{"id":589,"date":"2008-09-29T08:57:19","date_gmt":"2008-09-29T16:57:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/poptheology\/?p=589"},"modified":"2008-09-29T08:57:19","modified_gmt":"2008-09-29T16:57:19","slug":"shock-me-shock-me-shock-me-with-that-deviant-behavior","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/poptheology\/2008\/09\/shock-me-shock-me-shock-me-with-that-deviant-behavior\/","title":{"rendered":"Shock me, shock me, shock me with that deviant behavior"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Over the next year, I will be co-directing the sociology of religion movie night along with Pop Theology contributor Wendy Arce under the supervision of Jerome Baggett<\/a>, Dean of the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley.\u00a0 A monthly film screening that started over a year ago, the series features documentaries about religious subject matter, as Jerome argues that, and I agree, we are experiencing a heyday of religious documentaries.\u00a0 This year, while we have convinced Jerome to include narrative films, we began with another documentary, The Devil\u2019s Playground<\/em><\/a> (2002).<\/p>\n

Directed by Lucy Walker<\/a>, this documentary focuses on the Amish tradition of rumspringa<\/a>.\u00a0 At the age of 16, Amish teenagers have the freedom to leave or remain in the church.\u00a0 During their rumspringa, they can engage in all forms of prohibited behavior like drinking, taking drugs, dressing \u201cEnglish\u201d (non-Amish), driving a car, living on their own, etc.\u00a0 They will engage in this behavior for any length of time ranging from a few months to a few years until they make their final decision.\u00a0 Amish elders claim that this is a source of accountability for Amish teenagers:\u00a0 how can they choose to follow Christ\u2013to remain in the church\u2013if they have no experience of the alternatives?\u00a0 While some teenagers choose to remain outside the church, most (around 90%) return\u2013signalling an incredibly high retention rate.\u00a0 However, a small number of those who choose to be baptized will later leave the church.\u00a0 They will be forever shunned by their family and the community, what the elders regard as their final act of love toward that person.<\/p>\n

Walker\u2019s film is a fascinating study of the tension between religious communities and the broader culture.\u00a0 It reveals a religious community that, surprisingly, does not hold to a series of counter-cultural absolutes, as might be expected, but rather finds itself engaged in a process of negotiation.\u00a0 While they abstain from most \u201cmodern fruits,\u201d they do not absolutely reject technology.\u00a0 Walker shows images of Amish on ten-speed bikes, using mechanical lawn equipment, and working at factories with machinery.\u00a0 In two places during the film, an elder says that this negotiation takes into account the effect a \u201cmaterial decision\u201d will have on the family.\u00a0 What negative effects would a gas-powered lawn mower have on the family?\u00a0 A car?\u00a0 A television?<\/p>\n

In the film, Walker follows Faron Yoder and Velda Bontrager, two Amish teenagers who have decided to remain outside the church.\u00a0 Faron leaps into rumspringa with both feet, drinking and doing drugs every night, even developing an addiction to meth.\u00a0 Velda\u2019s experience, while not nearly as wild as Faron\u2019s, temporarily takes her back to the church.\u00a0 However, after a short time, she realizes church is not for her:\u00a0 she leaves and is shunned.<\/p>\n

Walker also gives occasional glances to other Amish teenagers whose experiences and responses vary from wild partying to quick returns to the church.\u00a0 During their rumspringa, many teenagers often experience a crisis of faith, because of their belief that salvation cannot be found outside the Amish faith.\u00a0 As they plunge ever further into the evils of this world, their assurance of salvation begins to erode.\u00a0 As I watched the film, I was mindful of my conservative Southern Baptist upbringing and how similar its views of the world were to the Amish.\u00a0 We were consistently told to be in the world, but not of the world.\u00a0 Like the Amish, drinking was forbidden as was drug use and pre-marital sex.\u00a0 Yet unlike the Amish, we had televisions, new clothes, cars, and tickets to movies and concerts.\u00a0 Yet I am mindful that the Amish would have, in a way, looked down on such an existence, even if we could have claimed some level of spiritual devotion or purity or deep abiding faith.\u00a0 The fact of the matter is that our \u201celders\u201d would have never<\/em> justified such behavior, let alone institutionalized it.\u00a0 Living so closely to the world as people of faith, we did make choices every day regarding our faith.\u00a0 Whether these choices were \u201cgood\u201d or \u201cbad\u201d is certainly open for discussion.\u00a0 In the end, I found it hard to admire the Amish decision to abstain from the wider culture, because, for any length of time for teenagers, they institutionalize and justify the very \u201cevil\u201d from which they choose to abstain.<\/p>\n

After the screening, we had a time for open discussion.\u00a0 For a film like this, all we had to do was open the floor to an audience eager to react.\u00a0 One of the thoughts that Jerome raised struck me as rather interesting.\u00a0 Given the Amish teenagers\u2019 choices to dress and act \u201cEnglish\u201d (non-Amish) during rumspringa what does it say about us as a wider culture if this is what being \u201cEnglish\u201d looks like to them?\u00a0 One teenager talked about her wild lifestyle:\u00a0 \u201cI drank, partied, went to a Baptist church<\/em>\u201d (emphasis mine).\u00a0 Do they see anything redeeming about the outside world or is it simply a party every night, flashy clothes, and 200 television stations?\u00a0 Are our communities of faith bankrupt because we drive cars and watch The Office<\/em>?<\/p>\n

As the film progressed, I felt sad for some of the teenagers represented in the film.\u00a0 It seems as if the deck is stacked against them throughout their rumspringa.\u00a0 The \u201cEnglish\u201d life that many of them encounter in the film is the furthest thing from real life that I have experienced.\u00a0 I thought of these kids having to navigate health insurance, employment, tax returns, and the list goes on.\u00a0 I was mindful of the film Juno<\/em><\/a>, and the title character\u2019s response to her child\u2019s future adoptive parents, \u201cDude\u2026I\u2019m ill equipped.\u201d\u00a0 Compound this with the threat that if they leave the church they can never have contact with their families again, and you have an unfair situation at best.<\/p>\n

Walker\u2019s film is a good, initial look into an interesting tradition.\u00a0 It would have benefited from one or two other Amish teenager responses as well as community reactions to teenagers on rumspringa.\u00a0 What do members of the community think about the massive parties?\u00a0 How do law enforcement react?\u00a0 What is the Amish community\u2019s relationship to other communities of faith?\u00a0 Nevertheless, The Devil\u2019s Playground<\/em> is a great film to start conversation and dialogue about the relationship between religion and culture and how we negotiate our morality throughout various life experiences.<\/p>\n

The Devil\u2019s Playground <\/em>(77 mins.) is available on DVD and is not rated.\u00a0 It does contain adult language and scenes of drug and alcohol use.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the next year, I will be co-directing the sociology of religion movie night along with Pop Theology contributor Wendy Arce under the supervision of Jerome Baggett, Dean of the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley.\u00a0 A monthly film screening that started over a year ago, the series features documentaries about religious subject matter, as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":288,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film"],"yoast_head":"\nShock me, shock me, shock me with that deviant behavior<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Over the next year, I will be co-directing the sociology of religion movie night along with Pop Theology contributor Wendy Arce under the supervision of\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/poptheology\/2008\/09\/shock-me-shock-me-shock-me-with-that-deviant-behavior\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Shock me, shock me, shock me with that deviant behavior\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Over the next year, I will be co-directing the sociology of religion movie night along with Pop Theology contributor Wendy Arce under the supervision of\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/poptheology\/2008\/09\/shock-me-shock-me-shock-me-with-that-deviant-behavior\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Pop Theology\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2008-09-29T16:57:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs\/poptheology\/files\/2008\/09\/playground1-209x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"J. 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