"Cinema, Culture and Faith"
Chip Duncan
Sunday, January 18th 2004

Martin Luther King had a dream that African American people would one day achieve equal status with all Americans. But perhaps more than that, he also had a dream that equality would lead to peace and to justice. In my own limited world view, I'd say we have a long way to go. I'd also say that I think organized religion and faith can play a key role in our ability to achieve the great goals of Dr. King. As we look at America today, we need to be keenly aware that bigotry and prejudice destroy our efforts to make peace. That's true when we profile people getting on airplanes. It's true when we make value judgments about religious and cultural practices we may not agree with or comprehend.

My own small role in this great human epic is a simple one. I'm a writer and a documentary filmmaker. What distinguishes my work is a commitment to creating television media around subjects of history, social justice and spirituality.

As part of my work, I've had the privilege to film in more than thirty countries around the world on projects as diverse as PBS biographies on CS Lewis and Norman Vincent Peale, a 13 part series on spiritual places of the world for Discovery Networks, and, most recently, a PBS special that chronicles the ways in which the leading world religions view a woman's right to choose contraception and abortion.

Am I an expert in anything? Probably not. But I do have a broad experience in immersing myself in different faiths and cultures. In part, my passion for doing spiritual work comes from curiosity. In part, it's based on the incredible cinematic opportunity that ritual and faith provide. People performing rituals … including those you share in this congregation …are visually interesting. In television, that counts. Whether it's a whirling dervish or a dancing eunuch, a cremation ceremony on the river Ganges, or a Teschu festival in Bhutan, pictures of people practicing their faith are compelling. There is, in my opinion, nothing that shows more passion than people in prayer.

But perhaps most of all, I have been driven to do the work I do based on my own spiritual quest. In virtually every country in which I've filmed, something special has happened that has brought me closer to God. But it didn't start out that way.

This church has a slogan which, badly paraphrased, says you'll take people wherever they are on their path. Well, that would be me. Am I a devout Christian? Not quite. A Hindu? No. Buddhist? Not even close. But do I believe in God? Yes. With knowing and with passion.

In 1994, I began production of a television series called Mystic Lands for The Learning Channel. Our goal was to document holy sites around the world and the religious practices that take place there. Somehow, in less than three years, we managed to produce shows on places as diverse as Bali, Bhutan, India, Peru, Greece, Jerusalem and Haiti.

I started the series as a skeptic. I had no faith … and no clear knowing that God existed. But my curiosity drove me to be open minded and to participate as much as possible. So when the camera wasn't rolling, I was still engaged. Here's a good example. Early in the production, one of our producers and I were flying to Peru to document Machu Picchu and the sacred valley . On the flight down, she informed me that in addition to our guide, she'd hired a shaman to join us. A shaman? What the heck's a shaman? The shaman turned out to be a man named Victor Estrada from Cuzco. Victor spoke very little English and my Spanish is at about a 6th grade level. Within a few minutes I'd asked Victor in Spanish …so, you're a shaman? In English, Victor responded, "No, I'm a student." Both my judgments and my expectations went out the window. It turns out that Victor considers himself a Catholic and, based on his own Andean family traditions and years of study, he is also one of South America's most well known traditional healers. I'm also happy to call him a friend.

In Peru, I participated in several healing sessions with Victor and our crew. It was fascinating…but at the time, I didn't feel it brought me any closer to God. I went on to film extensively in the native communities of the American southwest. I spent time on the isle of Patmos in Greece at the Cave of the Revelation and mythical sites such as Delphi, Mount Olympus and Corinth. I spent several weeks in the Buddhist Kingdom of Bhutan visiting monasteries and photographing various ritual practices. I spent time at the Taj Mahal and the ghost city of Fatehpur Sikri.

And then came Varanasi, India. Whew. Varanasi. There is, literally, no other place like it on earth. For more than 3000 years the Hindu faithful have come to Varanasi to worship, to study, and to cremate their dead. Everything in Varanasi is in some way tied to the Hindu belief in God. And it was in Varanasi that I began to get a "feeling" for God. As I walked along the stone steps that line the river's edge, I began to feel an energy … a sense that everything did not begin and end in my own head…but that I was just a part of some greater force. Still, I left Varanasi with great pictures and cinematic stories to tell … but without a firm belief in God.

Within a couple of months I was in central Burma. Burma … which is also now known as Myanmar, is situated west of Thailand. It's a very reclusive nation and a dictatorship that has been extremely brutal to its people. Our goal was to document the practice of Theravada Buddhism. We filmed extensively in Rangoon and Mandalay … but it was in the ancient ruins of Bagan that I had what I would call a life changing experience.

It was very hot … like 100 degrees and humid. I was as far from home as I could get. My life was, in a somewhat classic way, in the dumpster. I was going through a divorce and had been living out of a backpack for almost two years. Other than taking pictures, not much was working.

I was filming in one of the few intact temples in Bagan …the Sulamani Temple, down a very long corridor. At the end of the corridor, there was a very petite young woman kneeling in the prayer position and facing a huge golden statue of Buddha. Her face registered incredible pain. She had tears streaming down her face. And yet she was completely focused in her faith. I stopped filming and sat against a wall and watched her…and as I watched her, I began to understand that her pain and my pain were the same thing. She was praying to an icon - the only thing she knew how to pray to. A stone statue of a man who openly professed that he was ONLY a man. Buddha. Yet to her, Buddha was a God. A God that represented healing. And she was asking for help.

Anyway, the light bulbs started going off for me. What's the first tenet of Buddhism? Life is Suffering. I'd always thought that was an odd tenet … life is suffering. In fact, until that minute in that temple in one of the most remote parts of the world, I'd not understood it. Life is suffering. What it means, is that suffering is the only thing we can count on. Suffering will happen to all of us. Loss will happen to all of us. We can count on it. But knowing that, understanding that, and appealing to God and asking for guidance and help through the suffering, that is universal. Asking God for help happens in all faiths … everywhere on the planet.

Somewhere in that experience, I had my own epiphany. I began to feel and know God. And from that experience until now, as my journey has continued, my knowing of God and passion for God has been the most beautiful, blessed and balancing force in my life. God helped me through my divorce. God helped me through the recent death of my father. God has helped me to go into cultures around the world with an open mind and a sensitivity toward those who live there. God has helped me to understand the ways in which culture, poverty, history, and politics often define a people and their beliefs. And God has helped me today.

Before I conclude, I'd like to mention that I've also worked in Haiti. No place on earth is more desperately in need of your help and your prayers than Haiti. In working in Haiti, I spent considerable time photographing Vodou ceremonies and learning more about the history and practice of Vodou. It is a spiritual practice that's very hard for most westerners to understand. The influences of poverty and ancestral history in the practice of Vodou are dramatic and complex. Haiti, today, is a place where 98% of the nation's wealth is in 2% of the hands. Haiti suffers from unemployment that ranges between 60 to 80%. Officially, Haiti is about 80% Catholic. And the locals have told me that it is also about 100% Vodou. It's a complicated, desperate place that needs your help.

After the production of Mystic Lands, I continued my work in spiritual filmmaking with two recent documentaries. Most notably, I had the great pleasure of doing a PBS special on CS Lewis called The Magic Never Ends - The Life & Work of CS Lewis which is available here at your church. I also wrote a biography on Lewis that was published in 2001 by Word Publishing. People often ask me whether Lewis and his writings brought me closer to an understanding of and belief in Christianity. The answer is clearly yes. Because of my work on Lewis, I've become much more immersed in the arguments he made in Mere Christianity. He's a pretty convincing guy. Frankly, I'm at a place in my own spiritual path that I would compare to that of Lewis during his time at Oxford with JRR Tolkien in 1932. My work until now has been part of my path. So far, that path has brought me to God. And I know I'm not yet at the end.

I'd like to conclude by reading a passage from my chronicle of the Mystic Lands series, a book called Sacred Places, Sacred Life. This is the final few paragraphs of the book. In a way, this is my own dream for peace, my own dream that religion can play a role in healing our world and uniting us in our belief in God:

I've been surrounded by Christianity for most of my life. I can't deny its appeal; yet I've also been unable to understand the limits many Christians place on their world view. The core of Christianity, the fundamental moral principles that guide Christian thought make sense to me. The search for enlightenment through the practice of our own good deeds as put forth by Buddha makes sense to me. An Inca farmer thanking his Gods for rainfall and sunshine makes sense to me. Virtually every religion in the world has God, goodness and morality at its center.