Spirituality

Miscellaneous

• John the Baptist offended many people in his day and his ministry was cut short. Some might have told John that he needed a little help with his public relations.  Read "The Public Relations of John the Baptist."

• Tired of end-of-the-millennium doom-and-gloom? Take a light-hearted look at the Apocalypse in "The Mark of the Beets."

• Did you know you can study comparative religion through "How many ______ does it take to change a light bulb?" jokes. Read "Light Bulb Theology."

• Is the old rhyme "Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me" really true? Sticks, stones, and bullets can kill the body, but words can kill the soul. Read "Confessions of an Ex-Judgment-Slinger."

• How are sermons like Brussels sprouts? What do clowns have to do with church? What is the greatest hardship inflicted on civilized people? Find out in The Gospel in Greasepaint: Creative Biblical Skits for Clowns, Mimes, and Other Fools for Christ! Get info about The Gospel in Greasepaint.

• If modern advertising had been around in the first century, would the Bible contain ads? Ads something like this? Read "Johnny Baptist's All-Natural Honey-Locust Spiritual Diet Plan."

Movie Reviews

• See also the Index of Films Reviewed on this Site

• The ultimate antihero messiah for the post-9/11 "War on Terror" era can apparently be found in The Chronicles of Riddick, the sequel to Pitch Black. Overcoming evil with evil, unfortunately, seems to be the spirit of the times. Read "Fighting Evil with Another Kind of Evil?"

• Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2 offer surprisingly profound spiritual lessons when unmasked from their comic-book disguise. No other films have so evocatively explored the downside of being a superhero. Peter Parker, the reluctant everyman messiah, must constantly choose between self-interest and self-sacrifice, choose between his own needs and those of others, choose between his own social life and social obligation, and make all these choices while being misunderstood and unappreciated. Being a superhero never seemed so difficult. Read "Unmasking the Spirituality of Spider-Man."

• In the mythology of the very influential The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien employed several Christ figures, the most obvious being the wizard Gandalf. In Tolkien's "fundamentally religious and Catholic" novel, the symbolism of Gandalf's "death and resurrection" scenes was implicit, but Peter Jackson's film versions visually made Gandalf's Christ-figure symbolism more explicit.
  Read "Middle Earth's Messianic Mythology Remixed: Gandalf's Death and Resurrection in Novel and Film." This article will explore:
  • The cultural impact of Tolkien's mythology
  • The meaning of myth to Tolkien
  • The characteristics of a Christ figure
  • What a Christ figure subtext may add to the psychological/mythological impact of a work of art
  • How Gandalf's death and resurrection scenes portrayed him as a Christ figure
  • How these two scenes in the films diverged from the book
  • The possible meaning of that divergence (of the mythology remixed)
  (This article is published on the Journal of Religion and Popular Culture.)

• In The Matrix trilogy, the Christ figure motif goes beyond superficial plot enhancements and forms the fundamental core of the three-part story. Neo’s messianic growth (in self-awareness and power) and his eventual bringing of peace and salvation to humanity form the essential plot of the trilogy. Read "He is the One: The Matrix Trilogy's Postmodern Movie Messiah." (This article is published on the Journal of Religion and Film.)

• Want to know more about the relationship between science fiction, spirituality, and cinema? Want to know more about the films The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Time Machine, and The Little Prince? Read "A Prince, Machines, and Stillness: Theology, Technology, and Time in Three Science Fiction/Fantasy Stories Transformed into Film."

• Can play and innocence triumph over violence and paranoia? Read review of Toys.

• Blessed are the Gump in heart? Read review of Forrest Gump.

• The legacy of a "scoundrel savior." Read review of Schindler's List.

• Two movies with differently paced parables. Read review of Speed and Little Buddha.

• If you had only one day to live, would you do it with debauchery, despair, or dignity? Read review of Groundhog Day.

• Dracula films refuse to die. Here's yet another reason to grab a stake and a cross. Read review of Bram Stoker's Dracula.

• Because of the real-life coincidences surrounding this film, it could be the eeriest movie ever made. Read review of The Crow.

Short Stories

• Suppose you invented a space-time machine with the potential to reveal many secrets of the universe--but also to transform renegade nations and terrorist groups into dangerous superpowers. What would you do? Should you concentrate on the glory and ignore the shadow side of your life's work? Or should you destroy it all to prevent an apocalypse? Go to "Time Shadows" page.

• If you were a Jewish physicist who had discovered time travel, would you want to see the fall of Jerusalem in A.D. 70? Would you want to stop it from happening? Read sci-fi short story "Apocalypse of Amaziah."

• Is the end of the world really the end? Can there be an astronomical sequel to the book of Revelation? Read sci-fi short story "Revelation II."

• What if you had to wrestle with your own ghost? Who would win? Read "Ghostslinger."

Go to the Cinema, Spirituality, and Science Fiction Home page, or to the Cinema page, or to the Science Fiction page.