Holy Dung: Comic Signs of Consubstantiality in Martin Luther Films

Terry Lindvall,Morgan Stroyeck

doi:10.3390/rel7030020

Abstract

One problem with the religious sub-genre of Hagiographic films is that they frequently romanticize, sentimentalize, or idealize the lives of saints. Our purpose is to excavate three major film biopics on the life of Protestant reformer Martin Luther and demonstrate where the use of excremental humor humanizes him. Such coarse embodied humor invites a consubstantial identity of a holy man with his secular audience. Where laughter is present, saints are not elevated to being “more spiritual than God.” The use of excremental humor gives weight, or the gravity of earth, to the transcendent, bringing the holy down into the everyday. We argue that it is the comedy in the life of Luther that makes him more authentic, showing how film can communicate the presence of God in earthen vessels.

Highlights

One problem with the religious sub-genre of Hagiographic films is that they frequently romanticize, sentimentalize, or idealize the lives of saints
What aspects of Luther come through the films that invite a common experience? We investigate three films to discern how film can give us an experience that is theologically orthodox, in their use of humor and laughter
Though Till’s film hits a few flat notes, one can see Luther’s personality in fits and starts, and the overarching message of religious freedom will, one hopes, draw its viewers into a discussion of where religious liberty and modern Christian practices stand in the ever-changing world—though, we argue, a little laughter could smooth and quicken such a conversation, and ensure that we do not forget our God-given corporeality as we strive towards a more fulfilling, consubstantial spirituality

Summary

Introduction

At the end of director Roberto Rosselini’s classic The Flowers of St. Francis (1950), the saint dismisses the little brothers to follow their calling. Celluloid images of saints seek to elicit responses of piety and awe of these chosen ones who rise above their stations in life Few of these images give ordinary people the taste of holiness, and the reason for this is that they do not give us the sensory experience of being fully human. Except for the orthodox Christian standpoint regarding the life of Jesus in the first century, one has not seen God in the flesh; yet our language remains partly figurative and partly On his faux news show on Comedy Central, erstwhile Roman Catholic prophet and pundit Stephen Colbert still speaks truth with his Kierkegaardian ironic voices. We would argue that Pieter Bruegel offers an early exemplar of this comic theology (see [6] and [7])

The Human Luther

Conclusions