REEL REFLECTIONS

SEEING GOD IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES
A Review of A Matrix of Meanings

David Greiser

A Matrix of Meanings: Finding God in Pop Culture, by Craig Detweiler and Barry Taylor. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003.

Readers of this column know by now that I am a student not only of films but also of contemporary culture and the worldviews films portray. I’m ever on the prowl, not only for films that explore the culture’s search for God and the real, but also for tools to deepen my ability to appreciate links between culture and theology.

In A Matrix of Meanings, Craig Detweiler and Barry Taylor have produced such a tool. Detweiler and Taylor come to their task uniquely qualified to comment on both theology and popular culture. Both are Ph.D. students at Fuller Seminary and teach in the School’s program in theology and film. Taylor is the leader of New Ground, a postmodern worship gathering in the Los Angeles area. Detweiler has contributed scripts for several commercial films, while Taylor wrote an original song for the film "The Green Mile." The two are truly participant-observers in the world of pop culture.

In one sense, Matrix is an exercise in what classical theology once called "general revelation"—the belief that God speaks not only through the words of Scripture and of sacrament but also through Creation and the human quest for meaning and transcendence. People cannot help but demonstrate God’s existence, even when their actions suggest indifference to God’s presence.

The thesis of A Matrix of Meaning is simply stated: For those with eyes to see, pop culture reveals a generation fascinated with the divine. On several levels, movies lead the way in revealing this. On the most obvious level are films focused on God or the supernatural, including "Signs," "Contact," "Ghost," "The Blair Witch Project," "Bruce Almighty," the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, "Waking Life," "Dogma," and the "Matrix" trilogy, to name a few.

Less obvious are the countless films with moral or spiritual subtexts. For example, the trailer to "American Beauty" exhorts us to "look closer," to see the divine in the inexplicable beauty permeating everyday life. Meanwhile "Fight Club," "Being John Malkovich," and "Memento" challenge linear concepts of time and even question death’s finality.

But movies do not stand alone among God-obsessed media. The book’s real strength is the loving and thoughtful attention given to the spiritual side of maligned mediums, such as television, advertising, art, sports, fashion, and the cult of celebrity and music.

Take the last two. Why do we need celebrities? Detweiler sees roots of our celebrity cult in the ancient Greeks, who celebrated the human form and potential. Gods were simply humans on a superhuman scale. The Greeks added a twist in the form of mythology, which, Detweiler believes, introduced larger-than-life stories about larger-than-life humans as entertainment. In our day, then, celebrities provide ideals of beauty, intelligence, and talent mixed with Achilles heel-behaviors, giving them a Greek-god-like role in American life.

What about pop music moves us to tears or ecstasy? The relationship between Christianity and popular music has been rocky, says Taylor. Though seldom acknowledged by conservative Christians, the roots of rock owe much to the church and gospel music, as the work of Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Elvis Presley attests.

Artists whose songs express yearning for God populate today’s pop charts. U2 remains one of the world’s most popular bands. If their connections to organized Christianity are ambivalent, their preoccupation with God and divine justice in a broken world borders on obsession.

Such younger singers as Beyonce and the Beastie Boys manage simultaneously to convey interest in Jesus and to offer a sexualized visual performance. Even Madonna, now proclaiming her attachment to Kabbalah mysticism, is making music of a spiritual nature.

Critics of A Matrix of Meanings may accuse Detweiler and Taylor of a believer’s over-eagerness to find God in every pop culture crevice. They do admit to admiration. But they have amassed formidable evidence to back their case. For those with eyes to see it, virtually every aspect of pop culture suggests we live in a generation at once drawn to, and repelled by, the divine. If "the heavens are telling the glory of God," then the earth and its wayward creatures are no less revelatory sources for those ready to "look closer."

—Between watching movies and reading books about them, David Greiser, Souderton, Pennsylvania, is a pastor at Souderton Mennonite Church.