What does “The Wizard of Oz” mean to you?
We have occasion to ask because yet another edition of the 1939 classic has been released on DVD, this time to celebrate the movie’s 70th anniversary.
“The Wizard of Oz” has maintained classic status for all those years because kids return to it as adults, both to share [...]
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Smartphone as the Ring of Doom?
I’m a gadget nerd whose Verizon contract is almost up so I’m shopping for my next phone. Here’s an ad from HTC.
Tim Keller quotes Tom Shippey in Counterfeit Gods as calling Sauron’s ring in The Lord of the Rings “a psychic amplifier”. They take our heart’s good desires and amplify them to idolatrous proportions (pg. [...]
Does pure confession need to come with no worldly benefits?
(Guest blogger: Todd Hertz. Todd is the E-Marketing Manager for ReFrame Media. That basically means he works to build online relationships plus develop web and social media strategies. He formally worked as the editor for multiple projects at Christianity Today.)
2009 has been a big year for celebrity confessions and apologies. The most notable cases: Alex [...]
How ‘A Serious Man’ is not like the Book of Job
I’m not sure where it started – perhaps studio publicists initially fed the convenient misinformation – but nearly every review of “A Serious Man” has described the film as a modern version of the Book of Job.
It makes me wonder if anyone has read Job lately.
Sure, the central figure in “A Serious Man,” the latest [...]
Atheism 3.0
I was reading an article from the Religious News Service talking about a new wave of atheism that isn’t completely down on religion. Make no mistake, the so called “Atheism 3.0” still denies the existence of God, but there is some respect for the values that come from believing in God.
Bruce Sheiman is the author [...]
Opportunity Knocking
(Guest Blogger: Dave Trout. Dave is the host of the nationally syndicated program ‘Under the Radar’ which features the best in under-appreciated Christian music. He also writes a weekly column called ‘The Gourmet Music Report.’ In this post, he’s taking a little break from music to talk about culture.)
Should a pastor friend of mine have [...]
Do all zombies go to heaven?
There is a reason we laugh so eagerly at zombies, as audiences have been gleefully doing with the horror comedy “Zombieland.”
Is there a more fitting symbol for our own inescapable mortality than zombies – decaying, dismembered figures that relentlessly pursue the living? Zombies have officially haunted us since 1968’s “Night of the Living Dead,” but [...]
What Would ‘The Good Wife’ Do?
The Good Wife, a new weekly drama on CBS, reacts to the one question everybody asks whenever there’s a press conference for a politician disgraced by a sex scandal, and his wife stands supportively next to him: what’s she doing there? Why isn’t she following Carrie Underwood’s advice and taking a Louisville Slugger to his [...]
Letterman’s Confession
What to make of Letterman? I find myself conflicted.
On his Late Show program Thursday night, David Letterman relayed the true story of a blackmail attempt against him for $2 Million, starting about three weeks ago. Letterman’s response was both to have the extortioner arrested and, presumably to pull the teeth out of any future threats, [...]
Mourning as Christian Living
Something I’ve discovered in my graduate work is that secular authors who are often quite critical of Christianity have beautiful ways of talking about the transcendent or love or relationships between humans that point an arrow straight toward God (or at least, I read it that way).
Here’s an example: today I was reading Undoing Gender [...]

