ABSTRACT
This introduction outlines the context of our postsecular cinema-saturated world. If an understanding of “cinema” is broadened to encompass all human-made moving-image forms (film, TV, Internet- or app-based video, Zoom meetings, GIFs, mobile phone recordings, CCTV, etc.) as viewed on a type of screen or projection (movie theater, television, computer, smartphone, tablet, etc.), then, as this chapter suggests, cinema has become the primary means of mediated human communication in our contemporary age, our global lingua franca. If this is the case, then theologians and philosophers need to be well-versed in how meaning can be conveyed through various audio-visual forms. I, thus, propose making a “cinematic turn” in constructive theology, what I call “theocinematics.” The films of Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne—known as the Dardenne brothers—will be the book's primary focus for demonstrating how films can do, not just depict, theology.
