Why do documentary film crews so often record their subjects getting up in the morning? It seems like the most awkward wake-up call imaginable.
Among the seven protagonists of The Calling, a two-part PBS documentary premiering tonight, we get a rare chance to compare and contrast the ways that young religious leaders from the three “Abrahamic” faiths make their breakfast and brush their teeth. I guess they want to show these aspiring Jewish, Christian, and Muslim clergy starting their days Just Like Us, but I don’t know if they succeed. My first thought upon waking is rarely “Hello, America.”
Nevertheless, this four-hour documentary is tightly structured and pretty engaging. The Calling manages to stitch together simultaneous coming-of-age stories from a Catholic priest, two Modern Orthodox rabbis, two Muslim chaplains, a Presbyterian youth minister, and an African Methodist Episcopal (AME) pastor. (We never see them meet, let alone walk into a bar together. Alas.) The four directors (one each for the Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, and Muslim portions) spent about a year with their subjects, giving us a clear sense of each personality and inviting us to empathize with their struggles and rejoice in their victories.
So how do you measure a year in the life of young monotheists? In yeshiva classes, in ordinations, in Arabic lessons, in unsolicited post-sermon critiques by middle-aged congregants? The Calling chooses to focus on relationships, showing us how its seven subjects balance their calling with the demands of family, community, and the wider culture.
Finding balance
One of the biggest challenges for these young men and women is finding the balance between calling and family. The film parallels the journeys of Jeneen, an AME deacon, and Yerachmiel, a rabbi—two brand-new ministers in search of congregations to lead. Both need a place to accommodate their unique family needs. Jeneen, the single mom of a very young son, Malcolm, has trouble finding a church which can pay her enough to support Malcolm, so she can fully serve both her son and her ministry. After a succession of closed doors, Jeneen is a little disillusioned but still determined: “I should leave,” she says. “But I’m called.”
Meanwhile, as Yerachmiel transitions from young student to married rabbi (“There’s still a part of me that just wants to party”), he must find a synagogue that will accommodate his life as a full-time dad after his wife, Helene, gives birth; she wants to continue her quest for a dental career. Some prestigious opportunities slip by, but he settles eagerly into a declining congregation in New Jersey. ‘”We have no members, we have no money, we have nothing,” one of the congregants tells him. “What on earth did you see in this synagogue?”
Some challenges are more unique than others. The Calling opens with Rob, a Presbyterian youth minister, rapping to young offenders in a juvenile correction facility. A Samoan serving a mostly white congregation, Rob impresses his grad school professor at Azusa Pacific University with his ability to interpret the gospel in a fresh context: “When I heard you rapping, I thought you were doing what Jesus did,” she tells him. “We have placed God in a Western, white box.”
Rob seems perfectly comfortable living between his two cultures—until they crash into one another. When his father dies in Samoa, Rob automatically becomes chief of his tribe back home. While the senior pastor does his best to understand Rob’s new responsibilities, Rob must decide what’s best for both his people and his ministry.
It’s worth noting that none of the core participants in The Calling are white Christians. For such an ambitious documentary on religion in the U.S., this seems intentional. The film wants its Western, white viewers to follow Rob out of the box.
Calling and community
The film’s well-drawn Islamic protagonists draw us out even further. Tahera and Bilal, students in Hartford Seminary’s Islamic chaplaincy program, struggle to work out the relationship between calling and community. It’s hard not to empathize with Tahera early on; in three consecutive scenes, she has a tense argument with a student from a class she’s trying to teach, gets blown off by a group of teen Muslim girls for whom she scheduled an activity, and hears her academic advisor say that sometimes failure is a part of Allah’s plan.
Spending time in Egypt, one of the intellectual centers of her faith, seems to help her get a firmer grip on things. Bilal, meanwhile, fights workplace discrimination in the Muslim prison chaplaincy system after security overreacts to a file on his computer which includes the words “jihad” and “terror.” (He was actually trying to explain why terror is not a valid part of Islam.) “I’ve always assumed that I would be working for their community and that the community would recognize that and be a support,” Bilal said. “Never happened.” Bilal, too, has family issues—he attributes the breakup of his marriage to an excessive focus on his job.
The young clergy also try to work out the relationship between their calling and the wider culture. The remaining two protagonists, activist rabbi Shmuly and Catholic seminarian Stephen, have their own unique challenges in this regard. Their stories are shorter, both confined to Part II of the series (which drops Tahera). Stephen struggles with preaching in Spanish, while Shmuly runs an Orthodox Jewish social justice organization called Uri L’Tzedek. But Shmuly and especially Stephen, while nice enough people, seem to be in the documentary more to fill out the quotas than anything else. Even with four hours to tell its seven stories, The Calling seems overcrowded at times.
Still, clergy of all faiths can probably find something to identify with in each of the stories. The Calling has little interest in theology or doctrinal issues (though seminary class discussions sometimes seem conveniently to parallel what’s going on in the subjects’ lives). Instead, producer Danny Alpert and his team of directors subtly highlight commonalities between the very human struggles and dreams and experiences of their seven subjects. It’s a subtle message, but it may be a vital clue to surviving the new century: that we may not hold to the same beliefs, but we all have to wake up in the morning.
Trevor Persaud is CT’s editorial resident.
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