The Week-est Link, November 7, 2008

1. You may not have heard of the InSight podcasts done by Doug Baker of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina.  If not, you’re missing out on excellent interviews with a number of Christian leaders: Danny Akin of Southeastern Seminary, Marvin Olasky of WORLD Magazine, David Dockery of Union University, and more.  Visit the site and listen to the extensive and helpful podcasts.

2. I found a terrific site dedicated to deep Christian engagement with the world of film: Metaphilm.  I had never heard of the site, but it’s run by a man involved with Os Guiness’s Trinity Forum.  The site includes perhaps the best intellectual Christian engagement with films that I’ve ever read.  If you like analyzing film and culture, you must visit Metaphilm.  Excerpt from a piece on The Dark Knight: “So, in this very canny, complex action movie (the director of The Prestige and Memento seems incapable of a narratively direct movie), the duality is clear. Dent and Batman are both knights, but Dent is “shining” while Batman is dark knight. Dent is the hero Gotham needs/not deserves while Batman is the reverse. In short one might say (with just a jot of overreach) that Batman willingly takes on the mantle of everlasting infamy in order to save humankind.”  Deep stuff, eh?

3. Speaking of The Trinity Forum, here’s a thoughtful review of Andy Crouch’s new book on culture-making.

4. This is an exceptional rap song by a believer named Braille.  Covers the birth of his daughter and the death of his father.  Beautiful stuff by the rapper I believe to be the best in the Christian scene.   “Many Stories.”  Can’t stop listening to it and thinking about the deeper realities of life.

5. The New York Times reviews yet another “kidults” movie called “Role Models” that I refuse to link to.  Apparently even the Times is getting tired of this genre: the film is “the newest entry in the increasingly worn-out “boys will be babies until they are forced to grow up” school of arrested-development comedies. But he might as well have. Directed by David Wain (“Wet Hot American Summer”), it follows the silly misadventures of two flailing Peter Pans who are forced to do community service to avoid jail time.”

–Have a great weekend, all.