen scholars who regularly write and teach on the topic in Reframing Theology and Film: New Focus for an Emerging Discipline; their contributions explore how the discipline of theology and film can flourish and mature.
Scoring Transcendence
By engaging scores from the last decade of popular cinema, Callaway reveals how a musically aware approach to film can yield novel insights into the presence and activity of God in contemporary culture. And, through conversations with these films and their filmmakers, viewers can gain a new understanding of how God may be speaking to modern society through film and its transcendent melodies.
Useless Beauty
How should Christians relate to the difficult and contradictory messages of modern movies? In Useless Beauty, Robert K. Johnston presents the bold position that films can be our "eyeglasses and hearing aids" in understanding the Book of Ecclesiastes.
Watching TV Religiously
Watching TV Religiously shows that television--as a technology, a narrative art form, a commodity, and a portal for our ritual lives--confronts viewers theologically. Whether its content is explicitly spiritual or not, TV routinely invites (and sometimes demands) theological reflection.
Contact Info
Mailing Address
135 N. Oakland Ave
Pasadena, CA 91101
Reel Spirituality Team
Kutter Callaway
Co-Director and Fuller Associate Professor of Theology and Culture
kuttercallway@fuller.edu
Elijah Davidson
Co-Director, Chief Critic, and Managing Editor
elijahdavidson@fuller.edu
Rob Johnston
Co-Director and Fuller Professor of Theology and Culture
johnston@fuller.edu