TOJ Editors

Issue #20: Evil

That pain, suffering, oppression, and violence occur in the world is all too obvious. To grasp that the destructive forces we face are evil is not so obvious. This is not because the effects of evil are merely illusions, but because to know something as evil, that is, to recognize it as a force in […]

Chad Lakies

CFP: The Christian Evasion of Popular Culture

Following is a new CFP that might be of interest to churchandpomo readers: Andreas Center for Reformed Scholarship and Service THE CHRISTIAN EVASION OF POPULAR CULTURE Christianity is often the focus of popular culture, whether it is through the blood and gore of The Passion of the Christ, the satire of South Park and Family […]

N.K. Carter

A Rankin-Bass Christmas

This less-than-seasonal post is brought to you by NVidia and their faulty logic boards. ————- For most Americans, stop-motion is something of a Yuletide affair. Don’t get me wrong; the surge of stop-motion in theaters lately has been extremely gratifying. Aardman Studios is stretching beyond their Wallace and Gromit brand, Laika is capitalizing on the success […]

Tripp York

Alaskan Airlines in Collusion with . . . SATAN! (TLGP)

The early Christians were often at a loss as to how they were going to survive the Roman Empire. Indeed, many didn’t. The first three centuries of Christianity produced martyr after bloody martyr–pulled apart limb by severed limb, cast in iron cows that were heated by fire, torn apart by lions, tigers and bears, they […]

Brett David Potter

Are Artists the High Priests of Culture? Part II

Do artists take themselves too seriously? Do we take artists seriously enough? These are the questions I’ve had coming out of my post last week, where I offered a few preliminary thoughts (in response to a well-intentioned but generally frustrating video from the Gospel Coalition) on the question of whether artists serve some kind of […]

M. Leary

The Spiritual Discipline of Cinema

There is often talk of framing our cultural experiences in terms found commonly in Christian spirituality. On account of this, we find film and theology groups that are structurally identical to group bible studies. We reserve watching certain films for certain spots on the Christian calendar, like annual Easter screenings of Gibson’s Jesus film. In […]