At first glance, entertainment and religion mix like oil and water.
“He’s just an actor” can be an unfriendly snipe at the clergyman on the pulpit from a critical layperson. Each new batch of seniors in seminaries is exhorted to lead their flock to become participants in the faith and not mere spectators, as at a sporting event.
Surely, religion and entertainment are essentially polar opposites. An entertainment park is fun and ephemeral, designed for enjoyment and to agreeably divert from life’s serious responsibilities. TV, theater, and music are usually directed at the spectator. Religion, on the other hand, is serious and transcendent, intended to give wholeness to the often disparate and disjointed events of life. In churches and synagogues, we seek the participant, not the spectator.
Nevertheless, entertainment can enhance the goals of religion.
The Bible itself is a sacred text, but the word of God is transmitted in different places and times by those who speak through riddles and parables, perform feats of physical prowess, stop the sun and revive the dead–frequently to the background of thunder and lightning. These modes share with entertainment a sense of the dramatic. They convey the message of the Almighty with a flair that is not matched by a straightforward and insipid narrative.
The entertainment industry has often served as the handmaiden of religion. The film “Contact” has taught my congregants more about the relationship between science and religion than I have achieved in numerous sermons, lectures and articles on the subject. Television series have portrayed socially conscious priests intervening to save a convicted criminal from execution after accidentally hearing the confession of the actual perpetrator (“Miami Vice”), churches giving sanctuary to political refugees from El Salvador (“In the Heat of the Night”); and a rabbi publicly challenging the appropriateness of synagogue membership for a sleazy lawyer (“Picket Fences”).
The 1980s television miniserieys “Holocaust” and the 1993 film “Schindler’s List” conveyed the tragedy and meaning of the Holocaust to a mass American audience that could not be reached by books and lectures.
When religion is totally devoid of an entertainment component, it risks boredom. That is why the curriculum of every divinity school teach future clergy elocution and visual use of hands in delivering sermons, why pastors pepper their messages with stories and jokes, and churches and synagogues elevate the pulpit as a stage.
A story in my local paper recently described a New Jersey colleague who also stars as a rabbi in an off-Broadway show and uses drama techniques in his synagogue.
Films, television and even theme parks may spark a person’s interest and involvement in religion, at which point clergy can take over to discuss the theological why of those events.
I have utilized the film “The Ten Commandments” and “Holocaust” as vehicles to illustrate to my congregants how those events might have happened. After viewing, we have read the Biblical text that “a strong east wind came to part the waters,” which teaches that the Almighty intervened in nature to save the ancient Hebrews so that they would receive God’s primary revelation at Sinai. And in “Holocaust,” we discussed the theological dilemma of how a beneficent God allows unspeakable evil to occur.
In this way, entertainment and religion, rather than being opposites, are collaborative partners.
