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Stephen Ray, Spiritual Archaeologist
Article in the March/April 2004 St. Austin Review
By R. A. Benthall
AveMariaCollege
January 26, 2004
As Walker Percy says in Lost in the Cosmos, "If you're a big enough fool to climb a tree and like a cat refuse to come down, then someone who loves you has to make as big a fool of himself to rescue you." This wry one-liner captures a sense of man's strange predicament in the cosmos, as he finds himself surrounded by breathtaking beauty and unfathomable evil. According to Percy, the Judeo-Christian tradition offers both a diagnosis of man's problem, as well as a cure. The solution, however, has involved God's intervention in human history in very odd and unpredictable ways.
If God's primary purpose in dealing with man, as least in the short term, is to find the lost sheep, the fact remains that his mysterious interventions in history have, over time, left man with a bewildering record of sacred times and sacred places. This is especially true of the Christian tradition, which maintains to the world that God has chosen particular people in particular places at particular times, to convey messages (and sometimes more than messages) of universal and divine redemption. In trying to unravel the historical Christian narrative of how the lost sheep of humanity have been found, however, it is quite possible to begin feeling lost in the story itself. What we need is a tour guide to lead us through the complex web of holy places -- one who can show us not only where sacred events happened, but who can also help us to uncover how these places still convey profound meanings. What we need is a spiritual archeologist of holy places, both to guide us from site to site, and to help us excavate the meanings for ourselves.
Enter Catholic writer and evangelist Stephen Ray. Intrepidly dressed in archeological adventure-wear, and traveling under the name "Jerusalem Jones" -- after another well-known "Jones" from "Raiders of the Lost Ark" -- Ray has stepped forward as a most capable guide to help chart a course through the Holy Land, as well as through other outlying regions long held sacred by the Christian tradition, and to help us dig into what we find. In the spirit of the popular video series by Rick Steves, whose European video-tours delightfully demystify strange and out-of-the-way places, Steve Ray's ten-part video series "The Footprints of God" colorfully and energetically presents these holy sites for a popular Christian audience. The only difference between Rick Steves and Steve Ray (besides the uncanny echo of their names), is that whereas Rick Steves tends to demystify the sites he visits, Steve Ray both demystifies and re-mystifies, conveying a powerful sense of place in each of these sacred sites.
The organizing principle of these videos is that of picking out one or two main biographical figures in the Christian tradition, and then delving into the meaningful details of the regions in which they lived. These characters are mainly Scriptural, and include Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, Elijah, Elisha, Mary, Jesus, Peter, and Paul. In keeping with the historical spirit of his project, however, Ray also plans to trace the development of Christianity beyond the timeline of Scripture by examining the early Church Fathers who immediately succeeded the Apostles in the first two centuries, and whose ranks include Saints Clement, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, and Polycarp. As if for good measure, Ray has decided to go even one step further, and to examine the early Doctors of the Church, who lived during the first four centuries, and whose members include Saints Augustine, Athanasius, Chrysostom, and Ambrose.
Ray has completed four videos to date, on the figures of Moses, Mary, Jesus, and Peter. I shall speak more of these four videos in a moment. There are six videos yet to come. The video on "Abraham: Father of Faith and Works" will cover the life and environs of Abraham, and will also explore the foundational concepts of salvation, faith, and good works, upon which the Christian tradition is based. "David and Solomon: Expanding the Kingdom" will examine ways in which King David was able spiritually to unite the kingdom of Israel, as well as how this unified kingdom has traditionally served as a symbol for the unity of the visible Church of Christ. "Elijah and Elisha: Conscience of the Kingdom" will focus on how God historically continued to call the people of Israel to greater and greater holiness through the refining fire of the later prophets, whose intercession with Jehovah in many ways anticipates the intercessory prayers of Christian saints.
"Apostolic Fathers: Handing on the Faith" will examine the lives Saints Clement (Rome), Ignatius (Antioch, Smyrna, Rome), Justin Martyr (Nablus, Rome) and Polycarp (Smyrna). Thematic connections will include persecutions, matyrdoms, and the emergence of the Christian tradition. Ray will also focus on the linkage between God's sending of Jesus, Jesus' sending of the Apostles, and the Apostles' sending forth through their teaching of subsequent Church Fathers.
"Doctors of the Church: Defining the Faith" will cover St. Augustine (North Africa), St. Athanasius (Egypt), St. Chrysostom (Istanbul), and St. Ambrose (Milan). Ray will focus here on how the Apostolic Christian tradition gained momentum as the canon of Scripture was codified, and will explore the significant places where the early councils were held, in which basic Christian beliefs were clarified.
In the four videos Ray has already finished, the photography and camerawork is often stunning. Ray's editorial team has woven together a goodly amount of aerial footage of the places being discussed, and they have interspersed these panoramic views with multiple close-ups of regional plants, geography, geology, architecture, and artwork. All of these effects combine to produce a sense of place, in which their spiritual significance seems all the more poignant.
Ray is particularly adept at bringing to bear typological commentary on various sites, showing how the Christian understanding of the world grew out of the Jewish tradition that preceded it. Many of the places Ray visits disclose multiple geological layers of earth, stone, and architecture, providing the perfect context to show how the Christian faith itself contains compound layers of spiritual meaning, growing as it does from the common root of the Jewish faith. Ray's discussions continually invoke St. Augstine's saying that "the Old Testament is the New Testament concealed, and the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed."
In his video entitled "Moses: Signs, Sacraments & Salvation," for example, Ray climbs to the top of Mount Sinai, where he reflects on the earth-shaking implications of what transpired there between God and Moses. In particular, Ray meditates on how the austerity of this sacred place perfectly typifies an event that fundamentally altered man's relation to God. Descending from the heights, however, Ray goes on to visit the Greek Orthodox monastery of St. Catherine, located at the foot of Mount Sinai. The monastery was built in the sixth century on what is traditionally held to be the site of the Burning Bush, and Ray expounds on the Christian tradition of identifying the Blessed Virgin as the fulfillment of the Burning Bush, since she was herself set aflame with the fire of God's love in giving birth to Christ -- and yet she was not consumed.
In the second video completed to date, "Mary: The Mother of God," Ray visits some of the most sacred sites in Christendom, showing how their physical features still convey spiritual significance, not to mention mystery. Ray briefly visits and comments on Bethlehem's sixteen-hundred-year-old Church of the Nativity -- a site he will revisit at greater length in the video on Jesus Himself. Ray then journeys all the way to Ephesus, site of the church council by the same name, at which the Blessed Virgin was proclaimed by the Church to be the theotokos, or the "Mother of God." He also makes a stop at the Temple of Artemis, a site where pagans traditionally worshipped the virgin goddess of fertility. Ray briefly considers the modern notion held by some scholars that veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary simply arose out of this kind of goddess worship. Then, in his typically spirited fashion, he goes on to counter this view by voicing the traditional Christian belief that "Mary is the Mother of God, not God the Mother." These reflections are followed by a trip to the House of Mary in Ephesus, a site only recently re-discovered in 1891, where, according to one branch of Christian tradition, the Blessed Virgin is said to have spent her final days on earth. Ray also investigates the contrary tradition which holds that Mary spent her last days in Jerusalem. Ray's visit to the Church of the Dormition considers the long-held Catholic belief that, instead of dying, Mary simply fell into a mysterious "sleep," shortly after which her body was assumed in to heaven, in the same manner as Enoch and Elijah. In all of this, Ray simultaneously preserves a sense of excitement, reverence, and mystery that deepens one's interest, not only in the places themselves, but also in the spiritual meaning that seems to resonate from every brick and stone.
In "Jesus: The Word Became Flesh," Ray is faced with the daunting task of visiting and commenting on the major sites of Christ's life, along with their significance, and doing so within an hour. The sites visited include the Church of the Nativity (Bethlehem), the Cave of the Holy Family (Nazareth), Caesarea Philipi, the Pool of Siloam, the Home of Lazarus (Bethany), Bethphage, the Upper Room, the Garden of Gethsemenai, the Roman Steps of Gallicanti, and the the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. The last of these sites was built by the mother of Emperor Constantine in 330 A.D. to commemorate the hill of the crucifixion and the tomb of Christ's burial. Ray takes the viewer into a lower region of the Church, where he demonstrates how the shrine was built around the Rock of Calvary, on which Christ's cross is said to have stood. Ray then shows how pilgrims can reach down to touch the very rock over which Christ's blood was spilled. This powerful gesture drives home to the viewer that this holy place, like the others Ray visits, is emphatically real. As Ray points out more than once, one of the most powerful components of the Christian faith is its insistence on God's love of the material world, of the particular, of the concrete -- having Himself taken flesh once in the particular and bodily person of Jesus Christ.
This incarnational sense of the real and concrete as vehicles for God's grace is further illuminated in "Peter: Keeper of the Keys" which was actually the first video Ray filmed. One senses in this video a more experimental tone, as Ray was still working out his narrative approach and his persona as Jerusalem Jones. This experimental quality shows in a few instances where his enthusiasm seems to outpace his otherwise erudite archeological persona. There are also instances where I would like to see a bit more narrative continuity, as the brisk pace of Ray's expedition can sometimes move a bit too hurriedly. But, given the endlessly expansive subject matter of Ray's project, these hurdles are to be expected.
One of the most notable scenes in "Peter" is the segment where Ray takes the viewer to Caesarea Philippi, traditionally held to be the place where Christ re-named the humble fisherman Simon as "Peter," the "Rock" upon which His Church would be built. Standing atop the enormous rock cliff to which Christ may have alluded in making his point, Ray graphically demonstrates that the word "Rock," as Christ used it, must have signified something rooted, unmovable, and even gigantic. This usage, compared with the profile of Simon Peter as the simple fisherman whose feet would falter more than once, only foregrounds the mystery and paradox of divine grace, which the Christian faith has long treasured and transmitted. That God can and does do enormous things through small and unassuming people continues to be a most volatile and transformative doctrine. Moreover, Ray also shows how this particular rock also stands over a cave which was thought by first-century pagans to be a gateway to the underworld, and adjacent to which was built a temple for making sacrifices to the god Pan. Seen in this light, Christ's promise that "gates of hell shall not prevail" against the Church take on renewed meaning. Just as veneration to the Blessed Virgin transforms pagan fertility worship of goddess Artemis into the pure worship of Christ, so does Christ the good shepherd transform the Dionysian worship of Pan the shepherd-god into the gladness of following the Heavenly Good Shepherd, led by His shepherd on Earth, St. Peter, whom Christ commanded to "feed my sheep."
I spoke with Stephen Ray about the making of these films, in order to get some sense of the process involved in such a monumental undertaking. He indicated that there is a good deal more involved in making these films than merely strolling around the Holy Land with a camcorder. The videos on "Peter" and "Mary", for example, each took two-and-a-half weeks to shoot. The "Moses" and "Jesus" videos were filmed together, and took about six weeks total. The video on "Paul," Ray said, took five whole weeks, given the incredible distances St. Paul covered in his evangelistic travels.
As if this were not enough, each film requires an additional five weeks work -- at least a two-week scouting trip before shooting begins, and, after shooting, a three-week editorial visit to the production site in Arizona. Each film then takes an average of two months to produce, and sometimes more, depending on how well-traveled each particular figure was in his or her own lifetime.
Although the series has been intensely rewarding, said Ray, it has also been extremely challenging. In filming the most recent series on St. Paul, for example, Ray and his team arrived in Damascus on March 20, 2003 just as bombs began falling on Iraq, which gave the whole project a quasi-apocalyptic air, at least for the moment. He was thrown off a horse in filming one of the shoots, but he escaped unharmed. Ray also said that the series has taken its toll on his family. His daughter Charlotte, in particular, has found it difficult to spend so much time separated from her father. Ray said, however, that the children now seem to understand the spiritual importance of their father's work. "It's my prayer," Ray said, "that the Lord will compensate the kids spiritually for my absence during the filming."
Ray also said this wife Janet had been veritable wellspring of comfort and support during the project, and she appears several times in the special edition DVD of the series. In one particularly touching piece, the couple sits together and talks over their adventure in making these first videos, sharing with one another and with the viewer which moments they found most illuminating, both as individuals, and as a team of husband and wife. Ray said he has taken special care to spend extra time with his wife, and with their children in the months when they are not filming. The formula seems to be working, and viewers owe a debt of gratitude not only Stephen Ray, but to the entire Ray family for making these groundbreaking videos possible.
Ray's next video, entitled "Paul: Contending for the Faith," is due for imminent release. In this installment, Ray traverses the vast geography of the ancient Roman Empire, following in the footsteps of St. Paul (which were many), whose own seeking of lost sheep took him far and wide into varied regions and cultures, both Jewish and gentile. Meanwhile, if many of us find ourselves a little less lost in the maze of salvation history, we will have Stephen Ray to thank.