Jenna Barnett (@jennacbarnett) is the culture editor at Sojourners and the producer of the award-winning podcast Lead Us Not. She was born in San Antonio and lives in San Diego. She has a B.A. in sociology and religion from Furman University and an M.F.A in Literary Reportage from New York University.
Before joining the Sojo team, Jenna managed the International Rescue Committee’s urban gardens in San Diego, and worked as a writer for the Women PeaceMakers Program at the Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice.
She has written for McSweeney’s, Texas Monthly, the Belladonna, and New York Magazine’s Grub Street. You’re likely to find her playing basketball, watching women’s soccer, eating homemade flour tortillas, or taking her time in Scrabble.
Some Sojourners articles by Jenna Barnett:
Culture:
Brandi Carlile’s Radical Gospel of Gentleness
“What I'm talking about is radical, filthy, trembling, scary, life-changing, beautiful forgiveness,” the Grammy-winner told Sojourners in an interview.
Snorting Nutmeg at Vacation Bible School with Lucy Dacus
Her album Home Video could have just as easily been named “Youth Group” or maybe “Adventures in Suburbia.”
Features:
How Do We Recover When Our Leaders Betray Us?
Charismatic leaders like Jean Vanier can inspire our faith — or make it fall apart.
Let There Be Light
When sexual abuse occurred in their church, Rev. Heidi Hankel and her congregation refused to let it stay hidden.
Humor:
Footprints in the Sand (Unedited)
Lord, when I needed you most, why were you snacking on Flamin' Hot Cheetos?
John the Baptist’s Recipe for Honey-Crisped Locusts
Once the locusts are as hot as a wealthy hypocrite burning in hell (about 200 degrees), add the honey.
Posts By This Author
5 Pop Culture Jesuses
A list of 5 fictional depictions of Jesus over the past few decades, including Adult Swim's Black Jesus
The Jesus of pop culture is multiethnic and well-traveled, pious and irreverent, singing and silent. A fictional portrayal that is blasphemy to one viewer is sacred to another. The diversity of Jesus’ depictions reflects the diversity of the pop culture audience. Most recently, another fictional Jesus has appeared in Compton, smoking weed and promoting “black-Latin” reconciliation in the new comedy Black Jesus. The sitcom presents a Jesus who uses at times crude language to ultimately promote a consistent gospel message of love. While this Jesus “shares in the pleasures” of his largely poor, African-American community, “he also challenges their prejudices, violence, and self-seeking.” Read more in Danny Duncan Collum’s “The Christ of Compton” (Sojourners, November 2014).
Check out this list to read about five portrayals of Jesus in recent pop culture history.
1. Lion Jesus
In The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis sets up a less than subtle allegory of Jesus in the form of a lion named Aslan. Aslan transforms a void into a world through song. He welcomes children. He dies and comes back to life. But still, he is a lion, fierce and elusive, helping to convey both the intimidating power and the radical love of Jesus.
“‘Safe?’ said Mr. Beaver; ‘don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course [Aslan] isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.’” –The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe (1950)
Make Way for the Female Antihero: TV Takes a Page from the Bible
'Orange Is the New Black' cast, photo via Netflix
These days, female television characters can almost do it all. But we, the media consumers and producers, are still deciding if we should let them make mistakes, too.
And I don’t mean just the I-dated-the-wrong-handsome-doctor mistakes, or the I’m-an-overprotective-mother mistakes. I mean the type of mistakes that warrant the label of antihero. Merriam-Webster defines an antihero as “a protagonist or notable figure who is conspicuously lacking in heroic qualities.” Over the past several years, TV has become saturated with male antiheroes. Breaking Bad made a meth dealer Emmy gold, and Dexter garnered a cult following behind a sociopathic vigilante. But hey, boys will be boys.
Girls will be girls, too, if we let them. And girls aren’t always perfect. John Landgraf, president of FX, says it’s much harder to find acceptance for the female antihero: “It's fascinating to me that we just have really different, and I think, a more rigorous set of standards for female characters than we do for male characters in this society.”