Talk Explores Rise of African Christianity

Award-winning documentary filmmaker and author James Ault will show his latest film and lecture on “Toward a New Christianity: The Rise of African Christianity and Its World Significance,” Thursday, Feb. 8, at 3:30 p.m., in Founders Dining Room at Westmont.

The documentary was shot in Ghana, Zimbabwe, and among African immigrants in the United States. Charles Farhadian, Westmont assistant professor of religious studies, says the film and lecture will offer a glimpse into the unique worship and experiences of African Christians.

“African Christians represent a region with some of the most vigorous growth of Christianity today,” he says. “By seeing and hearing the worship and life of African Christians, we get a sense of how Christianity is understood in African terms, rather than in perspectives of Christians from the North Atlantic region.”

Ault graduated from Harvard University and earned his doctorate at Brandeis University. His first film, “Born Again: Life in a Fundamentalist Baptist Church,” won a Blue Ribbon at the American Film Festival and was broadcast as a national prime-time special on PBS and around the world. Ault wrote a book on the same topic, “Spirit and Flesh: Life in a Fundamentalist Baptist Church,” that was named one of the five best nonfiction of the year by The Christian Science Monitor and an Honor Book in Nonfiction by the Massachusetts Center for the Book.

Ault has produced documentary programs for the Lilly Endowment, the Pew Charitable Trusts and the Episcopal Church Foundation and taught sociology at Smith College and the University of California.

“Jim’s work lets the people themselves speak and act, rather than over-interpreting the work through a heavy dose of narration,” Farhadian says. “We wanted the lecture series to go beyond the typical lecture style that we have had in the past to engage the imagination and senses of the audience through the medium of film.”

The free public event is part of Westmont’s on going World Christianity Lecture Series which seeks to bring attention to the global presence of Christianity, particularly in the non-Western world.