Or enjoy them for the first time through the Moody Classics series.
All posts by Phil
Do We Need to See the Need for Redemption?
They’re talking about how conservatives are engaging or should get involved in Hollywood over on the Acton Institute’s PowerBlog. Bruce E. Walker makes a good case for conservative ideas in film, describing the meaning behind Million Dollar Baby. Conservative Christian filmmakers have to be willing to show who can be redeemed, even how bad life is without God’s salvation.
The modern world presents us with challenges of flesh and conscience that mature Christian artists and audiences alike must address in order to serve as responsible witnesses of Christ’s mercy. To pretend reprehensible behavior doesn’t exist and, furthermore, dwell on our hatred of the sins rather than our love and the belief in the potential redemption of the sinner will marginalize further the cinematic depiction of Christian principles.
I just have to laugh
If you’re holding a Kindle, no one can see that you’re reading Proust or Joyce, and, like, what good is that?
Write to a Normal Length
Sci-Fi author Paul McAuley talks about writing science fiction in the United Kingdom.
Here in the UK, there are now only three major imprints that regularly publish sf; a major reduction in the diversity of the genre’s ecological niche. And for the most part writers can no longer develop their careers in public, fostered by a sympathetic editor: they have to hit the ball out of the park with their first novel. It’s either two strikes and you’re out, or keep hitting home runs with the same rhythm and swing – if you do write a successful novel, the publisher wants more just like it, in other words. Which is why, I guess, there are more series around, now. So the market is much tougher than when I started out, but in general the ambition of writers is higher, too. I wouldn’t mind seeing some shorter novels, though. Or rather, seeing novels written to their natural length, instead of being pointlessly expanded by the equivalent of the fluff that bulks out padded envelopes.
The Friday Fight: Spears Tveir
I know we had spears last week, but we’re having spears again this week, and it’s good for you. I’d think the man with the spear would be at a disadvantage, but he pulls through.
A New Book on Fasting
On Discerning Reader, Trevin Wax recommends a new book by Scot McKnight called, Fasting.
The greatest strength of the book is McKnight’s picture of fasting as a response, never an instrumental practice in which we try to receive something. We go without food because of what has taken place in our hearts.
The book lays out the different ways that fasting serves a response. It can be an expression of repentance, a response to a moment in which we feel we must earnestly seek God, a response to grief (McKnight sees grief as the thread that connects all the various fasting practices). Fasting can sometimes be a response to our need for spiritual discipline, a response to our corporate life together, even a response to poverty and injustice.
In Praise of Being Unfashionable
Glenn Lucke recommends a new book by Tullian Tchividjian, the new pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian, called Unfashionable: Making a Difference in the world by being different. He says it’s a very useful tool for standing out for Christ in appropriate ways.
From the forward, Tim Keller, a great pastor and author, states, “Here you will learn how we must contextualize, how we Christians should be as active in Hollywood, Wall Street, Greenwich Village, and Harvard Square (if not more) than the halls of Washington, DC. And yet, there are ringing calls to form a distinct, ‘thick’ Christian counter-culture as perhaps the ultimate witness to the presence of the future, the coming of the Kingdom.”
Questions
Glenn Lucke asks, “Isn’t there a place for shame in the Christian life?”
And perhaps more disturbingly, he asks, “Have people started using epicenter in place of center?”
Answering Before Listening
Mark Upton has an interesting post to a heart-breaking story on PRI’s This American Life. The whole show is interesting, but Mark’s focus is the story of man witnessing to woman over the phone. The dialogue we hear on the radio show sounds like the man was answering without fully listening. There’s a bit of conversation in the comments.
A Good Reason to Write
Andrew Peterson links to an essay by N.D. Wilson for good reasons to write fiction. “For many children, the only nobility, the only joy, the only strength and sacrifice that they see firsthand comes in fiction,” Wilson claims.