The Internet Melts Your Brain

April 19, 2024 By Coyle Neal

Samuel James isn’t offering anything new (the best books don’t), but he brings together a wide variety of ideas and reflections into one devastating conclusion in his new book Digital Liturgies: Rediscovering Christian Wisdom in an Online Age. At the heart of this book are two claims: “First, the Bible lays out the wisdom we need to live faithfully and fruitfully before our Creator. Second, the internet is an epistemological and moral habitat that makes such wisdom seem like foolishness. By... Read more

Women aren’t really from Venus…

April 12, 2024 By Coyle Neal

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Every so often I am reminded just how visionary science fiction authors can be. Granted, there is a ton of sci-fi out there, so just statistically it makes sense that many predictions will come true. That was reinforced when I came across Theodore Sturgeon’s 1960 book Venus Plus X, and again: this book was published in 1960. Before Second Wave Feminism took off. Before the homosexual movement took off in the mainstream in the 1990s and early 2000s. Before the gender discussion we’re... Read more

Monsieur Spade doesn’t solve the case

April 5, 2024 By Coyle Neal

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While it has been a second since I’ve read The Maltese Falcon or seen the movie, I suspect that in either version of the story Sam Spade didn’t spend all of his time studiously avoiding detective work in favor of swimming naked in his pool and failing to solve any part of the mystery he encounters along the way. Yet–spoiler alert from here on out–that is very much what happens in Monsieur Spade, the fan-fiction-esque reboot of the noir classic detective. Long... Read more

Who ya gonna call?

March 29, 2024 By Coyle Neal

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I started to write that the Ghostbusters franchise has had only mixed success–both Ghostbusters 2 and Ghostbusters: Answer the Call notoriously underperformed, while the original movie, video game, animated series, and Ghostbusters: Afterlife are all solid home runs. And yet, two not-so-great films set against two fantastic films and a solid video game (not to mention dozens of excellent animated episodes) can hardly be counted as “mixed.” So I think it’s better to say that the franchise is an artistic success. We have hundreds of... Read more

Almost Lovecraftian in the DCU

March 22, 2024 By Coyle Neal

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Given what the DC world has done with Batman and the Joker’s relationship (reason and order vs the impulse to chaos), it makes sense that someone would attempt a crossover with the Lovecraft mythos. And in fact that has been done with The Doom that Came to Gotham, directed by Sam Liu (there’s also a graphic novel by Mike Mignola that I’ve not read–though I’ll be rectifying that in the new future). And for what it’s worth, this is a pretty... Read more

Finally, a good Dune adaptation!

March 15, 2024 By Coyle Neal

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The headline is of course a touch unfair. The Sci-Fi channel version of Dune was respectable enough. But the David Lynch Dune is best left unmentioned–so bad that fans of the novel twist themselves into knots trying to find ways to like it. (The fact that it was the only game in town for almost two decades went a long ways to towards bringing people into its camp.) And let me go ahead and insert my standard position on the novel here and get... Read more

Leading the Flock

March 8, 2024 By Coyle Neal

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What is being a pastor? Is it more like being a teacher? Is it more like being a statesman? Is it more like being a psychologist? Is it some combination of the above? Or something else entire? The world is full of books about how to preach, and full of books about how to lead, R. Scott Pace and Jim Shaddix have published a little book that attempts to tie these two things together and clearly articulate the function of... Read more

Memorizing the Bible

March 1, 2024 By Coyle Neal

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Every once in a while we come across a book that is convicting, challenging, obviously correct in its every claim, and yet will probably have no measurable impact on my day-to-day life. Neil Postman’s Amusing ourselves to death was one such book for me. Now Andrew Davis’s How to Memorize Scripture for Life: From one verse to entire books may very well be another. Look, I know I should be memorizing God’s Word. It’s a clear command. It’s good for me. It’s... Read more

Chrysostom on John and Hebrews

February 23, 2024 By Coyle Neal

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After several years of effort, I’ve finally wrapped up the final volume of the First Series of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, John Chrysostom’s Homilies on the Gospel of St. John and Hebrews. As with the other books in this series, this one is excellent. While I don’t always agree with Chrysostom’s exegesis, his pastoral concerns and crisply aimed at the lives and hearts of his congregation. “I may without knowing it be treating you for one disease while you are... Read more

The shape of things to come

February 16, 2024 By Coyle Neal

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As I opened the blank page to write a review of Andre Naselli’s short book Predestination: An Introduction (part of the excellent “short studies in systematic theology” series from Crossway), I turned off the audiobook version of Senator John Danforth’s book Faith in Politics. I just happened–though Naselli would be quick to point out that it is definitely not by chance–to be listening to Danforth recount his visit to Cambodia in the wake of the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge. Starving and dying... Read more