The Masses is a short film that follows three seemingly divergent stories through the daily rituals of three men. It portrays the three South London neighbors’ devotion to their respective religions: Islam, Christianity and Football. By choosing these three men in particular, the filmmaker asks us to consider our assumptions about our neighbors, strangers, and ourselves.

This guide is an invitation to dialogue. It is based on a belief in the power of human connection and designed for people who want to use The Masses to engage family, friends, classmates, colleagues, and communities. Conversations that center identity, diversity, and religion can be difficult to begin and facilitate, but this guide is meant to support you in beginning and deepening those efforts.

In contrast to initiatives that foster debates - in which participants try to convince others that they are right - this document envisions conversations undertaken in a spirit of openness in which people listen actively and share divergent viewpoints with care and respect.

This discussion guide is meant to inspire people with varying degrees of knowledge about these topics to enter the conversation, and hopefully stay in the conversation, in order to better understand their own identity and the world in which we live.

The discussion prompts are intentionally crafted to help a wide range of audiences think more deeply about the topics in the film. Rather than attempting to address them all, you can choose one or two that best meet your needs and interests. Specifically, you could consider each section (there are three) as stand-alone meeting topics, although they can also be undertaken in one longer session.

Finally, be sure to leave time to consider taking action - in whatever way these conversations inspire movement in your own communities. Planning next steps for practical engagement can help people leave the room feeling energized and optimistic, even in instances when conversations have been difficult and/or uncomfortable.

KEY ISSUES:Religion, pluralism, coexistence, difference, fundamentalism, diversity, race, socio-economic status

Starting the Conversation

Immediately after the film, take a few quiet moments to reflect on what you have seen and the emotions that may have arisen. If viewing in a group, give people some time to jot down a few observations before opening the discussion:

Prompt One: Reflections on the film

• Why would the filmmaker choose these three particular stories?
• What makes up “religious practice” for each of the three men?
• What do they appear to have faith in?
• How are they related? How are they different?

Prompt Two: Self-reflection

• Do you see yourself in any of the stories?

Think about how the filmmaker walks us through the mens’ days:

• What sets a rhythm to your days?
• What provides you with meaning?
• What constitutes a ‘religion’ for you? This can include rituals/habits, spiritual practices, or any source from which you derive ‘faith.’

Religion in Daily Life

Sociologist and Theologian, Peter Berger (1929-2017), argued that rather than being removed from everyday life, religion is founded on experiences of the transcendent in day-to-day life (much like the film suggests). The “transcendent” are moments where you feel the “something more” to life; when something reaches beyond or above the range of normal or merely physical human experience - people often talk about these moments existing in experiences of love, connection, or understanding.

Alongside the focus on finding these moments in the “ordinary,” Berger wanted people to realize how their assumptions about what is “natural” actually masks human-created structures, identities, and relationships. When we ignore the role we all play in creating our social and even religious position, he argues, we end up denying ourselves our inherent power to create and change our world. Berger believed assuming things are “just the way they are” is at the root of all alienation - it is the way that we become strangers to one another even when we live around the corner.

Consider this excerpt from one of his most famous works, The Sacred Canopy (1967):

“Socialized identity as a whole can then be apprehended by the individual as something sacred, grounded in the ‘nature of things’ as created or willed by the gods...The essence of all alienation is the imposition of a fictitious inexorability upon the humanly constructed world. The most important practical consequence of this is that empirical history and biography are falsely apprehended as grounded in supra-empirical necessities. The innumerable contingencies of human existence are transformed into inevitable manifestations of universal law. Activity becomes process. Choices become destiny. Men then live in the world they themselves have made as if they were fated to do so by powers that are quite independent of their own world-constructing enterprises...Thus men produce their gods even while they apprehend themselves as ‘totally dependent’ upon these their products” (Google-ebook, 2011).

• Do you agree with Berger?
  • What do you consider “natural” and what do you consider “man-made”?
  • Do we recognize how much power we have in creating our social, political, and even religious position? (Or, how much power do you think we really have in these matters?)
  • Is religion a choice, as Berger suggests, or is it ‘fate’?
  • Do we create our own gods?
• Do you see the people in the film truly living together despite their geographic proximity?
  • Do you think they are friends in their neighborhood?
  • What ties them together? What keeps them apart?
  • Do you view their differences as natural, or as created (in Berger’s language)?

The Problem of Pluralism

“Pluralism” is the most frequently used word to describe the community our film presents. Pluralism, while having many definitions, is at its root the capacity for a group/town/nation to hold many, and even divergent, truths at the same time. It is, most basically, the proposition of coexistence.

• What is your evaluation of pluralism? Is it possible?
• When is a time you have seen people cross seemingly uncrossable divides?
• A leader in this field, the late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, tried to get people to focus on difference rather than sameness - that while there may be true universals, our relatedness is most alive in our particular, and very real, differences. Sacks did not think this was a problem, however, he actually envisioned this recognition as the only way forward in our global existence.

Consider this excerpt from his most famous book, The Dignity of Difference (2002):

“Universalism is an inadequate response to tribalism, and no less dangerous. It leads to the belief - superficially compelling but quite false - that there is only one truth about the essentials of the human condition, and it holds true for all people at all times. If I am right, you are wrong. If what I believe is the truth, then your belief, which differs from mine, must be an error from which you must be converted, cured and saved… The universality of moral concern is not something we learn by being universal but by being particular. Because we know what it is to be a parent, loving our children, not children in general, we understand what it is for someone else, somewhere else, to be a parent, loving his or her children, not ours. There is no road to human solidarity that does not begin with moral particularity - by coming to know what it means to be a child, a parent, a neighbour, a friend. We learn to love humanity by loving specific human beings. There is no short-cut” (50, 58).

• Do you agree with Sacks?
• How might this “dignity of difference” be made real?
• How does this relate to the film?

For more exploration of pluralism, consider the work of Keith Ward and Kwame Anthony Appiah.

Jonathan Sacks. The Dignity of Difference: How to Avoid the Clash of Civilizations(Continuum, 2nd edition, 2003).

Keith Ward. Religion in the Modern World: Celebrating Pluralism and Diversity(Cambridge University Press, 2019).

Krista Tippett. On Being: Remembering Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks (November 11, 2010; re-aired November 12, 2020): https://onbeing.org/programs/remembering-rabbi-lord-jonathan-sacks/

Kwame Anthony Appiah. Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers(WW Norton, 2007).

Peter Berger. The Sacred Canopy: Elements of a Sociological Theory of Religion(Kindle edition, 2011; original 1967).

About the Author

Stephanie C. Edwards
Stephanie C. Edwards is the Executive Director of the Boston Theological Interreligious Consortium and a lecturer at Boston College and the University of Southern Maine. She holds a PhD in Theological Ethics from Boston College (2019), where her interdisciplinary research focused on the ties between Christian theology, bioethics, and trauma; particularly in the case of pharmaceutical memory modification. Stephanie's interest in such work has its roots in her "other" career as a social worker (MTS/MSW, Boston University 2011), wherein she has practiced diverse service delivery, grant writing, and non-profit management for nearly a decade. She lives in Biddeford, Maine with her husband and rescue dog, EmmyLou.

Discussion Guide Producer, POV

Courtney Cook, Education Manager

This resource was created, in part, with the generous support of the Open Society Foundation.