Thanks to Alex Carpenter for pointing out this video. Jeff Skoll made his fortune ($2 billion) as the first president of eBay. Now he’s spending it at the movies. His company, Participant Productions, makes entertaining, issues-driven films that inspire real change — Murderball, Syriana, An Inconvenient Truth … Here, he talks about the people who’ve inspired him to do good, and about some upcoming films that will open your eyes. Read more
The Colorado Rockies have certainly provided some exciting moments for this year’s MLB playoffs and continue to be the team to watch, leaving Philadelphia last night with a 2-0 lead over the Phillies. If their play on the field has been praiseworthy thus far, their off the field behavior is certainly the stuff of champions. Rockies to Share Post-season Payout Read more
Manohla Dargis, a film critic for the New York Times, has a review of an upcoming documentary about abortion called Lake of Fire. I have not seen the film yet, but her review is certainly compelling. The article also contains segments of an interview with the director, Tony Kaye. I appreciate both of their comments and Kaye’s desire to, despite filming in black and white, take a “gray” approach to the issue. Links to both the article and the interview... Read more
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... Read more
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. (more…) Read more
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... Read more
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... Read more
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... Read more
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. (more…) Read more
Pop Theology
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In