The Woman in Black

I have not seen the new film of "The Woman in Black" starring Harry Potter (I mean Daniel Ratcliffe) but I have just read the original novel by Susan Hill. Though it was only written in 1982 it could have dated from a century earlier.

After reading the novel, and finding it rather disappointing I looked at a website to read about the 2012 film and saw that it has been likened to a visit to haunted house ghost train at Disneyland in terms of shocks and scares. This a strong contrast with this slow, atmospheric, haunting novel. This is a proper old fashioned ghost story. In a lonely gothic setting a tormented protagonist becomes aware of an old a curse in the presence of a malevolent ghost! The slow and gradual build in tension works, building to an unexpected climax.

But it was not really scary unless you are the sort of person who is scared of walking around an old house in the dark and listening to the unidentified creaks and groans that old buildings make naturally. It contained some strange ideas and improbable happenings but the frights were in the experience of the main protagonist to the events he believed he witnessed. In many ways it is a formulaic Gothic novel rather than a horror novel.

The writing supurbly builds atmosphere using vivid descriptions. The musty air of the old house was brought to life in the strong prose and likewise the detailed descriptions of the countryside and marshland. The precise prose style is probably why the novel has become part of the syllabus for school students English courses.

The best part of the novel for me was Spider - the feisty wee dog that plays an important part in retaining Kipp's sanity in the long, dark, lonely nights he spent in the haunted house. The dog made the story for me! I recommend "The Woman in Black" for a quick Gothic read - it took me less than two hours.

Image courtesy of Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

"Moonrise Kingdom"

"Moonrise Kingdom" is a film set in the mid 1960s on a small island community off the coast of New England. I believe that it is shot with a very slight sepia tint to recreate the Kodachrome colours of the era.

It is a sweet story but doesn't go over the top into sickly saccharine. In this sense it seems much more like a European rather than an American film. 

The plot concerns the love of two runaway twelve year old children who are both outsiders and have "problems". He is an orphan and she is part of a wildly dysfunctional family. This odd couple find happiness together in their battle against the world. In the end it seems that they are the sane ones and the adults are the ones who are a little crazy. 

There are wonderful characters in the film and I liked the police man, the scoutmaster and an amazingly evil social worker!

The plot is unbelievable , especially in the stunts but the amazing thing is that it all works very well. It is funny but not in a corny or stupid way. 

It is good entertaining old fashoined cinema. I recommend it highly.

Image "Lake With Full Moon" courtesy of Photokanok  / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Sociologists study American Mega churches

This report of research by secular sociologists into the American mega churches comes to some unexpected conclusions....

 Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

God as a drug: The rise of American megachurches

DENVER — American megachurches use stagecraft, sensory pageantry, charismatic leadership and an upbeat, unchallenging vision of Christianity to provide their congregants with a powerful emotional religious experience, according to research from the University of Washington.

"Membership in megachurches is one of the leading ways American Christians worship these days, so, therefore, these churches should be understood," said James Wellman, associate professor of American religion at the University of Washington. "Our study shows that -- contrary to public opinion that tends to pass off the megachurch movement as consumerist religion -- megachurches are doing a pretty effective job for their members. In fact, megachurch members speak eloquently of their spiritual growth."

Wellman and co-authors Katie E. Corcoran and Kate Stockly-Meyerdirk, University of Washington graduate students in sociology and comparative religion respectively, studied 2008 data provided by the Leadership Network on 12 nationally representative American megachurches.

Corcoran will present their paper, titled "'God is Like a Drug': Explaining Interaction Ritual Chains in American Megachurches," at the 107th Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association.

Megachurches, or churches with 2,000 or more congregants, have grown in number, size, and popularity in recent years, coming to virtually dominate the American religious landscape. More than half of all American churchgoers now attend the largest 10 percent of churches.

Megachurch services feature a come-as-you-are atmosphere, rock music, and what Wellman calls a "multisensory mélange" of visuals and other elements to stimulate the senses, as well as small-group participation and a shared focus on the message from a charismatic pastor.

The researchers hypothesized that such rituals are successful in imparting emotional energy in the megachurch setting -- "creating membership feelings and symbols charged with emotional significance, and a heightened sense of spirituality," they wrote.

As part of their study, Wellman, Corcoran, and Stockly-Meyerdirk analyzed 470 interviews and about 16,000 surveys on megachurch members' emotional experiences with their churches. Four themes emerged: salvation/spirituality, acceptance/belonging, admiration for and guidance from the leader, and morality and purpose through service.

The researchers found that feelings of joy felt in the services far exceed the powerful but fleeting "conversion experiences" for which megachurches are often stereotyped.

Many participants used the word "contagious" to describe the feeling of a megachurch service where members arrive hungry for emotional experiences and leave energized. One church member said, "(T)he Holy Spirit goes through the crowd like a football team doing the wave. …Never seen it in any other church."

Wellman said, "That's what you see when you go into megachurches -- you see smiling people; people who are dancing in the aisles, and, in one San Diego megachurch, an interracial mix I've never seen anywhere in my time doing research on American churches. We see this experience of unalloyed joy over and over again in megachurches. That's why we say it's like a drug."

Wellman calls it a "good drug" because the message provides a conventional moral standard, such as being a decent person, taking care of family, and forgiving enemies and yourself. Megachurches also encourage their members, such as by saying, "Things can get better, you can be happy," he added.

This comforting message also is a key to megachurches' success, Wellman said. "How are you going to dominate the market? You give them a generic form of Christianity that's upbeat, exciting, and uplifting."

The researchers also found that the large size of megachurch congregations is a benefit rather than a drawback, as it results in resources for state-of-the-art technology -- amplifying the emotional intensity of services -- and the ability to hire more qualified church leadership.

Wellman said, "This isn't just same-old, same-old. This is not like evangelical revivalism. It's a new, hybrid form of Christianity that's mutating and separate from all the traditional institutions with which we usually affiliate Christianity."

Megachurches, which rarely refer to heaven or hell, are worlds away from the sober, judgmental puritan meetinghouses of long ago, Wellman said.

Wellman will continue studying the topic of the new American Christianity with a book-length profile of Michigan-based pastor and author Rob Bell due out in late fall, and a book in 2013 titled "High on God: How the Megachurch Conquered America."

A grant from the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion funded the project. By: Daniel Fowler, American Sociological Association.

Discernment (part 2)

Some time ago I wrote a blog post on discernment. A comment received was critical (in a very nice way) saying that I had missed an important element in the equation. I argued that discernment involves faith, freedom and facts. I was criticised because I didn't include feelings in the process. Feelings exist and therefore feelings are facts as much as any other empirical evidence that can be taken into account. 

We all react uniquely. We all feel differently about the choices and opportunities that we face. There is frequently not one right or wrong course of action to be followed but several ways ahead, some of which may be better or worse for us. We need to be explicit about the degree to which we will enjoy the various options.

If we do not acknowledge our feelings we will allow them to fester under the surface un-named where they may have an unexpected and undue influence on our lives and all that we are. Feelings are very important for how we live and all that we do.

For example if I am trying to discern which of two jobs I should do and I don't consciously acknowledge the fact that I will enjoy doing one job much more that the other then I may end up resenting what I am doing and not understanding the reason for the underlying resentment. I may choose a course of action that I know I will dislike out of a sense of duty but if you are a person who gains satisfaction from acting out of a sense of duty then this may be OK.

We need honesty, and as I said before being honest with ourselves is often most difficult, to analyse our feelings about various options and feed this information into our discernment process along with all the other factors. 

A good Tutu quote

"You and I are created for transcendence, laughter, caring. God deliberately did not make the world perfect, for God is looking for you and me to be fellow workers with God." - Desmond Tutu

 

A prayer by Phil Coulter

"May the blessing of light be upon you,
Light on the outside, Light on the inside.
With God's sunlight shining on you,
May your heart glow with warmth,
Like a turf fire that welcomes friends and strangers alike.
May the light of the Lord shine from your eyes,
Like a candle in the window,
Welcoming the weary traveller.
May the blessing of God's soft rain be on you,
Falling gently on your head, refreshing your soul
With the sweetness of little flowers newly blooming.
May the strength of the winds of Heaven bless you,
Carrying the rain to wash your spirit clean
Sparkling after in the sunlight.
May the blessing of God's earth be on you,
And as you walk the roads,
May you always have a kind word for those you meet.
May you understand the strength and power of God.
You are an important part of God's plan.
May he watch over you and keep you safe from harm."
- Phil Coulter
 

Love and truth

"When you love people, you see all the good in them, all the Christ in them. God sees Christ, His Son, in us and loves us. And so we should see Christ in others, and nothing else, and love them. There can never be enough of it. There can never be enough thinking about it."

Dorothy Day 

"The ultimate question is whether the doctrine of the goodness of God or that of the inerrancy of Scriptures is to prevail when they conflict. I think the doctrine of the goodness of God is the more certain of the two. Indeed, only that doctrine renders this worship of Him obligatory or even permissible."
C. S. Lewis