Film as an Expression of Spirituality: The Arts and Faith Top 100 Films

Film as an Expression of Spirituality:
The Arts and Faith Top 100 Films
Edited by Kenneth R. Morefield

Cambridge Scholars Publishing
242 pages - Hardback
ISBN 978-1527550841
Publication Date: 02/10/2023

I've just had a chapter published in this new book which brings together a series of essay on some of the films in the Arts and Faith top 100 lists."Film as an Expression of Spirituality: The Arts and Faith Top 100 Films" features essays by 12 authors some of whom I met on the A&F site over 20 years ago. I was a regular contributor to the forum for a number of years and it was there I met a number of inspiring writers on film including Jeffrey Overstreet and Steven D. Greydanus. Both have been very generous to me over the years and I have learned an enormous amount from them both. So I'm really pleased they both have essays in here. And it's nice for something so permanent to have emerged eventually from all that went into that site.

My essay is on Pasolini's Il Vangelo secondo Matteo (The Gospel According to Matthew, 1964) and despite studying it and discussing it for all these years I don't think I've ever struggled with writing something as much as I did here. I'm grateful to editor Ken Morefield (whom I also met at A&F) whose support and flexibility got me through.

It's currently available online via the Cambridge Scholars website where there's a healthy sample available to download as well as a little more information. I've posted a list of the contributions below which hopefully gives you a sense of the films covered. It's priced with libraries in mind, so if you'd like to read it, then perhaps you could encourage yours to get a copy. 

If you want to find out more about the various iterations of the The Arts and Faith Top 100 Spiritually Significant Films then Ken has put together a great website that brings things together nicely.

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1. Carl Theodor Dreyer and the Problem of Christian Realism – Kenneth R. Morefield
2. Loving Someone in Darkness: The Silence and Voice of God in the Arts & Faith Top 100 Films –Brian Duignan
3. Love, Lust, and L’Avventura – Domenic Cregan
4. Il Vangelo secondo Matteo – Matthew Page
5. Beyond the Infinite: The Transcendent Vision and Religious Forms of 2001: A Space Odyssey – Aren Bergstrom
6. Empire and Incarnation in The Mission and Of Gods and Men – Benjamin Sammons
7. Reverse Rumspringa: Peter Weir’s Witness as “Cultural Kamikaze – Will Underland and Jency Wilson
8. A Sacrifice of Praise – Evan Cogswell
9. Right and Wrong?: Binary Opposition in Do The Right Thing – Douglas C. MacLeod, Jr.
10. To Love and Be Loved in Return: Thirty Years of Discovering Kieślowski’s Blue – Jeffrey Overstreet
11. Faith, Reason, and Interpretation: Belief and Doubt in The Song of Bernadette and Lourdes –Steven D. Greydanus
12. Put on the Full Armor of God: Faith and Radicalism in First Reformed – Matthew Spencer