God In The Movies: Part 2-American Beauty

Here is a link to listen to Craig Detweiler's sermon on God in "American Beauty." (Ending with a rarity for a sermon, applause from the congregation.) If you haven't been paying attention, this is the second of three sermons on "God In The Movies." Before you listen to the sermon, read Ecclesiastes here.

Craig Detwieler is the co-author of A Matrix of Meanings: Finding God in Pop Culture, screenwriter and Associate Professor of Mass Communications at Biola University. Here from an interview with Craig is this answer which may give you some idea of where he is coming from:

Q. You make reference to 1999 as the year that changed movies. And then you interact with some of the themes that emerged that year in film. Give us a little slice of why that was a year that changed movies.

A. The same year that The Matrix was released on Easter weekend, you also had films like American Beauty and Fight Club and Magnolia and Run Lola Run and Dogma, Sixth Sense, films that assumed life beyond what you could see. All of them dealt with the possibility of miracles beyond, of life outside of ourselves, as a search for something more. And I think that characterizes where we are in a culture right now. We have a spiritual culture, not necessarily a Christian culture, but a spiritual culture that assumes a certain respect for the mystery of the divine.