MARION — With the buzz of the Oscars still fresh in people’s minds, one Virginia Baptist church brought people together to celebrate the use of hymns in several Academy Award winning or nominated movies.
Simultaneously, Marion Baptist Church in Marion put the spotlight on using popular culture as a tool to open faith conversations.
Paul Dakin encourages the congregation to use popular culture to initiate discussions of faith during "Hymns Go to Hollywood."
|
In early March, the church presented “Hymns Go to Hollywood.”
The brainchild of Paul Dakin, MBC’s minister of music and youth, the festival featured clips from seven movies, each featuring hymns in some capacity. Among the selected movies was the critically and popularly acclaimed Titanic, which spent 15 weeks at number one in box office charts and has so far taken in a worldwide gross of about $1.8 billion. The oldest movie to be featured was the enduring classic It’s a Wonderful Life, starring Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey.
The movies and hymns included:
• Trip to Bountiful (1985) with the hymn Softly and Tenderly Jesus Is Calling;
• A River Runs Through It (1991) with Be Thou My Vision;
• Titanic (1997) with Nearer My God to Thee;
• Batman — The Movie (1966) with Bringing in the Sheaves;
• Little Women (1994) with For the Beauty of the Earth;
• Dead Poets Society (1989) with The Lord’s My Shepherd;
• It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) with Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.
According to Dakin, “The festival is based on the premise that the music that is chosen for a particular film is not chosen haphazardly or by accident. In this context, hymns are sometimes used in movies the way that music in any film score is used — to create a mood, to further the story, to tell us something about the character (or characters) who are singing it.”
Dakin noted that hymns can have a historical significance in some stories, but can also be used effectively to evoke “times and places in the minds of the moviegoer, even if the hymn is not overly familiar.”
A classically-trained church musician, Dakin said the idea for the festival stemmed from his experiences watching movies and observing the use of hymns. “And as a minister, I am always on the lookout for instances when popular art intersects with the Christian faith in some way.”
He disagrees with the notion that popular culture is the enemy of Christian faith, but instead says it creates opportunities for discussion about beliefs. “While I would certainly not endorse everything that comes out of Hollywood, I think it is important for those of us who are Christians to see pop culture references to faith as a way of starting a conversation about spiritual matters with others. It is also a way for those of us who are Christians to get a glimpse into how others see our faith from the outside,” Dakin said.
Mark Ross, pastor at Marion Baptist Church, concurs with the idea of using pop culture, including movies, books and music, to initiate dialogue about matters of faith.
“We need to look for God at work in the least likely places,” said Ross, a minister for 27 years.
Even if individuals don’t profess a specific belief, Ross said that popular culture often reflects that “people have cries of faith. People are crying out for faith.”
Many secular works speak to people about faith, Ross said, and it’s informative for them to talk about their reactions. “We need to look for God at work in that,” he said.
Most of the movies Dakin chose for the festival are well known and six of them are either Oscar winners or were nominees for the award.
During the service, films clips featuring the selected hymns were shown and followed by a discussion of why the song might have been chosen, how it functioned in the movie, its message and how it added to the story. At the end of several segments, the congregation sang the hymns.
The church’s handbell choir played arrangements of two of the hymns during the service. The adult choir sang a classic choral arrangement of The Lord’s My Shepherd.
Dakin has served as Marion Baptist’s minister of music and youth since August 2006.