A Dark Valley…

This year, two major films will examine the effects of the Iraq War on American soil. While we do not physically experience the daily bombings and violence of the war that takes place thousands of miles away, we are dealing with and will increasingly deal with the mental, emotional, and physical after effects of this war on our family, friends, and neighbors. Recently, HBO aired a documentary by James Gandolfini called Alive Day Memories: Home from Iraq in which he interviewed wounded Iraq veterans, most of whom have had multiple amputations and nearly all of whom suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. John Cusack stars in Grace is Gone, which tells the story of a father and two children who lose their wife/mother in Iraq. Paul Haggis (of Crash infamy) directs a new film entitled In the Valley of Elah starring Tommy Lee Jones, Susan Sarandon, and Charlize Theron. The central character here, however, makes very few appearances on-screen, but his story dominates the film. As a result, In the Valley of Elah is a powerful study of how post-traumatic stress affects not only our young veterans but their loved ones as well. [Read more]

Heroes…

NBC just keeps the hits rolling. Returning prime time successes include the aforementioned Friday Night Lights, The Office, and My Name is Earl. However, along with FNL, NBC’s Heroes turned out to be one of my favorite programs and a suprise hit last season. As the new fall TV lineup descends upon us with a plethora of interesting new programs, I wanted to take a brief look back at Heroes and the questions it poses. [Read more]

Friday Nights…

One of my favorite television programs from last season is Friday Night Lights. Despite poor ratings, but thanks to much critical acclaim, NBC has decided to bring back this high school football drama, and I could not be more thankful. Bill Simmons, one of the more entertaining sports journalists of today, has a great article on the show. I would add that football is to Friday Night Lights what the mafia is to The Sopranos, a means to explore much larger familial and social issues in a different context. Read Simmons’ article below, and please, watch the show. The first season of Friday Night Lights is available to rent on DVD. Season two premiers, you guessed it, Friday night, October 5th at 9/8c.

Please, help me keep the ‘Lights’ on

Nature AND Nuture

Any serious sports fan simply must be familiar with Michael Lewis, the author of two of the most influential contemporary sports books, Moneyball and The Blind Side. Turning to football in The Blind Side, Lewis writes about the evolution of one particular position and juxtaposes it with an equally unlikely story of a poor black kid adopted by a rich, white, evangelical Christian family. The result is another sports masterpiece full of moral/ethical questions, social criticism, and implicit attacks on one of the most powerful sports organizations in the country. [Read more]

Christianity and the Social Crisis: Part 2

Here is my response to the second chapter of Christianity and the Social Crisis, “The Social Aims of Jesus,” and Tony Campolo’s reactions to it.

I am thankful that Tripp included me in the list of responders to the re-release of Walter Rauschenbusch’s Christianity and the Social Crisis.  I admit with some embarrassment that I might not have read it otherwise.  As I read through the table of contents, I immediately knew which chapter on which I would focus.  I chose Rauschenbusch’s section on “The Social Aims of Jesus” because I am interested in how we retain Jesus’ teachings in an ever-changing cultural, social, technological climate. [Read more]

Responses to Christianity and the Social Crisis: Part 1

Corbin Boekhaus, also a recent graduate of the Wake Forest University Divinity School, begins the Rauschenbusch discussion with a response to the first chapter, “The Historical Roots of Christianity: The Hebrew Prophets” and Phyllis Trible’s reflections. [Read more]

Responses to Christianity and the Social Crisis: An Introduction

Walter Rauschenbusch’s classic text, Christianity and the Social Crisis was recently re-released to celebrate its 100th anniversary. The new edition contains responses to each chapter from academics and religious folk ranging from Jim Wallis to Phyllis Trible. A group of seminary students and I decided to write responses of our own to each of these sections over the next month or so. Keep an eye out for updates to this on-going discussion. We begin today with an introduction by Tripp Fuller, a recent graduate of Wake Forest University Divinity School. [Read more]

Battlescars

The death toll of suicide bombers and the weekly body count/injury report of the war in Iraq has become the soundtrack to the majority of news reports over the past five years. While we are almost daily informed of death or injury, we do not hear the details of these tragedies. The church I have recently been attending mentions the wounded and dead from the war during the prayers of the people, but only as a collective group and not individually. James Gandolfini (Tony Soprano of The Sopranos), upon returning from a visit to Iraq, was frustrated over the silence surrounding the injured Iraq war veterans and decided to make a documentary in which he would interview a variety of veterans who faced certain death yet lived. The result is Alive Day Memories: Home from Iraq, a deeply unsettling film that implicitly questions our continued presence in Iraq without being overtly political. [Read more]

HBO: Homogenous Box Office?

The new television season is fast approaching. Week one of the NFL is nearly in the books, so along with the anticipation of Sundays and Monday nights, I am looking forward to a host of new and returning programs like Heroes, Friday Night Lights, Bionic Woman, Pushing Daisies, and Lost to name a few. However, HBO has a new series that intrigues me entitled Tell Me You Love Me. HBO got a bit of jump on the fall lineup as the first episode aired last night. For such a progressive network, HBO really misses the boat on the first episode of this series. [Read more]

Are You Ready for Some Football?!

To help celebrate the upcoming NFL season, which starts in just a few hours as the Saints visit the NFL Campion Colts, Bob Costas devoted his weekly sports journalism show on HBO, Costas Now, to, you guessed it, football. The hour-long program was composed of four excellent interviews with San Diego Chargers running back Ladainian Tomlinson, NFL Players Union President Gene Upshaw, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, and NFL Hall of Fame running back Earl Campbell and a panel discussion with Phil Simms and Michael Irvin. Each segment of the program contributed directly to my recent thoughts on the the intersection of sports, ethics, spirituality, and theology. [Read more]