Post: Tim Hall, Ph.D., Executive Director, Religion Matters
Sitting in an IMAX theater, Jerusalem feels overwhelming. Ancient stone stretches across the screen. Calls to prayer echo over crowded streets. Pilgrims press through narrow passageways worn down over centuries. The city appears layered, sacred, alive. Every frame suggests history not as something distant, but as something still unfolding, visible in architecture, ritual, and daily life.
The IMAX film Jerusalem invites viewers into that experience. It offers sweeping visuals, human stories, and a compelling entry point into one of the world’s most significant religious cities. For many viewers and many students, this may be the closest they come to encountering Jerusalem firsthand.
And for a moment, it feels like understanding. But as powerful as that experience is, it raises a question worth asking, especially in classrooms:
What does it mean to understand a place like Jerusalem?
Access Without Analysis
The film succeeds in ways that matter. Following three teenage girls, Muslim, Jewish, and Christian, Jerusalem presents religion as lived experience rather than abstract belief. Students see how faith is embedded in daily life, family, and community. The city is framed as sacred across traditions, reinforcing its global significance.
This kind of exposure is valuable. It builds curiosity. It humanizes difference. It makes the unfamiliar more accessible. But accessibility is not the same as understanding. In prioritizing immersion, the film simplifies. Political tensions remain in the background. Historical conflicts are softened. Questions of power, access, and competing claims are present, but largely unexplored.
What emerges is a version of Jerusalem that can be seen, but not fully interrogated.
Where Religious Literacy Begins
This tension mirrors a broader pattern in how religion is often taught. Students learn to identify traditions, describe beliefs, and recognize practices. These are important foundations. But without deeper analysis, they risk producing surface-level understanding.
The National Council for the Social Studies C3 Framework pushes us further. It calls for students to:
- develop questions
- apply disciplinary concepts
- evaluate sources
- communicate conclusions
Similarly, the Religious Studies Companion Document for the C3 Framework emphasizes studying religion through cultural and sociological lenses, examining how it operates in real-world contexts.
Taken together, these frameworks point toward a shift from exposure to inquiry.
From Viewing to Inquiry
Films like Jerusalem are not the problem. They are the starting point. But they must be paired with questions that push beyond what is visible:
- Who has access to sacred spaces, and who does not?
- How do different groups understand the same place in conflicting ways?
- How have historical events shaped present-day realities?
- How does religion intersect with law, politics, and identity?
These questions move students from observation to analysis—from seeing to reasoning. This is where disciplinary literacy lives.
The Limits of “Awe”
There is a subtle risk in powerful visual texts: they can create the feeling of understanding. Students may leave with a sense of connection, even insight. But without structured inquiry, that experience can mask gaps in knowledge.
Awe can engage. It can inspire. But it cannot replace analysis.
Toward a More Complete Practice
The film invites viewers to experience Jerusalem. Religious literacy requires students to interrogate it. That distinction matters. If we want students to navigate a world shaped by religious diversity, we have to move beyond simplified narratives. We have to create space for complexity, for tension, for competing perspectives, for unresolved questions.
Jerusalem is not just a city to be seen. It is a place to be studied, questioned, and understood through multiple lenses. And in our classrooms, that work begins when we move past what is presented and start asking what is missing.
Reflection for Practice
As you consider your own classroom:
- Where does your curriculum prioritize clarity over complexity?
- Where are students asked to observe, but not analyze?
- What opportunities exist to move from exposure to inquiry?
These are not easy shifts. But they are necessary ones. Because seeing is not the same as understanding, and our students deserve more than just the view.
Author Biography
Tim Hall, Ph.D., is Interim Principal at Vance County Early College and the K–12 Social Studies Instructional Coordinator for Vance County Schools. He is also an adjunct history instructor at Piedmont Community College, founder of the website Religion Matters, and Past-President of the North Carolina Council for the Social Studies. He is the recipient of the National Council for the Social Studies Religious Literacy Award (2025–26), sponsored by the Kaur Foundation. Dr. Hall has authored textbook supplements, curricula, standards, and popular history texts, and his forthcoming book, Bringing Religious Literacy to the Classroom: Global Competence for K–12 Social Studies (Routledge Eye on Education, expected 2026), explores how educators can equip students with the tools to understand religion academically, constitutionally, and inclusively.
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