Published: 2025-01-08

MANIPULATION OF THE GOSPEL AND THE CHURCH IN FILM

Marek Lis Logo ORCID

Abstract

Authors of cinema, a medium based on illusion by its very nature, often use manipulation: this may be discovered, for example, in films with religious themes, relating to the Church and the figure of Jesus Christ. The article points out the manipulations found in several selected films of recent years: The Shack (2017), read by the audience as a Christian film, presents, for example, a falsified image of the anthropomorphic Trinity and the concept of predestination; the films of Małgorzata Szumowska (among them In the Name of…, 2013), a director critical towards faith, show the Church from the perspective of the ideology adopted by the author; the popular novel The Da Vinci Code (2006) the cinematic adaptation of, in turn, uses mystifications concerning both the history of Christianity and Jesus himself. This kind of manipulation, made possible, among other things, by the insufficient religious knowledge of the audience, causes controversy and can lead to the perpetuation of a false image of the Church and God.

Keywords:

Gospel , film , Jesus , Church , manipulation

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Citation rules

Lis, M. (2025). MANIPULATION OF THE GOSPEL AND THE CHURCH IN FILM. The Pastoral Studies, (20), 91–102. Retrieved from https://journals.us.edu.pl/index.php/sp/article/view/18303

No. 20 (2024)
Published: 2024-12-30


ISSN: 1734-4433
eISSN: 2956-624X

Publisher
Uniwersytet Śląski w Katowicach

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