Archive for Print

A Review of “Movie Love: The Complete Reviews of Pauline Kael, 1988-1991″

Sep 01, 2010 1 Comment by admin

Pop Theology contributor Richard Lindsay provides a review of a collection of one of the most (in)famous film critics of all time, Pauline Kael.

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Get A(n Extra) Life

Aug 03, 2010 2 Comments by admin

Later this year, I’ll be presenting a paper on the ethical/theological/moral implications of video games.  As luck would have it, a public discussion over whether or not video games qualify as art broke out in on-line and print media over the past few months.  Film critic Roger Ebert oppossed this notion while arguments for it [...]

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Shake It

Jul 21, 2010 3 Comments by admin

Heather Hendershot’s Shaking the World for Jesus:  Media and Conservative Evangelical Culture is one of several recent books that provides an insightful analysis of evangelical Christians’ relationship with popular culture.  Like her contemporary, Daniel Radosh, Hendershot also takes a sympathetic approach to the topic, recognizing that evangelicals make significant meaning out of their interactions with [...]

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A Free Market of Faith

Jul 12, 2010 No Comments

In her book, Brands of Faith, Mara Einstein argues that religion is a competing commodity in a larger marketplace.  James B. Twitchell takes this notion closely to heart and runs with it in his book, Shopping for God:  How Christianity Went From In Your Heart to In Your Face.  He argues that denominational differences have [...]

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GOD’S ECONOMY: A Review

Jul 06, 2010 No Comments

As part of my dissertation research, I’ve been looking into the Prosperity Gospel, the Health and Wealth Gospel, or the Name It and Claim It Gospel…whatever you like to call it.  For those of you who don’t know, it’s basically the notion that God wants us to be physically wealthy here and now.  Ironically, those [...]

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THE DUDE ABIDES: A REVIEW

Jun 28, 2010 No Comments

There can be no doubt that brothers Joel and Ethan Coen are perhaps two of the most original, visionary filmmakers working today.  In fact, when they have run their course, their filmography will no doubt stand out as one of the greatest in American film history.  If there is any credence to the auteur theory, [...]

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A Heavenly Battle

Jun 23, 2010 No Comments

Angelology is one of the latest entries in the recent spate of religious adventure fiction made most popular by Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons.  Danielle Trussoni’s novel will unfortunately most likely not get the attention of its, in many ways, inferior predecessors, but it is one captivating summer read that [...]

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An Evangelical Pop Culture Expedition

Jun 17, 2010 4 Comments

A secular, humanist, non-practicing Jewish writer from New York takes a year-long tour through evangelical Christian pop-culture?  Yeah…I know how that book’s going to turn out…or at least I thought I did.  Daniel Radosh’s Rapture Ready! Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture is one of the most insightful, entertaining books I’ve ever [...]

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We Don’t Get Another Hero

Jun 16, 2010 1 Comment

I absolutely love and am fascinated with apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic narratives.  To me, they speak far more about our current theological, philosophical, and political state of affairs than they ever do about how it’s all going to go down in the end (which despite popular evangelical opinion is what they were always intended to do).  [...]

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BRANDS OF FAITH: A REVIEW

May 25, 2010 2 Comments

Mara Einstein argues, in her book Brands of Faith:  Marketing Religion in a Commercial Age, that we live in a culture of “planned obsolescence.”  This is hard to deny given the frequency with which, for example, Apple releases new iPods and iPhones.  Yet she turns her attention to the effects that such consumerism has on [...]

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