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Subjective Gods and Tiny Hands
My search for Judaism and the Wrong-Eyed Jesus
“Those people up there — they’re not worshiping the same God I believe in!”
That was one of my Southern Film Experience students yesterday, commenting after we had watched Andrew Douglas’s 2003 film journey, Searching For the Wrong-Eyed Jesus. The people on the screen were Evangelical Holy Rollers, Pentecostal Charismatics mainly from the mountains of Virginia and Kentucky. They were screaming for Jesus, eyes rolling to the backs of their long-haired minds. And God only knows what sounds they were emitting from what nether regions of their southern being.
My student, by contrast, is a mainstream Presbyterian who believes that women should be ordained, which is a good thing since her mother certainly is.
I already knew this, but it bears repeating: the God we worship is one we worship subjectively. Or at least that’s what my subjective view says.
Before I take us any further, here’s a song from the film:
