Huies Predigt

If my local congregation was anything like this I might actually attend (this is as far removed as possible from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland). Once again Herzog zooms in on a long uninterrupted performance happening in a distinct social & cultural context. The fact that he refrains from elaborating on that context frames the whole thing as distanced & almost abstract. The effect is as forced as it is forceful, as numbing as it is transfixing & as far-fetched as it is illuminating.

Like "How Much Wood Would A Woodchuck Chuck", this is an example of Herzog finding poetry in something that others wouldn't. It's quite difficult to watch in its entirety and although there's a genuine fervour and an interesting performative element to it, I just found it draining to observe as an outsider looking in. It's interesting that he chose to contextualise it by panning over the surrounding poverty - maybe suggesting a link between material insecurity and really losing yourself here.

Rogers' ability to ad lib his way through forty minutes of kinetic, emphatic, rhythmic preaching is remarkable. But what's striking is how shallow and nonsensical the words become, like a child trying to make up a story on the spot. And the crowd becomes increasingly energized. I guess deep spiritual insight is no match for charismatic showmanship. This is a very slight work, but in its absence of explanation or context stems a strangely poignant comment on American Christian worship.

The content doesn't matter if the pitch and rhythm move you

The film consists almost entirely of Huie Rogers preaching to his mass. And while his performance is no doubt an act of impressive endurance and rhetoric, one feels that little divides his ranting from more legitimate religious and spiritual declarations. While there are moments of immersion for the viewer, Herzog does not quite manage to capture for the viewer the collective evanescence of this moment that his loyal followers in attendance revel in.

"I don't think so, because he's the one saying the CIA tactics remind him of Nazi Germany." http://illusionpodcast.blogspot.com/2015/10/episode-76-nonfiction-from-werner.html

That looks like a fun time!

Huie's sermon (the sermon shown in the film) is surely a dazzling display of raw energy, great entertainment, musical virtuosity and verbal artistry; and it's also a paradigm of mass hypnosis, mental submission, incitement of bigotry and narrow-mindedness. Rev Huie and congregation do sum up religion in their own colorful way: a pillar of communal togetherness, an inspiration, also a stupid superstition, a rallying point for mindless mobs, brainwashing for the gullible, an opiate of the masses.