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There Will Be Brilliance
Filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson surpasses himself.
by Jean Bethke Elshtain
May/June 2008
Music on the Brain
Oliver Sacks investigates.
by Jeremy Begbie
March/April 2008
Tricksters and Badmen
Burt Williams, Stagolee, and Jump Jim Crow.
by William Edgar
March/April 2008
Holy Hegemony!
A visit to Branson.
by Frederica Mathewes-Green
March/April 2008
What Was It You Wanted
Bob Dylan and Jesse James
by Jean Bethke Elshtain
March/April 2008
A Meditation on the Joint and Its Holy Ornaments
Distance and relation.
by Wayne L. Roosa
January/February 2008
I Spy
The Lives of Others.
by Paul Cantor
January/February 2008
A Way of Giving Thanks
Midwifing the American food revolution.
by LaVonne Neff
November/December 2007
Not Silly Enough
Revisiting Disney's Silly Symphonies.
by John H. McWhorter
November/December 2007
Hee-Haw
How far are we from Idiocracy
by Frederica Mathewes-Green
November/December 2007
A Bigger Tool Kit
Theology from a prog rock band.
by Roger Freet
September/October 2007
The Dance of Thought
Nietzsche and music.
by Bruce Ellis Benson
September/October 2007
Music in God's World
by Jeremy S. Begbie
September/October 2007
Theology Is Stranger Than Fiction
The best film you didn't see last year.
by Sharon Baker and Crystal Downing
September/October 2007
Cue the Violin
Was Hitchcock a master in his use of music?
by John H. McWhorter
July/August 2007
Against Narrowcasting
Radio as it was and might yet be.
by Mark Gauvreau Judge
July/August 2007
Click of the Light / Start of the Dream
Paying attention to Arcade Fire.
by David Dark
July/August 2007
THE VISIBILITY OF THE INVISIBLE
Renaissance Art and the Mediation of Belief
by E. John Walford
July/August 2007
Look Again
William Holman Hunt and the Pre-Raphaelite vision.
by Timothy Larsen
March/April 2007
Seeking with Groans
The moral universe of film noir.
by Thomas Hibbs
March/April 2007
The Cheerful Solipsist
Walt Disney and his century.
by Bill McKibben
March/April 2007
A New Kind of Calvinism
The theology of a comic strip.
by Sarah Hinlicky Wilson
January/February 2007
THE CHRISTIAN VISION PROJECT
Come and See
Leonardo da Vinci's Philip in The Last Supper.
by Makoto Fujimura
November/December 2006
Praise Prepositions
by Jeanne Murray Walker
November/December 2006
Please Flush
Why rock critics need to re-read Lester Bangs—and JPII.
by Mark Gauvreau Judge
November/December 2006
The Triumph of Genius
Celebrating Mozart.
by Jon Pott
November/December 2006
American, Yes; Primitive, No
The art of Grandma Moses.
by Lauren F. Winner
November/December 2006
Hidden Under a Bushel
Sufjan Stevens and the problem of Christian music.
by Randall J. Stephens and Delvyn Case
November/December 2006
A Look Ahead
by Laurance Wieder
November/December 2006
Fried Pie and Catfish Filets
Kate Campbell's Blues and Lamentations tour.
by Lil Copan
September/October 2006
Down the Rabbit-Hole
The life and work of John Tenniel.
by Edward Short
September/October 2006
On Time
Poetry.
by Paul J. Willis
September/October 2006
Good Trembling
The films of Val Lewton.
by Peter T. Chattaway
July/August 2006
A Time to Swing
Tommy Dorsey and the big band era.
by Timothy Larsen
July/August 2006
More Than Meets the Eye
History and The End of the Spear.
by Kathryn Long
May/June 2006
Boink!
Composing for cartoons.
by John H. McWhorter
March/April 2006
"Why All This?"
Rediscovering the witness of Hans Rookmaaker.
By William Edgar
January/February 2006
Pilgrim Bergman
The life and films of Sweden's great director.
By Roy Anker
January/February 2006
The Devil Is Real. Therefore
Evidence that demands a verdict.
Peter T. Chattaway
November/December 2005
Let's Do the Mash
The Who Boys, the Beastles, and the Bible.
By Andy Crouch
September/October 2005
Rime of the Ancient Martian
War of the Worldsthe remix.
By Crystal Downing
September/October 2005
Ungawa!
The curiously compelling saga of Tarzan.
By Frederica Mathewes-Green
September/October 2005
Listening for Another Reality
Adapting George MacDonald for radio.
By Philip Glassborow
September/October 2005
Donnie and the Bunnyman
Why Donnie Darko is a favorite film on college campuses.
By Thomas Hibbs
September/October 2005
What Is "Jewish Art"?
Collective memory personalized.
by Mark Packer
July/August 2005
Wagner and The Lion King
Where to find the total work of art.
by John H. McWhorter
May/June 2005
The Movies and America
What the Academy Award nominees for Best Picture tell us about ourselves.
by Drew Trotter
May/June 2005
Ending It
Mercy killing at the movies.
by Peter T. Chattaway
May/June 2005
Jedi or Jesuit?
Looking for God at the cineplex.
by Jason Byassee
May/June 2005
The Big Muddy
Folk artist Richard Shindell sees big stories in small moments.
By Holly Lebowitz-Rossi
January/February 2005
Forget Me Not
Movies and memory.
By Peter T. Chattaway
January/February 2005
For Everything There Is a Season
Nostalgia for nature's seasons in a climate-controlled world.
By Cindy Crosby
November/December 2004
Your Chip Is Showing
Four recent films show a battle for control among men, women, and machines.
By Peter T. Chattaway
November/December 2004
A Practical Romantic
The films of Douglas Fairbanks.
By S.T. Karnick
November/December 2004
The Legend of Bono Vox
Lessons learned in the church of U2.
By Scott Calhoun
November/December 2004
Turning the Lens on Itself
Jean Luc-Godard, agent provocateur.
By Michael Leary
September/October 2004
Seen Through
Christ of Sinai and the splendor of Byzantium at the Met.
By Emily Jorjorian Lowe
September/October 2004
Annie Get Your Subaltern Identity
The metamorphosis of the American musical.
By John McWhorter
July/August 2004
The Revenger's Tragedy
Vengeance is ours, saith Hollywood.
By Peter T. Chattaway
July/August 2004
Differently Disabled
Forrest Gump without the extravagance: the "ordinary" life of Bill Porter.
by Crystal Downing
May/June 2004
Jesus and Mama
The intercessor par excellence in country music
by Sam Torode
May/June 2004
The Biggest Book in the World
In pursuit of a 130-pound photo album.
by Laurance Wieder
May/June 2004
What Would Buffy Do?
Is it possible to call for help ironicallyand really mean it?
by Todd Hertz
May/June 2004
"Out of the Darkness"
Entering the world of Krzysztof Kieslowski.
by Roy Anker
March/April 2004
An Emperor of Art
The life and films of Akira Kurosawa.
by Carl Plantinga
March/April 2004
The Punk Rocker with a Ph.D.
Greg Graffin, frontman of Bad Religion, has a freshly minted doctorate in evolutionary biology and a new album coming soon.
by Preston Jones
March/April 2004
How to Disappear
The restless art of Weldon Kees, "pursued for mortal stakes."
by Caroline Langston
January/February 2004
An Ecumenical Luther
The Reformation as a movie.
by Sarah Hinlicky Wilson
January/February 2004
Hulking Rage
An epidemic of anger at the cineplex.
by Jeffrey Overstreet
September/October 2003
A Different Kind of Hero
Retelling the gospel in a new rock opera.
by Russ Breimeier
September/October 2003
The Movies Go to War
The moral messages and political overtones of war films.
by Peter T. Chattaway
July/August 2003
Getting It Half-Right
What's worth celebrating in Gods and Generalsand what's not.
by Mark Noll
July/August 2003
Reading God's Two Books
Reconciling the written Word with the starry skies.
by William R. Shea
March/April 2003
Skeptical Resurrection
A sci-fiand psy-fijourney into space.
by Phil Christman
March/April 2003
Heaven for a Terrorist
How are our actions judged?
by Agnieszka Tennant
March/April 2003
The Hymn
How ordinary belivers found their voice through song.
by Mark Noll
March/April 2003
Hungry Eye
The Two Towers and the seductiveness of spectacle.
by Ralph C. Wood
March/April 2003
A Bloody Shame
Gangs of New York and the apotheosis of Martin Scorsese.
by Eric Metaxas
March/April 2003
Born Again
A Man Without a Past
by Peter T. Chattaway
January/February 2003
Looking for Bach
The mystery of the missing years.
by John Ito
January/February 2003
Humming Schoenberg
Is there any there there?
by John H. McWhorter
January/February 2003
Sacred Monsters
Frida seeks to shock but ends up prettifying its subject.
by Jeff M. Sellers
January/February 2003
Stranger in a Strange Land
Two Icons
by Scott Cairns
November/December 2002
Going to Hell
by David Noll
November/December 2002
The Other Warhol
by Daniel A. Siedell
November/December 2002
The Windup World of the Nervous Tick
Looking hard with Elvis Costello.
by David Dark
November/December 2002
Signs and Wonders
The spiritual imagination of M. Night Shyamalan
by Roy Anker
November/December 2002
To End All Christian Films
A movie that takes evil seriously.
by Eric Metaxas
July/August 2002
Smoke Signals on Film
Indians in the Movies
by Crystal Downing
July/August 2002
Vengeance is Whose?
A new file version of The Count of Monte Cristo emphasizes faith, but with a strange twist.
by Todd Hertz
July/August 2002
The Way It Was Before
Stephen Carter's first novel offers a compelling mystery.
by Elizabeth Fox-Genovese
July/August 2002
They've Gotta Have It
The impossibility of being celibate.
by Peter T. Chattaway
May/June 2002
Parody
The corrections.
by Eric Metaxas
May/June 2002
Poem
Alpha/Omega, Eucharist & the Coriolis Force.
by Luci Shaw
May/June 2002
Ennobled by Jazz
Ralph Ellison and the music of American possibility.
by Lucas E. Morel
May/June 2002
Synoptic Star Wars
The fan club strikes back.
by Telford Work
March/April 2002
Seducing the Underworld
Christian's story in Moulin Rouge.
by Douglas Jones
March/April 2002
Back in the U.S.S.R.
Films of the Soviet Sixties.
by Bethany Davis Noll
March/April 2002
"They Don't Write Them Like That Anymore"
Really? Richard Rodgers, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and the fate of American musical theater.
by John H. McWhorter
January/February 2002
The Beauty of Borrowing
Contemporary artists in dialogue with the past.
by Joel C. Sheesley
January/February 2002
Kandahar
A film from Iran explores the Taliban's heart of darkness.
by Peter T. Chattaway
January/February 2002
The Sheep, the Goats, and Leo DiCaprio
Just another Hollywood pretty boy, you say?
by Crystal Downing
November/December 2001
Rock's New Rebellion
Net music and the backlash against commodification.
by J. David Dark
November/December 2001
Who Killed Classical Music?
And can marketing magic bring it back to life?
by Lionel Basney
September/October 2001
A.I.: Artificial Intelligence
Steven Spielberg's A.I. is a haunting parable about human longings.
by Roy Anker
September/October 2001
Final Fantasy
Our spirits, ourselves?
by John Wilson
September/October 2001
What's Cooking When Martha Stewart Meets the VeggieTales?
Bob the Tomato and the doyenne of decorating go together like water and wine.
by Otto Selles
July/August 2001
Shrek: Happily Ever Ogre
An anti-fairy tale run amuck.
by Eric Metaxas
May 30, 2001
The Iron Women of Chinese Cinema
Why do so many recent Chinese films feature strong women?
by Stefan Ulstein
May/June 2001
Creative Spirituality
The way of the artist.
by Robert Wuthnow
March/April 2001
Art and Idolatry
Making golden calves.
by David Morgan
March/April 2001
Rembrandt's Protestant Icons
The impact of Reformed thought on Rembrandt's art.
by Catharine Randall
March/April 2001
The Artworld's Memento Mori
Vanity, all is vanity.
by Daniel A. Siedell
March/April 2001
Transport me. Please.
I want to stare at something amazing, something that pulls me beyond myself.
by Eric Metaxas
March/April 2001
Swinging Before the Sixties
The revival of swing dancing and the rebirth of grown-up culture. A Web Exclusive.
by Nathaniel Taylor
February 14, 2001
Postmodern Hamlet
Can Shakespeare survive the dissolution of the self?
by Debra Rienstra
January/February 2001
The Soul of Duke
The surprisingly Christian roots of Duke Ellington's jazz. A Web Exclusive.
by William Edgar
January 17, 2001
Evangelical Psychopath
We're used to seeing born-again Christians portrayed as hypocritical, sex-crazed maniacs whose holy talk conceals deeds of darkness. Craig Lucas's new play, Stranger, seems to be heading along that well-worn pathbut then it takes an unexpected twist.
by Lauren Winner
November 8, 2000
Yolking with Postmodernism
Where is postmodern culture headed? Two recent films, Chicken Run and The X-Men, suggest a neo-Romantic turn. A Web Exclusive.
by Crystal Downing
October 11, 2000
Ambiguous Liturgy
Rock music as religious experience.
Flowers In the Dustbin: The Rise Of Rock & Roll, 1947-1977 by James Miller
by Tom Beaudoin
September/October 2000
The What-If Game
Movies that fiddle with the arrow of time
by Peter T. Chattaway
July/August 2000
Playing the Postmodern Field
Any Given Sunday
by Crystal Downing
May/June 2000
The Lost Art of Attentive Viewing
Painting the Word: Christian Paintings and Their Meanings by John Drury
by E. John Walford
May/June 2000
Jesus at the Movies
"In Jesus of Montreal, Denys Arcand's witty satire about a group of actors who put on a revisionist Passion play, the church sponsoring the play sends in some security guards to call off the production in mid-performance. The actors have tinkered with the Gospels too much; their reconstruction of the historical Jesus challenges church tradition at nearly every point, so out it must go
"
by Peter T. Chattaway
March/April 2000
He Was in the Arts, You Know
A tribute to sculptor Joseph O'Connell.
by Garrison Keillor
March/April 2000
The Self-Deception of Mr. Death
Errol Morris's new film Mr. Death peers into the mind of a Holocaust denier.
by Peter T. Chattaway
January/February 2000
Random Jottings Found on the Back of a Movie Poster
Random Jottings Found on the Back of a Movie Poster Announcing the Opening of Friday the Thirteenth, Part XXIII, Transcribed on the Night of the Last Lunar Eclipse
by Albert Haley
November/December 1999
Richard Rorty for the Silver Screen
Waking Ned Devine as apologetic for postmodernism.
by Crystal Downing
September/October 1999
Devil in a Blue Dress
Bourgeois life is about winning; the blues are about losing. Bourgeois life is innocence; the blues are experience.
by Gerald Early
September/October 1999
Maximal Minimist
Arvo Pärt converted to Russian Orthodoxy and brought depth to his music.
by William Edgar
September/October 1999
John Donne meets The Runaway Bunny
Margaret Edson is equally at home in kindergarten and on Broadway.
by Betty Carter
September/October 1999
An Interview with Margaret Edson
Q & A session with Margaret Edson
Interview by Betty Carter
September/October 1999
Liberated by Reality
The Matrix
by Tony Jones
September/October 1999
Deliver Us From Evil
The films of Paul Schrader show that he got the most important part of his Calvinist upbringing right.
by Roy Anker
July/August 1999
Saigon Stories
Looking for family values? Try postwar Vietnam.
by Greg Metzger
May/June 1999
Spielberg's List
Five Holocaust survivors tell the camera the bitter truth.
by Stefan Ulstein
March/April 1999
Weird Sisters
Not accepting yourself is the original sin in these media tales of witchcraft.
by Margaret Kim Peterson
March/April 1999
Myth America
Pleasantville's full of conservative bigots intent on keeping their women from book-learning and orgasms.
by Eric Metaxas
January/February 1999
My Favorite Flicks
Earlier this year the American Film Institute made headlines with a list of the 100 best American films. We asked regular reviewers Roy Anker and Peter Chattaway to give us a modest counterpart: their 10 favorite films.
by Roy Anker and Peter T. Chattaway
November/December 1998
Prodigal Grandma
We moderns like our heroes cut down to size. Especially we demand that Christian faith, which is nothing if not the heroic writ large, must be portrayed warts and all.
by Eric Metaxas
November/December 1998
The Saxophonist Who Would Be a Saint
John Coltrane: His Life and Music by Lewis Porter
by Rodney Clapp
September/October 1998
Amnesiacs Anonymous
Aliens seek to hijack human immortality.
by Peter T. Chattaway
July/August 1998
Pinocchio on the Damascus Road
It's not so easy getting over woodenness.
by Vigen Guroian
May/June 1998
It Ain't Me, Babe
Bob Dylan, reluctant prophet.
by Alan Jacobs
May/June 1998
Sci-Fi's Biofascism
"Science fiction movies serve as directional indicators for the winds of the zeitgeist. In the 1950s we were served up cautionary tales about the misuse of science. We fooled with atomic energy and got gigantic spiders, a 50-foot woman, an Incredible Shrinking Manand, of course, Godzilla."
by Stefan Ulstein
May/June 1998
Preacher Man
Robert Duvall's The Apostle goads not only secularists but conventional believers as well
by Roy Anker
May/June 1998
Amistad Gives African Americans Their Due
Abolitionists fare less well.
by Peter T. Chattaway
March/April 1998
The Ultimate Lawyer Joke
It's a bad omen when Rosemary's Baby meets The Firm
by Roy Anker
January/February 1998
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