“Rotoscoping” Faith – Brad Jersak

Please follow and like us:

On a recent getaway with friends to Hidden Valley, Arizona, Paul Crouser shared his reflections on my book, A More Christlike God: A More Beautiful Gospel. He introduced me to an unfamiliar word when he said, “It seems to me that you are ‘rotoscoping’ faith.” 

Do tell, Paul!

My friend explained in three stages: (1) What rotoscoping is, (2) how it was applied to Zapruder’s shaky 8mm footage of the JFK assassination, and (3) how we need to center Jesus’ Love amid the tumult of world circumstances and religious conceptions.

What is ‘Rotoscoping’?

Simply put, rotoscoping is defined as “a technique used in animation to trace images over live-action motion picture footage frame by frame.” Thus, rotoscoping can take real-life film and superimpose animation over each frame for effect. Real actors are filmed on real sets, but the animators meticulously paint images over each scene. Movie examples include “Waking Life,” “Through a Scanner Darkly,” and the oh-so-beautiful “Loving Vincent.” So far, so good. 

The Zapruder Footage

But rotoscoping was also used to good effect with Abraham Zapruder’s film footage of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. To begin with, Zapruder’s film was shaky, but all the more so when the sound of gunshots caused him to jump (along with his 8mm camera). In the original footage, that means that Kennedy would bounce around the screen. 

But some clever folks used rotoscoping, not to animate the Zapruder recording, but to center and steady the president on screen, one frame at a time. The result was that we could see a stable image of Kennedy even while the rest of the image might bounce and blur. By doing this, investigators claimed that the way Kennedy’s head snapped back proved that some of the shots fired could not have come from Lee Harvey Oswald’s perch in the Texas School Library Depository. Presented to the Warren Commission, it opened the door to other angles and theories,  such as the now-famous “grassy knoll” gunmen. 

Centering Our Focus on Jesus

So, what analogy was Paul drawing between rotoscoping, the Zapruder film, and the theology of A More Christlike God? He was specifically pondering the centrality of Jesus and his revelation that God is love. As I understand him, Paul saw that our world can become so erratic and violent, and our lives can become so shaken by trials that our ideas and conceptions of God get jostled into false images and misrepresentations. Jarring circumstances make it hard to keep Jesus in focus and divine love at the center of our gospel.

In the “faith-quakes” of our age, we need to rotoscope our faith. That is, with every “frame” of our lives, we need to locate Jesus at the center (yes, including his assassination on the Cross) and focus our trust on the immovable and unwavering love of God.

God’s Unflappable Love

What I’ve noticed is that when we do that—when we buy in fully to God’s unflappable love—our fears, our anger, and our cravings may initially get stirred up. But if we stay the course, our attachments to worry or resentment or lust are exposed by Love’s gaze. We come to see them as chains and become willing to let Love shake them off. Then comes freedom, not so much by battling them directly, but by fixing our eyes on the One who redeems us.  

To summarize, rotoscoping faith is a frame-by-frame refocusing on the face of Jesus Christ, who reveals the Love of God and stabilizes our gaze on him, even while the world at large or our lives in particular are in upheaval. 

We hope that our articles and resources bring comfort, hope, encouragement, and healing to our readers. If you’re experiencing that, please subscribe freely, share freely, and, if you’re able, consider donating freely toward paying it forward by clicking the blue giving button at the top of your screen.