All this week, the writers of Christ and Pop Culture unveil their 25 most loved things of 2013. Previous #25: From Up On Poppy Hill #24: When We Were on Fire by Addie Zierman There’s a reason that Addie Zierman’s debut work was named by Publisher’s Weekly as one of the top 5 religion books of 2013. In lovely,well-paced prose that moves more like a novel than a memoir, Zierman ushers her readers into the heady evangelical youth culture of the nineties, complete with... Read more
All this week, the writers of Christ and Pop Culture unveil their 25 most loved things of 2013. #25: From Up on Poppy Hill Nearly any of Ghibli’s films would be considered Great, but everyone has their favorites in the studio’s stable. Some prefer the movies aimed most squarely at kids, the ones featuring forest trolls, pre-teen witches, and little mermaids. Others go in for the more mature and morally complex quarter—the discussions of environmental cataclysm and the horrors of... Read more
"Gangnam Style" presents itself to us as a valuable cultural barometer, a textual window into our world. Read more
"Whether we treat children in poverty as inmates or as brothers and sisters speaks volumes about the Gospel we preach and practice" Read more
The Common Grace goodness of Dr. Seuss's holiday story. Read more
"Kevin McCallister’s goofy separation and reunion with his family speaks with remarkable perceptivity to loneliness and its antidote in meaningful community." Read more
As a church historian, I am not ashamed to bring my Bible to church. Usually it’s one of those compact ones (my favorite one that’s traveled around the world with me), but more recently—I’ll admit it—the Bible app on my cell phone. Nevertheless, I’m always cognizant that there was a time in history when holding a Bible in church, and reading the text for oneself, was not a possibility for most people, even the clergy. It was not until the... Read more
The Santa myth is awkwardly forced into intersecting with the "real" world in ways that other great myths aren't. Read more
As much as I love Country music—even the bad stuff—when Christmas comes around, Country music seems to spit out some really bad tracks (it’s not that I don’t think Alan Jackon’s Christmas album isn’t very good it’s just… okay, it’s exactly that). But I want you know that it doesn’t have to be this way! There is some wonderful Christmas music that has that high and lonesome sound—you’ve just got to look for it. Christmas albums are by nature somewhat... Read more
Let's not fall into the trap of believing that the moment technology is involved, we become inherently anti-social, or that "instantaneous mediated nostalgia" and "real-life human connection" are mutually exclusive. Read more
Christ and Pop Culture
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