Beginning in mid-September, the PBS television network will bring to American viewers “The Long Search,” a thirteen-week series on world religions. The series was coproduced by the BBC and Time-Life Films and has already been shown in Britain. It received a number of critical plaudits. A reviewer commented that “The BBC can safely regard it as a triumph and a breakthrough, the discovery of that rare thing, a new technique for making sense of an almost impossible subject.”
It’s hard to see what the shouting is all about. A basic interview technique is used in the series. Both religious professionals and laymen from each religious tradition are interviewed. Each group is shown at worship and work.
The reason the series seems so unusual probably lies in the fact that television has generally shown itself incapable of dealing with religious faith in any meaningful or realistic way. This self-imposed theological eunuchhood makes the series seem more virile than it really is.
Technically the films are well done. The photography is sensitive and effective. Producer Peter Montagnon has used natural settings with natural light. The occasional loss of photographic sharpness is more than offset by the sense of sharing in an intimate conversation with another about his religious faith. Ronald Eyre, British stage producer, who is the host-narrator, is a sensitive, polite, companionable guide.
My first concern in viewing a selection of eight of the thirteen episodes was: How is Christianity treated? I wondered if the Christian faith would come across in a fair and recognizable manner. I think it does.
The producers cannot be faulted for the answers given by the adherents of any religious faith. If Christians give inadequate answers, we can only blame the Christians. However, it is fair to ask. Did the interviewer ask the right questions and did he ask them of the right people? Generally the choices of questions and people seem reasonable. The questions are sufficiently straightforward and broad to enable everyone to state the case for his faith. In the case of Christianity it seems reasonable to cover the subject by looking at American Protestantism, European Catholicism, Romanian Orthodoxy, and independent Black African churches.
The hour spent on American Protestantism is probably the one of the greatest concern to most of us. The producers pegged Indianapolis as the typical American Protestant city. Its 1,100 churches represent the full spread of Protestantism. Host Eyre takes us to the Baptist Temple, a gargantuan church of incredible vigor and bustle. He innocently asks, “What is this vast organization all about?” Sonny Snell, one of the six full-time ministers at the church responds, “To get people saved.”
When Eyre attempts to find out what that means he finds himself the object of an on-camera personal evangelism effort. Apparently Snell hoped that Eyre might be asking out of need rather than curiosity. It was one of the few moments in the series that I found embarrassing. Snell’s pat and patronizing manner made me extremely uncomfortable. Yet his form of evangelism is no doubt greatly to be preferred to the nonverbal evangelism practiced by most Christians.
Scenes of the Baptist Temple’s worship service featured hilarious duets on evolution and the ecumenical movement by two young women. If they ever decide to enter show business, I hereby volunteer to be their agent. From his interviews with Greg Dixon, pastor of Baptist Temple, and others from the church, Eyre understandably but wrongly concludes that there is no room for doubt in fundamentalism.
The North Methodist Church of Indianapolis was chosen as the place to examine “mainline” Protestantism. Mainline Protestantism, according to adviser Martin Marty, is composed of those churches that are comfortable with their culture rather than trying to save people out of it. Dr. Richard Hamilton, the pastor, reveals his rejection of the task of saving people out of the world. As we listen to the pastor, sit in on a social action committee meeting, and visit a worship service, it would be easy to conclude that mainline Protestantism is spiritually bankrupt. Eyre perceptively notes that it was impossible for him to see where the North Methodist Church ends and society begins. “The edge was too blurred for me to see,” he concludes.
The third focus of the Protestant segment is the Mount Vernon Baptist Church of Indianapolis. Mount Vernon is a black Baptist church occupying a rickety, unpretentious building. Inside things are different. The building is not impressive but the Christian faith of the congregation is. The church, under the direction of Mozel Sanders, has an active life of worship and social help. Members of the church are shown preparing some of hundreds of Thanksgiving dinners distributed to those in need.
The scenes of its worship were moving. As a long-time aficionado of black Gospel music and an admirer of the late Mahalia Jackson, I was more comfortable with the worship at Mount Vernon than with either Baptist Temple or North Methodist. The proclamation/response style of preaching and the spirited singing of “You Must Be Born Again” and “I’ll Fly Away” seem to me to catch the emotional spontaneity that should characterize Christian worship.
For me the most engaging of the series was the segment on the Orthodox Church of Romania. Romanian Christianity is an anachronism—but a desirable anachronism. I had the feeling that there is a sort of medieval ethos to the Christian culture there. About 80 per cent of the population embraces the Orthodox faith. And it doesn’t seem to be a superficial profession with most of the people but a matter of personal commitment. Christianity has entered into the fabric of society and into the marrow of their bones. All of Romanian life—farming, cleaning, cooking—seems to have a sacramental flavor to it. That is remarkable in view of the fact that Romania is a Communist nation. The president of the building committee of one of the churches is a member of the Communist party. Of this seeming conflict he says simply, “No one says a Communist has to be an atheist.”
Eyre had one of his most unsettling experiences in Romania. In interviewing Bishop Justinian, Eyre thinks of himself as the post-Christian man who has gone beyond Christianity. He confesses his shock when Justinian treats him as a pre-Christian pagan. Justinian points out to him that a person can know about Jesus and not know him.
Eyre finds that Easter is fun in Romania. He has enough Puritan hangover to worry about that. He observes all the preparations for Easter, including the egg painting and spring cleaning that build a sense of excitement and anticipation. Bishop Justinian wisely remarks that every day is Easter if we could just understand it.
Eyre asks his Romanian guide-translator, Remas Rus, what Orthodox Christians believe. Rus corrects him, “You should ask rather: Whom do Orthodox Christians worship?”
The segment on Roman Catholicism focuses only on European Catholicism. The livelier North and South American scenes were ignored. I question that decision, which puts only the most traditional face of the Catholic church before the viewer and eliminates the ferment that has resulted from the charismatic renewal, marriage encounter, and the push for more lay control.
Those who were chosen as spokesmen for their church are intelligent and sensitive and generally acquit themselves well. Judith Dryhurst, a Catholic from Leeds, England, points out to Eyre that the church is simply “the people who follow Christ.” Rembert Weakland, Abbot Primate of the Benedictines, observes that Christianity says God has entered history. If that’s true, he concludes, God has made something available that wasn’t there before. Eyre notes that placed against the claims for Jesus the other claims of the Catholic church pale.
A great deal of time in this segment is spent with the Little Brothers of Jesus, a Spanish monastic order. It clearly shows the desire of these young monks to know God alone, but the non-Catholic viewer has to wonder how much of what it says about the essence of Catholicism is understood and practiced by most Catholics.
The hour spent on African religions was the most puzzling to me. The movements examined are not described as African Christianity but as “African response to the stimulus of Christianity.” That distinction seems to be accurate and important.
Black South Africans are apparently attempting to rediscover their lost religious heritage and, in some cases, to incorporate it with Christianity. It was somewhat disconcerting to hear Peter Mkize, a black Lutheran bank employee, comment that he communicates with his deceased mother. “She visits me,” he says, “in my visions and dreams about things I’m supposed to do but am resisting.”
Even Reverend Makhathini of Mapumulo Theological College, a Lutheran school, tells of a vision of his dead grandmother that resulted in his physical healing. “This has touched my mind to try to find out where the dead are,” he explains. “This is no problem to the Zulus but the Christians say, Don’t ask—just look to Jesus.”
It is relatively easy to see how the presuppositions of the African culture have pulled Christianity into an African shape. It is less easy for most of us to see how our Western civilization has pulled Christianity into its own shape.
The other episodes in the series left me ambivalent. It is easy enough to examine the doctrines of non-Christian religions and to condemn their distortions of God and his world. However, it is impossible to condemn the Muslim doctor who loves God as she understands him and spends her life trying to bring healing to sick children; or the Jewish student diligently studying the Torah in order to determine what God really demands of him.
The scenes of others seeking to find and serve God should remind us that in our evangelism we are merely beggars telling other beggars where to find food.
The episode on the meeting of Western and Eastern religions in California has a number of interesting moments. Eyre comments that he went to California wondering what the gods of the twenty-first century would be like and whether they had already appeared. That’s a heavy burden to give California.
Frankly, the appeal of the Eastern religions remains a mystery to me. In the minds of many they seem to offer an antidote to the mechanistic, fragmented view of the world in our own culture. In Eastern mystical religions man is not separate from the world and God but a part of some sort of great cosmic oneness.
People young and old seem prepared to lose themselves in some larger world soul. If I have to choose, I prefer fragmentation. After all, I am something different from the rest of creation and God is someone different from me. I can understand a Muslim seeking the will of Allah, the merciful and mighty. I find it difficult to understand the pantheist who wants to blur the distinction between himself and God.
The California interviews tend to shatter the liberal myth that Christianity must be demythologized in order to appeal to modern scientific man. We see the operator of sophisticated electronic biofeedback equipment using it in connection with Tibetan meditation. And we hear a scientist confess that scientists like to think they’re dealing with absolute truth—although they know they’re not.
The concluding episode, “Loose Ends,” is probably the most unsatisfactory for Christians. Eyre compares religion to a mountaineering kit. Different kits are needed for different mountains. Not all climbs are the same, we are told.
It would have been better to let each faith present its own claims and speak for itself and let the viewer make his own conclusion. This attempt to paper over differences and create some sort of validity for each religious expression is a disservice to them all.
The best part of this segment is Eyre’s dialogue with Dr. Jacob Needleman, professor of philosophy at San Francisco State University. Eyre asks Needleman how one starts with religious experience.
Needleman responds, “Are you speaking out of curiosity or need?”
Eyre reveals himself to be the typical modern man by answering with another question: “Is there something that can speak to us in the limbo between curiosity and need?”
He is a spiritual voyeur unwilling to say that his quest comes merely from curiosity and he is not ready to acknowledge his need of faith. He wants to ask ultimate questions; he’s not prepared to worship the Ultimate Answer. He reserves the right of refusal.
The answer to his question is no. There is nothing that can speak to us in the limbo between curiosity and need. I hope Ronald Eyre will take the step out of limbo into need. Only there does God ever reveal himself to man.
With all of its limitations, the series is nevertheless a good beginning. We can only hope that the Public Broadcasting Network will not regard this as the end of its task but a worthwhile beginning in the exploration of this important area of human experience that has too often been ignored by the electronic media. (A sixteen-page discussion guide has been prepared by Cultural Information Service, P.O. Box 92, New York, N.Y. 10016.)
John V. Lawing, Jr., is assistant professor of journalism at CBN University, Virginia Beach, Virginia.
