A Pennsylvania pastor explains why he uses movie clips during sermons, what two Clint Eastwood movies showed him, and how ‘The Lord of the Rings’ features a Christian view of the essence of sin

Other highlights: Why ‘Breaking Bad’ is a powerful morality tale, why Reality TV isn’t so real, and what makes commercials so dangerous

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The Rev. Dr. Brian Ross of Koinos Community Church in Sinking Spring, Pa. has used clips ranging from The Three Stooges, The Godfather to Man of Steel as introductions to his sermons. He’s played scenes from the TV show The Office to compare some of the characters’ work behavior to spiritual approaches. He’s mentioned interviews with celebrities like Madonna to show how even the mega successful are spiritually searching — and finding superstardom somewhat empty.

In many churches, pastors make an occasional pop culture reference in church. But Ross regularly makes connections between pop culture and his sermon topic.

As Ross explains in a thoughtful and revealing interview, this tradition likely goes back to the first century and the apostle Paul  — who when he was preaching in Greece used some contemporary references to help explain Christianity’s message to an audience unfamiliar with it.

So it’s not a new idea to reference contemporary cultural trends in sermons. But since the 1990s, using pop culture in some churches expanded. The emerging church movement reworked their church services to reflect their ideas about communicating in a post-modern world — which included making pop culture references.

Koinos may or may not be part of the emerging church movement. But Ross’s sermons and the church’s worship style have been attracting a growing number of people in Pennsylvania’s Berks County, located about an hour north of Philadelphia.

The county is somewhat of a microcosm of middle America. There’s the poverty-stricken city of Reading — for a time it beat the long-ravaged Flint, Michigan as the poorest city in the country. But there is also farmland with traditional Pennsylvania Dutch residents that go back generations, factories both abandoned and operating, as well as middle class and affluent suburbs. And the county has had its share of pop culture references and celebrities.

John Updike recast Reading as the fictional Brewer, Pa. with a struggling working class protagonist in his Rabbit Run novels. Artist Keith Haring was born and raised in Berks County. After high school he left the county for Pittsburgh and then New York City — but after he died his cremated ashes were scattered on a favorite childhood spot in Kutztown. Singer Taylor Swift lived in the suburb of Wyomissing until she was 14 when her family relocated to the country music mecca of Nashville.

About a decade ago, Ross started the church — which is part of the Anabaptist Brethren in Christ denomination — with just nine members. For years the church rented space in a gym. Last year Koinos moved into a former graphic arts building in Sinking Spring. One of the church’s features is art with spiritual themes by members and non-members that line the walls of the church. Koinos had been growing, but its new location has brought in more people, with its congregation growing to nearly 300.

On a recent afternoon Ross — who has a doctorate in Ministry and Culture — talked about his reasons for using pop culture in church, some pop culture that inspires him, and why it can be important to examine what’s going on in movies, TV shows and music.

1. You often show a clip as an introduction to your sermon and you also mention pop culture frequently in your sermons. What’s behind it theologically? I’m sure you not doing this just to be the cool pastor.  

I think I’m old enough and lost enough hair to not be cool pastor anymore — if I ever was (laughs).

There is a bit of a hook in it. People could be guests and not sure what they think about church or a spiritual gathering. And when we play a film clip it definitely grabs their attention. And I think it communicates to some people who may feel the church is a bastion of old-fashioned ideas that doesn’t really understand the contemporary world. I think it communicates that we get you, we live in the same world you do, we engage in some of the same forms of art and media that you do. So I don’t know if I’d call it being cool, but I think it’s building a bridge.

Theologically, I think all truth is God’s truth. And God’s truth can be found everywhere. And I hope that over time people will learn to see the truth of the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth in all sorts of places. That’s it’s not only found in The Bible, in spiritual gatherings or in times of prayer. It can be found everywhere. As Jesus said,'”for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.”

I think some of it also goes back to when I was younger and preparing for the ministry. There was sometimes this idea that if you’re completely dedicated to God it means you have to completely remove yourself from contemporary culture. Or if you want to live in the world as it is, you have to leave your faith behind. I’ve seen friends take both of those paths. And at different points I probably have.

But I think part of truly following the way of Jesus today means you’re not going to be just like the world, but also not completely separate. So I think you touch on that a little bit by bringing in aspects of popular culture.

Now that’s not super easy to do. One of the things our church has is an old-fashioned Netflix by mail subscription. And I send for three different films each week because they don’t always work out. Years ago when there was Blockbuster we had an account where we could rent unlimited  movies, but only one at a time. I’d have a list and I’d play one on my laptop in my car. If I thought it wasn’t going to work I’d take it back in and get something else. So it’s not like all of pop culture can be easily tied in with spiritual things.

2. Do you think Jesus used popular culture and popular stories to get across his message? 

Jesus certainly did not teach like the scribes and the Pharisees did. He was not always expounding on scripture. He used a lot of stories and metaphors. As the gospels say, he spoke as one who had authority — which means he wasn’t always tying into the traditions.

An interesting thing about Jesus is that he didn’t seem to refer much to common cultural trends. I think a better example would be the apostle Paul. In Acts 17 Paul is at Mars Hill explaining the reality of the gospel message — what God has done in Christ. And yet he doesn’t quote the scriptures. He quotes Greek poets and philosophers. He starts with “Men of Athens” which some people believe goes back to Plato‘s writings where he’s quoting Socrates beginning a speech the same way.

So he’s referring over and over again to cultural assumptions. And if you look at Paul’s writings as a whole he’s really a creative thinker. He brings together the traditional Hebrew scriptures and their narratives with first century Palestinian expectations — with some Greek thought and motifs. He takes them all in a new direction wrapped around the life of Jesus.

So I think Paul was a creative innovative synthetic thinker bringing many strands together. I don’t want to say that Jesus wasn’t doing that. But I can’t think of a lot of times when Jesus was overtly referring to popular culture.

But part of that might be that Jesus’s ministry was among first century Jewish people. And they would have had a general mindset of being separate from the culture and the world. Paul as the apostle to the gentiles had to tie in historical Jewish narratives and motifs with Jesus into a Greco-Roman neo-pagan culture where all of this was new.

3. Are there movies you’ve seen over the years that you think are good examples of spirituality and religion in movies? 

I don’t know if I would say spirituality and religion in movies. As someone who tries my best to take Jesus seriously — at my best moments I should say —  I think I see movies through the life and teachings of Jesus. So a lot of my favorite movies aren’t overtly spiritual. But there are certain themes in them. I laughed when you said my favorite movies because my wife — who is not a film buff — teases me that when I say “that’s one of my favorite movies” because she says “you got about fifty.”

But one that has stayed with me — certainly not a pleasant film — is Mystic River directed by Clint Eastwood. I like movies that Eastwood directs more that what he stars in generally — except Gran Torino. Now there’s one that might have some overtly spiritual themes. That main character is certainly playing the Christ figure in that role.

But in Mystic River one of the things that really drew me in is I kept thinking this is what happens when people do not live by Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount. When you’re quick to judge, quick to assume, when it’s eye for and eye, lots of pain breaks loose.

There’s one movie that I think you kind of have to have an eye for it — and you might even need some formal theological or philosophical training — is Tree of Life by Terrence Malick. He has a Roman Catholic background, I don’t know if he’s currently practicing, but I know that was his childhood. And he studied philosophy at Harvard. And there is a classical medieval philosophical view about anologia entis — “the analogy of being” in it. He takes a particular family at a particular time and place with particular struggles and it becomes an analogy for existence itself, for the human experience.

We can probably debate what the movie is actually all about. But I think it’s largely Sean Penn‘s character trying to make sense of his family of origin and find meaning in that experience.

Part of why Malick goes from Sean Penn as a child in Texas, to an adult, to going back to the creation of the world, is he’s being stream of consciousness as he thinks back on his childhood. There are visions of his mother caring for him, visions of a stern father, visions of family tragedy, to his adult life thinking about what is the point of all this? So there are creation motifs about who are we in this big complex world.

There’s a final image where he’s imagining being in this heavenly type realm with his father and mother reunited with his dead brother. Afterwards he’s going down this elevator going back to real life and he has a smile on his face. And all the traffic and sounds of the contemporary now are back. In my thinking he’s found a way of making peace that one day we will be reunited in heaven and all will be made right. So that’s one movie that I think is profound. But again if one hasn’t read a lot of theology and philosophy it just might be a really confusing mess.

Life of Pi is an obvious one. I thought it was brilliant bringing together the Western more rational-based spirituality with the more Eastern mystic spirituality you see in the child when he’s younger.

A reporter shares with Pi, that he was sent by a friend, saying that Pi could help him find God. Pi gives him two narratives. One involves the tiger and this battle at sea.  Its very mythological. And the other narrative, which is of the same events, simply tells the history of the events in a very manner of fact way. “Which story do you like better?” Pi asks. The reporter says the first one and Pi says, “As it is with God.”

What I found fascinating is that it’s tapping into a classical view of spirituality. God is found in the meaningful narratives we tell about the events of our lives. Spirituality is not manipulating God to make the events of our lives unfold in a different way. God is found in finding meaning and significance in the details of the life that we are already living.

Interestingly, I had found out by just doing a little research that Barack Obama wrote the author of the novel a letter — I think this was before he was president — and said it was the most brilliant defense for the existence of God he had ever read.

4. Any examples of TV shows that drew you in?  

I did watch Breaking Bad and was completely pulled into it. As Bryan Cranston says himself, it’s a morality tale. Part of it is what happens when you cross all the moral boundaries. In most of his interviews Cranston was very direct that it’s a cautionary tale. It’s about how one can devolve as a human being.

I think Breaking Bad displayed some brilliant writing about how much people can change. Modern people sometimes view themselves too much through the lens of DNA and think that things within us can’t really change and that everything is hard wired within us. A classical Christian view of humanity would stress that we’re always in the process of becoming.  We are either becoming more like God himself, the process of theosis. Or, we are in the process of becoming something that is almost less than human.  What we choose to pursue, what we choose to worship. what we choose to love, forms who we become.

So it’s a brilliant story of Mr. Chips becoming Scarface — of how you have this meek teacher family guy becoming a monster in some ways. And it did a great job of showing how that happens slowly. At first he’s afraid of people. And then when he starts to get engaged in the drug trade a bit, he’s willing to confront people more. And then there’s the first person whose life he takes and it freaks him out. But then it’s easier the next time and then he even wants his friend killed. So it was just fascinating.

5. What about music? Is there music you grew up with that has stayed with you? Are there things currently that are interesting to you?

I don’t listen to any overtly spiritual or Christian music. And that might be because I’m a pastor. I’m kind of surrounded by it. So when I have downtime and I’m just doing things for entertainment, I go in a different direction.

When I was younger, in high school, it was Nirvana and The Doors. So Kurt Cobain and Jim Morrison were two singers that maybe some of the darker parts of me were really drawn to — they had a kind of creative nihilism.

Now I can’t say if there’s a particular band, but I enjoy a lot of indie rock. At times, I find it very moving. It can be artful, honest and authentic, and positive at the same time.

It’s not as nihilistic as the early to mid 90s stuff. But I listen to a little bit of everything — classical music, medieval music, some Kanye West now and then, depending on what mood I’m in.

But I do think there is kind of a nihilistic bend to some of the contemporary arts. So I find moments. There are certain lines in some songs by Fun that I think are pretty profound. But they’re simply lines. We still do live in this time where a lot of people that create art— maybe they’re trying to find a meaning in life, but they don’t want to be pinned down on it because they may think “who really knows?’” This can limit the value of some of the art. So I don’t find a lot of it profound as a whole — but certainly glimpses.

6. You mentioned some good examples and some pop culture that inspired you. But what about the worst of pop culture? What advice do you have for people who are concerned about what they watch and how it could affect them? 

I can appreciate films and music that may be very authentic and even deal with some very ugly subject matter. Mystic River and Breaking Bad both certainly did. Good art that I can make peace with — as someone who tries to follows Jesus — has to make good look good, and evil look evil. And not flip it around. You wouldn’t go away thinking that Heisenberg is a good guy. There are some movies that include some macabre elements, yet they are shown to be what they are. Evil or horrific and they’re not celebrated.

I think another thing would be art that is true. I would quite confidently say that Reality TV is not good for anyone. It’s banal and surfacey and thin. We call it reality but it’s not. Everyone is playing a caricature of who they probably really are. And I think at the worst moments it kind of devalues the human experience. It’s like all of human life is just a game, just a show, just a popularity contest. I think that’s very spiritually bankrupt.

A good thing for people to do is notice themselves after they take in media. Certain films can be heavy and have some very difficult parts to them. But afterwards I feel it made me think about what really matters and brought out better parts of me. There are other television shows I might find interesting or immediately satisfied me, but I feel like I didn’t accomplish anything and wish I hadn’t watched them. 

My biggest concern about pop culture is not the junk that can be there — and there’s plenty of junk. It’s that we get used to taking all of life by what entertains us and what we find interesting at the moment. Most meaningful things are not always interesting in the moment. They are interesting and meaningful over time. And if you spend your whole life on your Netflix subscription and on your iPod, you have a hard time sticking with anything that really matters in life. Your attention span and interest level can rapidly decrease. Anything that’s worth doing takes a long time, it’s not immediate.

I also think television commercials are very dangerous. Millions of dollars get spent to create those ads to make us feel dissatisfied with our lives and think that there’s something else out there that will make us happy. It creates a constant dissatisfaction with what is.

Stanley Kubrick in an interview said if he was starting out all over again he would work on commercials. Because he said they’re empty in some ways. But they’re brilliant at telling an entire story that makes the viewer see their story in 30 seconds or less. And I think that’s what happens when we see a lot of commercials. Our lives are being narrated by professional people who know what they’re doing — leading us to constant disappointment.

Because as some people have said, it’s not that we’re a materialist culture. If we were truly materialist we would really appreciate the material things that we have. We’re a culture of incessant desire. We’re always desiring more. It’s not the having, it’s the desiring that keeps us moving around.

7. Why do you think many people are so fascinated by celebrities? 

I think human beings are inherently religious and spiritual. And the more we secularize society, we go looking for icons everywhere else. Many celebrities are icons of who I could be, who I should be. They’re the saints of our day. In some ways they’re images that people can never attain to, but they want to be more like them. They kind of orientate their life. I think that’s part of it.

Some of the other fascination with celebrities are the train wrecks — where it’s more the opposite. These are the tragic examples that make me feel better that I’m not them. And that can be part of Reality TV too. But definitely with certain forms of tabloid type media it’s “Look at the train wreck, at least I’m not like them. Maybe I don’t make a lot of money, maybe I’m not famous, but at least I don’t do those things.”

8. Some religious people would call pop culture something to avoid or restrain from consuming too much of. Do you feel it’s important to take in pop culture? And how do you counter the argument that you should only listen to Christian music or read Christian books?

I have people close to me and that’s how they operate. And for them that seems to work. So I don’t want to say that everyone needs to run out and immerse themselves in popular culture. Most of it’s junk. It’s like art. Most art is bad art. There’s a big difference between good art and bad art and there’s a lot of bad art.

And it’s the same thing with popular culture. Breaking Bad was fantastic. But a lot of it’s not. It’s just empty. So I don’t know that I would say that everyone has to take in pop culture. For me, I lived that way growing up so it would be very odd to just completely eradicate that from my life.

And for good or bad, there’s a reason it’s called popular culture. It means it’s ubiquitous. It’s shared by all of us.

It’s not folk culture, which is created by and for a certain subculture. It’s not high culture, which by definition, requires training and a specific education, to be able to appreciate it.

Popular culture is shared. So in some ways in the lingua franca of our day. It’s the language of the common people..

So I find as a pastor who feels that I’m on mission to help people find life with Jesus of Nazareth — to where his life and teaching is increasingly foreign to our culture — I’m always trying to find metaphors and analogies to explain things. And we share popular culture, so that can be a source.

Walter Brueggemann, one of my favorite theologians, talked about how he and his wife for a time didn’t have a television because they didn’t want their children being raised on the worst of American values. But he said he found out that his kids just watched television at their friend’s house. So you can’t really avoid it.

9. Do you see fewer overtly religious movies recently? Do you think the Christian story is being told in popular culture?

I don’t know if I would say there’s less of it, at least in my lifetime. I was born in the mid 1970s. So I don’t remember there being a rash of explicitly religious films in the 1980s. But it’s a good question.

The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit have done quite well. Now that’s good art but it’s a little more vague. It’s not explicit. J.R. R. Tolkien was a very committed orthodox Roman Catholic. And most of those themes, even the theme of the ring — this precious that everyone was after — that goes back to some Christian themes of the essence of sin is wanting to play God, wanting to have all power to control everything about myself and others. And part of virtue is shunning that desire, that temptation. So I think there are themes that are pretty prevalent. They just might not be explicit.

Sometimes I’ll watch a show or a movie and someone will be playing a character who is devout or has some kind of religion or is on a spiritual quest  —  and those are times where I think whoever wrote this obviously doesn’t have any experience in this. Any devout Christian would not use that kind of language.

For example, most contemporary Christians do not use the word religion. They think of religion as faith gone bad. They think of it as belief in God used to hurt other people and irrelevant to life. You almost never hear the word used in churches today. They’ll say spirituality, faith, maybe being Biblical — but in a movie someone will say “I’m finding a desire to be religious” or something like that. No one talks that way.

I think it’s part of American culture that most of the cultural elites who produce and write television shows or movies or song lyrics just live radically different lives than 97 percent of the American population. I don’t know if they have an agenda. But they live a very different life and have had very different experiences than the common American.

10. As a pastor, when you see depictions of Christian pastors do you take an interest in it? How do you think pastors are generally represented in the media?

It’s clear that generally they’re not that positive. Most clergy are often shown as narrow-minded people that don’t really intellectually understand what’s really going on. Maybe they’re well meaning, but they’re naïve. Or worse, they’re people who are socially regressive holding society back with archaic views that are dangerous and ugly. Not all depictions are that way, but the vast majority are.

I’ve been a pastor for 15 years. So for my entire ministry career I’ve realized that I do something that is definitely marginal in my society. So I expect to be the outsider that people don’t understand or have serious questions about — more than being a revered figure to society. It’s been a long time since that’s happened.

Maybe that’s why I use pop culture a bit. When someone’s coming in for the first time it helps break apart a stereotype. You can go too far with that. But part of any bridge building is making it clear from the beginning that you don’t fit the pattern of the worst images people are expecting of you.

Koinos Community Church is located at 801 Commerce Street in Sinking Spring, Pa. Sunday services are at 10 a.m. Information: koinoschurch.org