In this episode of our Jesus film series, we turn to discuss the art and theology that informs depictions of Jesus with Dr. Richard Walsh, who is Womack Professor of Philosophy and Religion and the Co-Director of the Honors Program at Methodist University. He’s also the author of a number of books on Jesus films, including Reading the Gospels in the Dark (Trinity Press International) and, more recently with Jeffrey Staley, Jesus, The Gospels, and Cinematic Imagination (T&T Clark). Other the course of our conversation, Dr. Walsh addresses some of the historic tensions behind depicting Jesus throughout cinematic history between depicting Jesus as more divine versus more human, more historically accurate versus more artistically resonant, more stoic versus more personable, etc. We also discuss this topic briefly in relation to iconoclastic concerns as well as Orthodox iconography. Most notably, Dr. Walsh situates Jesus in the place of the “Monster” in horror films, which leads to some fascinating discussion. Team members on the episode from The Two Cities include: Dr. John Anthony Dunne, Stephanie Kate Judd, and Rev. Daniel Parham.
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