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Channel: Marybeth Davis Baggett – Christ and Pop Culture
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Fine Art’s ‘Ornamental Despair': Chris Foss, Glenn Brown, and the Question of...

How is a painting modeled on a science fiction book cover worth nearly $5.7 million? This question demanded internet attention back in October when Glenn Brown’s Ornamental Despair (Painting for Ian...

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“And Death Shall Be No More”: Going beyond Transhumanism for Kids

Death seems an odd topic for a children’s book, but author Gennady Stolyarov II explains that he wrote his recently released Death Is Wrong to share with kids what he wished he would have learned...

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Dubious Depictions of Faithfulness in ‘God’s Not Dead’

In some ways God’s Not Dead is a compelling story: an inexperienced but sincere Christian college freshman faces the daunting challenge of defending his belief in God against a stridently combative...

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What Marilynne Robinson Could Learn From Herself

Marilynne Robinson has long been my literary hero; she is a thoughtful Christian with beautiful command of language and deep insight into the human condition. Although her fiction output is relatively...

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The Fault in Green’s Story

John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars is a beautiful love story, really. In this young-adult-novel-turned-film, Green crafts believable characters struggling with a tragic reality in this world:...

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Beyonce Overtakes the Louvre: Making Space for the Other

Last month, Beyoncé Knowles, husband Jay-Z, and baby Blue Ivy stopped by the Louvre during their tour of Paris. And although the palace has been a museum since 1793, has been visited by upwards of ten...

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Living in the Not Yet: “Mockingjay – Part 1″ as Microcosm of the Fall

Mockingjay – Part 1, which opened this past weekend and swept away its box-office competition, has a decidedly different feel from previous Hunger Games films. Katniss—the consummate hunter and...

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Yuletide Intimations of Hope, Untarnished by Our Foibles

For many, holiday festivities come to a head tonight with candlelight communion services, concluding tomorrow morning with children gleefully unwrapping presents under the Christmas tree. Come tomorrow...

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His Truth Is Marching On: Selma’s Clarion Call

“The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” – Martin Luther King, Jr. There’s a poignant scene towards the close of Ava DuVernay’s new film Selma, a scene made all the more...

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‘Making Manifest': Creative Spiritual Formation, Free for CaPC Members

Dave Harrity has taken on a daunting challenge in his 2013 book, Making Manifest: On Faith, Creativity, and the Kingdom at Hand. A blend of devotional and creative exercises, Harrity’s slim volume is...

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About Time: A Romantic Comedy That’s Actually About Love

“With all respect to heaven, the scene of miracle is here, among us.” ~ Marilynne Robinson My new favorite movie is easy to mock, or at least easy to dismiss with faint praise. The critical consensus...

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Is Apple’s 12 Days of Gifts Blurring Our Vision of Epiphany?

“[F]or me the meaning of life is centered in our Redemption by Christ and what I see in the world I see in relation to that.” — Flannery O’Connor Apple brought a new holiday promotion to America this...

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Spectacularly Trivialized: “Teen Mom 2″ and Abortion as Entertainment

About thirty years ago in his signature work Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman warned that the encroaching entertainment industry threatened to undermine society’s ability to deal with...

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Virtual Choices, Real Effects: The Impact of Our Hyperlink Trail

“…we always pay dearly for chasing after what is cheap.” —Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago Robert Frost’s most recognizable poem is probably his most misunderstood. Despite popular...

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Mike Huckabee, Helpless Women, and Straw Men

In The Moral Landscape, atheist Sam Harris writes that much research on deductive reasoning suggests that people have a “bias” for sound conclusions and will judge a valid argument to be invalid if its...

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Kurt Vonnegut: Unlikely Apologist

  The late Kurt Vonnegut inspires loyalty among his readers. He’s the kind of author whose fans devour book after book, reading one after another in rapid succession. Or at least I did. Back in 1997 a...

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J. K. Rowling: In Praise of Imagination

Written in collaboration with David Baggett. Scribblers in the blogosphere were abuzz with talk of Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling’s most recent revelation. Hold on to your broomsticks: in what she...

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Attending to the Least of These in the Age of Trump

“Even if you have this baby, I’m not going to love you.” Nearly twenty-four years later, despite my having faced and overcome many challenges since that time and finally feeling secure in God’s...

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The Handmaid’s Tale Evokes a Longing for Peace and Justice

I love Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale, so I was thrilled to hear that Hulu was adapting it as a 10-episode series. The story has plenty of fodder for an engaging drama: a relatable...

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Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri Shows Us a World Full of Meanness

“No pleasure but meanness.” Such is the ethos of the Misfit, the hardened criminal whose presence looms over Flannery O’Connor’s iconic short story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” Even before he appears...

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