Cinemawhat?

James Harleman is a pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle, Washington. He writes a blog about cinema and theology that he calls cinemagogue. Cinemagogue is a combination of cinema and synagogue, a place of worship. As a pastor of a Christian church, his perspective is fairly straightforward. Like Saufley, he intends to examine the relationship between church and culture through cinema, and to explore not only how these affect each other, but considers an appropriate response.

He has a distinct voice in his blog that he develops out of his vision. As a blogger writing in the first person, he shares certain characteristics with other bloggers. Some of his voice is developed from his Christian perspective, while some simply comes from his personality. In his July 13, 2010 entry, he considers the Stanley Hotel in Colorado that inspired the 1980 Kubrick film, The Shining, and was the actual location to the 1997 miniseries.

The post opens with a recount of his recent vacation to the hotel with his wife. His second sentence paints the setting: the open road, a rented Mustang convertible, classic rock music. This is where he makes it personal, establishing that he got his music from his friend Dean, and though the music was “inspired” by the show Supernatural, it was not the Dean from the show that provided the music. So he says something about his intended audience, that they might know something about the show Supernatural.

Staying at the supposedly haunted hotel, Harleman laments that he experienced nothing out of the ordinary. He supposes he might have had better luck if he had stayed in room 217, a reference to the film. But Harleman introduces some thoughts about the spirituality of the media. He goes beyond that in order to discuss things that are immediately applicable in everyday life. He discusses Jack's identity as a writer and ties that in to how Jack went insane with how the reader might be impacted by their own identity. This is not the direction one might expect such a metaphysical subject to turn. But this is a very practical and useful direction, and a good choice.

Harleman uses imagery to expound upon his ideas of identity. He says that “Like everyone, Jack is seeking identity, but his spiritual ship is wrecked on the rocks due to his own course heading, false maps, and a beguiling siren song.” This materializes his point and creates something tangible, and it does so poetically. He completes that paragraph with, “the cursed trifecta of flesh, world and devil is illustrated quite succinctly through Torrance's torments.” His word choice and the order that he chooses is interesting and gives character to his voice.

He completes the post with very personal thoughts and experiences that led him to his current spiritual situation. He appreciates that he has been removed from his former confusion and that he can be astonished by such things as the Stanley Hotel, and not terrified by its supposed haunting, or any other thing that might terrify.