Culture
The film picks up on the recent media buzz generated by Rob Bell's controversial bestselling-book Love Wins, taking that debate into new levels of intelligence and depth.
Like any good documentary, we have the entertaining attention grabbing parts, which aren't hard to find when your topic is Hell and damnation:
We meet people at a death metal concert, take a tour through "Hell House" where actors attempt to traumatize teens into the kingdom by reenacting scenes from Columbine. Then there are the street interviews with the rather obviously mentally unstable and angry folks from Fred Phelps' church, holding their "God Hates Fags" signs and screaming at anyone who passes by.
The movie quickly moves beyond this however, delving into the deeper issues at hand. Unlike so many other Christian films, Hellbound? is neither sentimental nor sensationalist. The word that comes to mind instead is depth.
We've all been there. It's the morning before your 20-page paper is due—the one that counts for 30 percent of your grade—and you get the blue screen of death before saving. Or $2 Tuesdays got a little bit out of hand the night before. Or you just plain forgot.
While the list of excuses rattles through your mind in the hour or so before class, here's one you probably didn't think of: fake abduction.
E-book image by Dmitry Lobanov/Shutterstock.
Last year, Gideons International distributed more than 84 million printed copies of the Bible around the world to students, hospitals, members of the military and, of course, hotels, where they are a ubiquitous sight in bedside tables.
Starting this month, however, the InterContinental Hotels Group is modernizing that mission at one of its hotels, replacing the paper tomes with electronic versions of the Bible loaded on Kindle e-readers. Each of the 148 rooms at the chain's Hotel Indigo in Newcastle, England, will be outfitted with a Kindle Touch with Wi-Fi. Guests can use the e-ink devices to catch up on scripture, as well as purchase and read any other books available in the Amazon Kindle store.
Apparently the Gideons are supportive of the hotel group's move toward electronic versions of Holy Writ. (And if a guest is so taken with the Kindle that they take it with them when they check out, the hotel will charge the guest's credit card for the Kindle.)
Read the entire CNN.com report HERE.
Andy Griffith and Ron Howard (as Opie) from the Andy Griffith Show. (Photo by CBS via Getty Images)
In a poignant first-person essay in today's LA Times, actor and director Ron Howard, who as a child played Opie on The Andy Griffith Show, tenderly remebers his mentor and friend Andy Griffith, who died Tuesday at the age of 86.
Howard recalls:
He was known for ending shows by looking at the audience and saying "I appreciate it, and good night." Perhaps the greatest enduring lesson I learned from eight seasons playing Andy's son Opie on the show was that he truly understood the meaning of those words, and he meant them, and there was value in that.
Respect. At every turn he demonstrated his honest respect for people and he never seemed to expect theirs in return, but wanted to earn it....
It doesn’t seem seven years since Leonard Cohen’s last album because the man has spent the middle years of his 70s up to his wrinkles in a whole lot of activity including critically acclaimed concert tours that produced a plethora of CDs and DVDs and a No.1 hit single via the dubious conduit of X Factor winner Alexandra Burke!
The years between 2004's Dear Heather and his latest album Old Ideas have built Cohen’s status to a Zen guru presence. For weeks there has been anticipation about this new record not because the public is imagining some reinvention at the age of 77 but more that he is the closest thing rock music has to a spiritual sage and we are waiting for the wisdom he has to share.
Old Ideas is no disappointment for those looking for spiritual songs.
LOS ANGELES — Mention the word “exorcism” to most people, and you get descriptions of levitating bodies, spinning heads, oozing green bile and hissing serpentine tongues. But don’t expect to see these eye-popping visual effects in this summer’s stage version of The Exorcist at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles.
Instead, the production will have “minimal” special effects, according to playwright John Pielmeier, who adapted William Peter Blatty’s best-selling 1971 novel for the stage.
"I didn’t look at the movie when I was doing this adaptation. It’s all the book,” he said.
Pielmeier says that his version needs no spinning heads or green bile. Instead, there will be a simple set with a minimal cast. And rather than revolve around a young girl’s demonic possession, the story will focus upon a series of clever debates between the demon and the priests.
'The American Bible' by Stephen Prothero. Credit: RNS photo courtesy Stephen Prothero
Abraham Lincoln’s “Gettysburg Address” radically reinterpreted the Declaration of Independence.
The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech riffed on Lincoln’s lofty language.
And Ronald Reagan drafted King’s dream of a country where character outweighs color into an argument against affirmative action.
There are certain speeches, songs, books, letters, laws, and axioms that Americans appreciate enough to argue about, says religion scholar Stephen Prothero.
Like the Declaration of Independence, this almost consecrated canon inspires endless commentary about what it means to be American — and what “America” means.
Photo by Tischenko Irina/Shutterstock.com
Among my must reads are the Sunday New York Times Book Review and other book reviews I come across in various media outlets. There are too many books being published that I would love to read, but just don’t have the time. So, I rely on reading book reviews as one way of keeping in touch with what’s being written.
Here are my picks in this week’s books of interest.
Duke Special. Image via www.dukespecial.com.
I have followed the Irish musician Peter Wilson’s (aka Duke Special) career from the very beginning, giving him one of his first radio sessions as Booley House way back in the day. I have watched the twists and turns of a determined young man seeking a way to fulfil his dreams for his art.
I remember him deciding that the piano was not the way to go and drawing a guitar band around him, renamed Benzine Headset. Then along came Coldplay and Wilson’s instrument was suddenly back in vogue and loads of bands improved because they gave the musically talented member who had been an add on out in the wings a more central position in writing and performance.
Wilson found his original vocation and genius and the piano became the focus. While watching him with the Ulster Orchestra recently, his piano and voice has never sounded more assured, more authoritative.
Oh Pioneer is being promoted as Duke Special’s third “commercial” release. Between it and his second “commercial” release he has produced five projects from theatre songs to a suite of songs on photographers to a short EP on Belfast’s great voice of the fifties Ruby Murray. His Dukeness seems a prolific young man who needs such projects to give his over imaginative mind room to play.
Andy Griffith tribute image by TheGodArticle.com via Facebook.
Beloved TV actor Andy Griffith has died, according to news reports. He was 86.
Griffith died this morning.
Former UNC President Bill Friday says The Andy Griffith Show and Matlock actor died at his home in Dare County, North Carolina around 7 a.m.
Friday, who is a close friend of the actor, confirmed the news to WITN News.
David Crowder tells stories and sings during a two-person acoustic set at Wild Goose. Photo by Cathleen Falsani/Sojourners.
On the opening night of the second Wild Goose Festival late last month in Shakori Hills, N.C., the dancing hadn't started yet.
The fabulous parades and the frenzied-yet-friendly almost-moshing were yet to commence on the grassy playscape in front of the main stage. Before things got wild for us goslings, we had to unpack our musical expectations and pitch a tent large enough to welcome the broadest of folds.
Kicking things off was Josh Garrels, who brought his smoothly smoky-folky sound with its pleasant rasp that recalls adult-alternative icons like Ray LaMontagne and Amos Lee. Following Garrels, former frontman of the band Caedmon’s Call and current experimental multi-genre provocateur Derek Webb pushed at the already broad boundaries of the Wild Goose aesthetic.
With several funny, yet biting, remarks during his plenary setlist, Webb outright rejected the “Christian music” label and bathed our brains with songs such as “A New Law,” the 2005 sarcastic anthem where bold freedom and blind faith wrestle it out for the soul of contemporary Christendom. Webb threw down a gauntlet with lyrics such as, “don't teach me about loving my enemies/don't teach me how to listen to the Spirit/just give me a new law.”
But on Friday, with fiery folk rock a la R.E.M. or Wilco, Damion Suomi and the Minor Prophets fired back a response. “The Lion, The Ram & The Fish” served up an antidote as we negotiated our weekend-long truce in the culture wars with this refrain: “Love your God with your heart, love your neighbor as your own, and the rest is just a guess as good as mine.”
"Sun Boxes" a solar powered outdoor art installation of music – life size Hot Wheels track earns World Record –belt buckle flask –summery fruit sculptures –man plays typewriter in symphony –realistic names for common snack foods – and eleven months of hard work finally pays off in this stunning video of a used engine rebuilt. See today's Links of Awesomeness for all the details...
Look out. There's a new sheriff in town. Image via Katrina Brown / Shutterstock
We’ve reached the halfway point of the year, which means states across the nation are adopting a variety of new laws at state and local levels. While most of the new provisions and amendments were about taxes, health, education, bullying, sexual harassment, etc., a few may cause you to raise an eyebrow. Here for your amusement, we present ten of the quirkiest new laws that we’ve stumbled upon…
I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry, but it’s true. We’re 20 weeks into the Church Sign Epic Fails series and going strong.
Always good to pick fights on your church sign.
The Collection. Via the band's Facebook page: www.facebook.com/davidwimbishandthecollection
I lost my joy. I suspect there are a few of you who feel the same way. Not that you aren't happy, but there is this deep place of celebratory joy which you once knew that really doesn't come around much anymore.
There was a time when I was a pretty joyful guy. Not “blind to the world's problems” kind of joyful, just “blessed to be blessed in the midst of this mess” kind of joyful. Lately though, I've found joy to be an increasingly difficult thing to come by.
The thing is, I have every reason to be joyful. I'm lucky enough to be married to an amazing woman – truly amazing. I couldn't be prouder of my kids who, in an age of “be different just like us” are very much their own kind of different simply because they aren't afraid of being themselves. My personal interests, like my blog, just keep getting better. I have some of the best friends in the world. Yet, I'm not the generally joyful person I once was.
It's a dull malaise that I just can't quite shake. I don't like it. Not one bit.
Recently though, I've been catching little glimpses of my joy making cameo appearances in the storyline of my life. I like it. A lot.
The question is, why now? Why not back then?
There is nothing casual
about casualties of war.
It is serious business deciding
which of the wounded
get Medevac’d or left behind
on the battlefield.
It is not the ones
with the most severe of injuries
who are transported
elsewhere for treatment
but the ones with the best
chance of surviving them
that make the trip.
“There’s nothing we can do.”
THE FIRST BUG was a surprise, glancing off my front teeth to lodge in the nosepiece of my fashionable clip-on sunglasses. Note to self: When biking to work, keep your mouth closed. So the second bug was totally my fault, but I defy you to bike three whole miles without exuberantly singing songs from Broadway musicals. (“Oklahoma” is particularly susceptible to bug ingestion.)
Fortunately, the second insect was quite palatable: chewy, of course, but with an aftertaste of fresh clover and just a hint of oak, suggesting it might go well with a nice pinot noir or, on a particularly hot day, a carafe of iced sangria. (Note: When June bugs are out in force, replace wine with a mint-flavored mouthwash. And flossing is a necessity.)
I BIKE TO work these days because the District of Columbia has strongly suggested I do so, in lieu of spending a year in jail and up to $5,000 in fines. Frankly, I could use the time incarcerated to catch up on my reading, but it seems to me that in imposing a fine they’re just trying to punish me. (Although there’s a chance that was their point.)
This was communicated to me in a letter from the D.C. Department of Motor Vehicles (SATAN). Using the terse and unforgiving language of a junior high school principal, it informed me that my license has been suspended for 180 days. But I can explain:
You know how it is when you’re northbound on I-95, a highway of mind-numbing flatness, like Kansas, but with more Starbucks. And you know how it is when you’re driving your hybrid electric car and feeling your oats—or, for younger people not familiar with that expression, feeling your Red Bull—and you want to see how fast you can go while STILL getting 58 miles per gallon.
JOIN ME IN your imagination for a few minutes in the high Andes. The bamboo that arches over us here—like the tree that arches over your yard or nearby park—is at this very moment taking the carbon you and other creatures are breathing out. It then reforms this carbon into carbohydrate, powered by solar energy and hydrated with water (photosynthesis). It is making sugar from that CO2. The plant then uses this sugar to provide the energy and materials for making all sorts of new substances.
For example, if I take a leaf from a plant (such as lettuce or kale) and chew and swallow it, it is transformed within me to produce materials for sustaining my life, powering my walking and speaking and writing. And from its use I release carbon dioxide, returning through this gas the very same carbon the leaf had absorbed through the stomatal pores on its surface and incorporated into the leafy food I ingested. To complete the remarkable carbon cycle, the carbon I breathe out is eventually taken up again by green plants that in turn produce food for humans, bugs, birds, and batrachians! (Let’s hear a doxology!) Without green plants, all human life perishes—and most other animate life as well.
Plants accomplish a myriad of activities out of our sight. Beneath lawns and gardens, forests and prairies, roots are moving water from the soil, pulling it up through stems into the leaves and back into the atmosphere. All forests, all trees, all vegetation—great movers of water—are constantly returning to the atmosphere water that had fallen as rain. It rises again and again within the thin fabric of the biospheric envelope and condenses into those white clouds you see above to fall down again to water the earth.
WRITER Cheryl Strayed’s unusually apt last name was self-selected in the wake of her mother’s premature death from cancer and after her first marriage collapsed under the weight of grief-stricken infidelity in 1995. Anguished and reeling from loss, then-26-year-old Strayed, a novice hiker, picked a new name for herself and took off on a 1,100-mile solo hike up the Pacific Crest Trail. In three months, she hiked from the Mojave Desert in California to the Washington state line in an attempt to heal. In her new memoir, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail (Knopf), she recounts her bold trek into the wilderness and her restorative journey home.
Strayed is also the wildly popular advice columnist for the online culture magazine The Rumpus (therumpus.net), writing under the pen name Sugar until she revealed her true identity in February. A collection of her “Dear Sugar” columns, Tiny Beautiful Things (Vintage), will be published in July.
Brittany Shoot: Your stint as Sugar on The Rumpus has been wildly successful. How do you feel about the fact that many readers take so seriously advice from ordinary people? How does it feel to be treated as a life experiences expert?
Cheryl Strayed: I’m grateful when people tell me my advice has affected them positively, but I don’t translate that into letting myself believe I’m a “life experiences expert.” When I first began writing the “Dear Sugar” column, I thought a lot about whether I was qualified to give advice. Pretty quickly, I came to the conclusion that there really is no such thing as a qualified advice-giver. People who are willing and able to deeply reflect upon a matter and then express those reflections with as little bias and self-interest as possible are almost always going to offer something of value, regardless of their so-called expertise. That person might be your mother. It might be someone you met in the grocery store and chatted with one afternoon. It might be your pastor or therapist or school counselor. It might be an advice columnist who calls herself Sugar. All sorts of people are capable of giving excellent advice, just as all sorts of people—even those who give advice professionally—are capable of doing the opposite.