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Religious Music & Entertainment

documentary

December 2023

December 13, 2023

New Doc ‘The Mission’ Asks Important Questions About Calling

We hear a lot about our “calling” in evangelical circles. We look in the Bible...

March 2023

March 30, 2023

In Viaggio Shows a Globetrotting Pope At His Most Human

Traveling can be stressful for most of us. The flights, the hotels, the pressures to...

June 2022

June 17, 2022

‘Stay Prayed Up’ Shows the Power of Gospel Music (and the Gospel Message, Too)

Give the doc its props: Stay Prayed Up is as good as its name. It...

October 2021

October 01, 2021

The Jesus Music Hits All the Right Notes

Nothing sets you up for failure like success. We knew this, of course. The Bible...

July 2021

July 07, 2021

Summer of Soul Is a Great Doc (and Deeply Spiritual, Too)

The Summer of Soul made me smile. The documentary (the full title of which is...

April 2021

April 09, 2021

Three Tasty Thoughts Found in ‘The Truffle Hunters’

Normally, if your dog digs up something a big, smelly blob in the forest, you’d...

October 2020

October 21, 2020

Take Time for Time: The Doc is Worth It.

Time, a powerful new documentary directed by Garrett Bradley and available now on Amazon Prime,...

June 2020

June 19, 2020

This Man is Fast. But in Runner, It’s His Will That Moves You.

Guor Mading Maker was an experienced runner long before he laced up his first pair...

February 2020

February 16, 2020

Doc ‘We Believe in Dinosaurs’ Highlights America’s Faith/Science Divide

I’m no scientist, but I do like science. I’m no pastor, but I do love...

June 2019

June 04, 2019

New Doc Beautifully Tells a Story of Tragedy and Forgiveness

“Forgive them, for they know not what they do.” That’s what Jesus said, hanging on...

May 2019

May 10, 2019

How Do You Respond to Unspeakable Hate? With Forgiveness, a New Documentary Says.

I was driving to Denver when I heard about another local school shooting--the fourth in...

April 2019

April 10, 2019

Amazing Grace is a Messy Masterpiece

Singer Aretha Franklin was at her peak in 1972. She’d recorded more than 20 albums,...

March 2019

March 21, 2019

Walking in the Shadow of Death in The Long Goodbye

Her blog was called “Mundane Faithfulness,” but there was nothing mundane about it. Not ever,...

March 03, 2019

‘I’m Just Fascinated by It.’ Morgan Freeman Talks About Religion, Faith and ‘The Story of God’

Morgan Freeman knows more about God than most of us. It’s not just that the...

November 2018

November 28, 2018

The Inspirational Isolation of Free Solo

I review movies for a living, and I’ve seen plenty of horror flicks this year....

October 2018

October 30, 2018

‘To Live Life in Radical Amazement’: An Interview with Behold the Earth Director David Conover

We live in some crazy times. In the United States, we may be as divided...

October 03, 2018

Need a Lift? Watch a Doc.

It used to be that, when real life got a little too real, folks would...

June 2018

June 06, 2018

Seven Reasons Why We Need Mister Rogers More Than Ever

On Feb. 2, 1968—Groundhog Day—Simon & Garfunkel recorded the final version of their classic song...

May 2018

May 16, 2018

Pope Francis May Be ‘a Man of His Word,’ But What Does He Say?

A paradox lies at the heart of the new documentary Pope Francis: A Man of...

March 2018

March 24, 2018

‘It Changed My Life.’ An Interview With the Director of ‘Summer in the Forest’

We’re afraid of people who are different. It’s not a knock. It’s in our nature....

March 20, 2018

Here’s the Official Trailer For Mister Rogers’ Upcoming Doc

No secret here: I like me some Mister Rogers. The television pioneer, who would've turned...

March 06, 2018

Doc Takes Fans Through a (Remarkable) Day in the Life of Switchfoot’s Jon Foreman

Music is order—the most mathematical of arts, crafted in wholes and half and quarters and...

January 2018

January 16, 2018

Why I’m Excited About a Documentary About Mr. Rogers

I don't have a lot of heroes. But Fred Rogers is one of them. I...

December 2017

December 06, 2017

Why a Doc about Istanbul’s Stray Cats Might be One of the Year’s Best—and Most Spiritual—Movies

I’m not a cat person. I used to be, back before I realized that they...

October 2017

October 29, 2017

I’ll Push You: ‘God Was Saying I Need to Do This’

The Camino de Santiago—traditionally stretching from the southwest corner of France to the Cathedral of...

October 09, 2017

NatGeo’s The Story of Us Misses the Full Story

Morgan Freeman is one of the United States’ most beloved entertainment figures. He’s appeared in...

September 2017

September 15, 2017

Forget CGI: ‘I’ll Push You’ is a Movie With Just Two Friends, a Wheelchair and a Whale of a Story

Suffering is a gift. It's difficult for us to grasp that truth in 21st century...

March 2017

March 03, 2017

CNN Finds a Pretty Good Show in Finding Jesus

If you took each hour-long episode of CNN's Finding Jesus: Faith, Fact Forgery and distilled...

November 2015

November 29, 2015

Song of Lahore: Beautiful Music

Music is inherently spiritual, I believe. It comes from the heart, from the soul, speaking...

November 19, 2014

Batman Doc Swings Onto Video

A bevy of movies were released on video yesterday: 22 Jump Street, Into the Storm,...