Routledge Studies in Religion and Film
The Theological Power of Film
1st Edition
By James Lorenz
December 26, 2025
This book explores the theological power of film and seeks to render a properly theological account of cinematic art. It considers: What theology and theological practice does cinematic art give rise to? What are the perceptual and affective potentials of film for theology, and what, if anything, ...
Christianity and Horror Cinema
1st Edition
By Bryan P. Stone
June 25, 2025
Christianity and Horror Cinema explores ways that Christian beliefs, spiritualities, practices, and symbols provide the religious and existential "depths" out of which the monsters of Western horror cinema have emerged, arguing that they are, in several respects, the monsters for which Christians ...
Exploring Film and Christianity: Movement as Immobility
1st Edition
Edited
By Rita Benis, Sérgio Dias Branco
November 29, 2024
This book examines the connections between film and Christianity, considering how films express and depict Christian faith and spirituality and provide experiences associated with it. The notion of movement as immobility (from Simone Weil) is employed to describe film and its images in motion. Its ...
Theology and Survival Movies: An Orthodox Christian Perspective
1st Edition
By Ioan Buteanu
October 09, 2024
This book provides an innovative analysis of the survival movie genre from an Orthodox Christian anthropological perspective. Grounded in the Orthodox tradition, the approach builds from the first chapter of Genesis where man is described as made in the ‘image’ and after the ‘likeness’ of God. It ...
The Dardenne Brothers’ Cinematic Parables: Integrating Theology, Philosophy, and Film
1st Edition
By Joel Mayward
May 27, 2024
The Dardenne Brothers’ Cinematic Parables examines the work of Belgian filmmakers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, who have been celebrated for their powerfully affecting social realist films. Though the Dardenne brothers’ films rarely mention religion or God, they have received wide recognition for ...
Transcendence and Spirituality in Japanese Cinema: Framing Sacred Spaces
1st Edition
By Melissa Croteau
May 27, 2024
This book explores significant representations of Shinto and Buddhist sacred space, spiritual symbols, and religious concepts that are embedded in the secular framework of Japanese films aimed at general audiences in Japan and globally. These cinematic masterpieces by directors Akira Kurosawa, ...
Film and Redemption: From Brokenness to Wholeness
1st Edition
By David Rankin
January 29, 2024
This book explores the representation of the idea or theme of redemption in contemporary, popular film. The discussion focuses primarily on the work of three directors – Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese and Kore-eda Hirokazu – but also considers a few films from other directorial hands. David Rankin...
Lars von Trier's Cinema: Excess, Evil, and the Prophetic Voice
1st Edition
By Rebecca Ver Straten-McSparran
May 31, 2023
This book offers a bold and dynamic examination of Lars von Trier’s cinema by interweaving philosophy and theology with close attention to aesthetics through style and narrative. It explores the prophetic voice of von Trier's films, juxtaposing them with Ezekiel's prophecy and Ricoeur’s symbols of ...
New Approaches to Islam in Film
1st Edition
Edited
By Kristian Petersen
January 09, 2023
Many global film industries fail in expanding the role of Muslims on screen. Too often they produce a dichotomy between "good" and "bad" Muslims, limiting the narrative domain to issues of national security, war, and terrorism. Naturally, much of the previous scholarship on Muslims in film focused ...
Transcendence and Spirituality in Chinese Cinema: A Theological Exploration
1st Edition
By Kris H.K Chong
April 29, 2022
This book provides a framework by which a global audience might think theologically about contemporary films produced in mainland China by Chinese directors. Up to this point the academic discipline of Christian theology and film has focussed predominantly on Western cinema, and as a result, has ...
Film and the Afterlife
1st Edition
By David Rankin
March 31, 2021
This book explores how post-death existence is represented in popular film, looking at issues such as continuity, personal identity, and the nature of existence beyond the grave. Film often returns to the theme of dying, death and the afterlife, both directly and indirectly, because there are very ...
Hermeneutic Humility and the Political Theology of Cinema: Blind Paul
1st Edition
By Sean Desilets
December 10, 2019
This book revisits the tradition of Western religious cinema in light of scholarship on St. Paul’s political theology. The book’s subtitle derives from the account in the Book of Acts that St. Paul was temporarily blinded in the wake of his conversion on the road to Damascus. In imitation of Paul, ...