Culture Watch

Country music has always been cruel to its purest products.

Kimberly Burge 7-01-2001

Author of such novels as Atticus and Mariette in Ecstasy, Ron Hansen believes in the power of stories and in the role that they can play in an examination of a faith-filled life.

Beth Isaacson 7-01-2001

DiFranco wrestles openly with her choice 'to invite someone into her melodrama.'

The Editors 5-01-2001
Reading to provoke, perplex, and please.

Disney's 'urban' experience is cleaned-up, dumbed-down, and smoothed-over.

Bob Massey 5-01-2001

It only seemed like 2000 was the year of Limp Bizkit, Eminem, and Britney. Music of subtlety and substance was indeed made. This was some of it:

Kimberly Burge 5-01-2001

Tribute albums are tricky beasts. Any artist who warrants such acclaim will no doubt have a strong following with deeply held opinions about the merit of someone else singing those songs.

Molly Marsh 5-01-2001

You might wonder how opera diva Kathleen Battle, the best-selling computer game MYST, and TV shopping networks all work into a conversation about Christianity.

This collection has no reason to exist, except as a shameless exploitation of the Lennon-McCarney catalog.

Like many North American Christians, I had my spiritual journey upended in the 1980s by an encounter with poor believers from Latin America.

Jesse J. DeConto 3-01-2001

Derek Webb could hear the backlash even before the album came out.

Elizabeth Newberry 3-01-2001

David LaMotte's sixth album fills the void left by sentimental, synthesizer-laden Christian pop-rock and modern rock lyrics about shopping, leather pants, and next year's Infiniti model.

When science meets religion, who wins?

An excerpt from The Friendship of Women: A Spiritual Tradition

Spiritual Classics: Selected Readings for Individuals and Groups on the Twelve Spiritual Disciplines, edited by Richard Foster.

Teresa Blythe 3-01-2001

It's easy for us to assume that no matter what comes our way, America will prevail politically and economically.

Kimberly Burge 3-01-2001

There are two unrelated things that people learn quickly about me. The first is that you probably shouldn't talk to me early in the morning. And the second is that I love U2.

Who owns our culture? Who decides what our songs and stories will be?