MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

This presentation analyzes Christian concert films to address how they evoke numinous and worship experiences, so that we can better understand how mass media shape religious belief. Concert films do not merely document a performance; they simulate an experience. They try to re-locate the viewer from an observer detached from the event by space and time, to an active participant in an event long since ended. The experience of a Christian concert is unique: it blurs the line between entertainment and worship. Like in other performances, audiences expect Christian concerts to entertain and facilitate an experience. Unlike other performances, though, Christian concerts are expected to facilitating worship. Christian concerts evoke numinous experiences by creating environments where concert-goers attempt to commune with a “wholly other.” They merge a hedonic, pleasure-seeking gratification through entertainment, with a eudaimonic, truth-seeking gratification through worship. Christian concert films raise some important questions. How do concert movies evoke worship and numinous experiences? How are worship experiences manufactured via film? What does it mean when worship and numinous experiences are recorded and packaged for later, detached viewing? How do Christian concert films challenge and re-shape religious worship and belief? This presentation analyzes the 2012 concert film Live in Miami by Christian praise and worship band Hillsong United. It will focus on the film’s content—including lyrics, visual composition, directing and editing choices—to help us understand how the film not only simulates the concert-going experience, but also evokes a numinous experience. In so doing, the presentation will address how religious worship and numinous experiences are manufactured and re-created through mass media.