Taking Your Christian Worldview to the Movies: Theological Foundations (Part I/III)
To me, movies are like football games, Oscar season like the playoffs, and the Oscars like the Super Bowl. Now, this doesn’t mean that I always agree with a film’s message or those involved in its production, just as the Christian football fan doesn’t always support what occurs in the game. Nonetheless, we can still enjoy the movies. To support this claim, I’ll consider theological foundations in this article. In next week’s, I’ll...
Is Art Really about Self-expression?
My wife Megan and I were on a date in an establishment that provides three-hour painting sessions with general instruction. From across the room, I heard the teacher reassuring a student, “Art isn’t about rules. It’s about being free and expressing yourself.” As I struggled to paint a realistic forest on my canvas, I thought about how cavalierly the instructor had just rejected and accepted whole philosophical systems without a...
Blueprints for Applied Theology
Timothy McVeigh committed one of the worst acts of domestic terrorism in U.S. history in the 1995 bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City. This violent act killed 168 people and wounded several hundred. McVeigh was convicted and was executed by lethal injection in 2001. Many saw this execution as a “completion of justice,” while others protested because they opposed the death penalty in principle.[1] This event raised questions...
Preaching and Teaching Mark: Opportunities and Challenges
We made it: Nineteen months and fifty-three sermons later, our congregation completed a Sunday morning series on the Gospel of Mark. As I said in an earlier post, we regularly study through entire books of the Bible as part of the pulpit ministry. We don’t always do this, but we often do. And seldom do we proceed through an extended study without several planned breaks (usually due to holidays, guest speakers, or other series). This...
Art and Christian Excellence
As I was browsing home décor items recently, I encountered some interesting (to use a kind word) pieces. One was a reprint of DaVinci’s Last Supper, which is all well and good, but this was not the only image in the picture. Superimposed over the famous painting in a 1990s holographic nightmare was an atrocious rendering of Jesus on the cross. I don’t think this particular piece nor two other similar works were intended to mock the...
Says Who? Trusting Our Hearts, Heads, or Something Else Entirely
An earlier edition of this article was first published in The Brink Magazine, Spring 2017. Invariably, when I watch a Disney Channel movie (not that I do, anymore), I’ll hear one line shoehorned into every single film: “Just follow your heart.” The charge is always the same: Do what your feelings tell you to do, no matter the cost. Even outside of kid’s movies, we watch made-for-TV movies, fairytales, and romantic comedies that all...
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