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 […]
Let it be known that I often judge a book by its cover–most definitely by its title. So, when I came across Brook Wilensky-Lanford’s Paradise Lust, I was immediately hooked. “Buy this book!” I shouted to myself. “And, please, please, please, let there be pictures!” Pictures galore (of maps–which, I found quite exciting as Indiana […]
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 […]
A long-time education columnist with the Washington Post, Jay Mathews, has been pushing a strange but all-American thesis (e.g., in his Jan. 18, 2012 essay “We’re smart enough for Darwin debate”): we should inject Intelligent Design ideas into public-school science classrooms and let the kids figure out that it is not science, or at least […]
Crime fiction has both the opportunity and the obligation to be the most political of any writing or any media, crime itself being the most manifest example of the politics of the time. We are defined and damned by the crimes of the times that we live in. The Moors Murders, the Yorkshire Ripper, and […]
Written By John Sanders (Professor of Religious Studies at Hendrix College) – sandersj@hendrix.edu *** This paper was given at a session honoring the work of Clark Pinnock at the American Academy of Religion in San Francisco, November 18, 2011. Canadian theologian Clark Pinnock was once a renowned defender of the doctrine of […]
(Ed.: Today we have a welcome guest post from Nicholas Olson, who pens The Moviegoer.) Audiences were largely unsure about what to make of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love when it was released almost a decade ago. Part of the quizzical reaction was that it was not a standard Adam Sandler film. Even critics found […]
In his seminal Art in Action (1980), Reformed philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff emphasized the way in which the artist, “when he brings forth order for human benefit or divine honor,” participates in “man’s vocation to master and subdue the earth” (77). Such a creationally-grounded ‘job description’ applies equally to artists inside and outside the boundaries of the church. On […]
The following is an older article of mine discussing the U.S.’s ‘crowning’ of King. It was originally published by Christian Ethics Today and was titled, Dethroning a King. It’s been re-published (and slightly re-vamped) in Third Way Allegiance. “A dangerous Negro, now a national hero. How shall we work with that?” Vincent Harding In a […]