Along with the silent film The Artist, Haywire, and War Horse, the smartest wide-release recent movie is Chronicle, a kinetic fusion of Breakfast Club-style teenage angst with post-9/11 violence-as-a-way-of-life (or at least way-to-be-noticed).
Culture Watch
Julie Polter 3-01-2012
Homies and Hermanos: God and Gangs in Central America; The Amish; Simplifying the Soul: Lenten Practices to Renew Your Spirit; The Ethical Vision of Clint Eastwood.
Gareth Higgins 3-01-2012
A perfect time to catch up on the 10 best Blu-ray releases of the past year.
Elizabeth Palmberg 3-01-2012
The tattooed former meth cook, Zach, is at the heart of the business—the artisan coffee roaster.
Danny Duncan Collum 3-01-2012
Muslim cops and football coaches (oh my!) -- the next step in the right wing's efforts to keep Americans in fear.
Brittany Shoot 2-01-2012
No Sympathy for the Devil: Christian Pop Music and the Transformation of American Evangelicalism, by David W. Stowe.
Gareth Higgins 2-01-2012
Hugo, Take Shelter, and The Mill and the Cross have little in common on the surface other than their quality; look deeper and you may find love-filled, theologically profound, hopeful invitations to live better.
Julie Polter 2-01-2012
Widow, Queen, Lover, Warrior; Faith in the Struggle; The Message; ‘Do Not Cast Me Away.’
Danny Duncan Collum 2-01-2012
Thirty-four years later, nearly two decades into the Internet age, the September 2011 break-up of the rock band R.E.M. reminded me just how right Bangs was. R.E.M. was one of the last traditional rock bands still doing relevant work.
Tim Kumfer 2-01-2012
Liberating Biblcal Study: Scholarship, Art, and Action in Honor of the Center and Library for the Bible and Social Justice, edited by Laura Dykstra and Ched Myers.
Alisa Harris 2-01-2012
In a country where parents lit their wounded daughters on fire, women lit themselves on fire to escape. I couldn’t shake the image of a young girl stepping into flames with a despair so profound that she would rather scorch her own flesh than face her own future.
Christopher Smith 1-01-2012
War and the American Difference: Theological Reflections on Violence and National Identity, by Stanley Hauerwas.
Robert Hirschfield 1-01-2012
Orange Alert: Essays on Poetry, Art, and the Architecture of Silence. And, Fasting For Ramadan: Notes from a Spiritual Practice.
Jason Storbakken 1-01-2012
Activist pastor Gardener C. Taylor on lessons learned in a long life of faithfully taking the side of the oppressed.
Elizabeth Palmberg 1-01-2012
"I think it is a spiritual task to struggle with questions such as what and who we place at the center of our economy"