If you haven’t yet watched Stranger Things on Netflix, this may not resonate with you. It’s a fantastic retro-80s show with supernatural mystery cloak-and-dagger themes that provides ample homage to Stephen King, Stephen Spielberg (especially E.T.), John Carpenter, The Goonies, and all things eighties (Think of the retro 2011 film Super 8). For a great illustration, consider how the soundtrack […]
pop culture
Songs Jesus Would Sing: The birth of a new series
In this post I am launching a new series titled “Songs Jesus Would Sing.” This series is borne of my general sense of alienation from contemporary Christian music coupled with my deep affinity for music played “out there in the world” and a recognition that much of that “worldly” music conveys themes which are profoundly […]
Who can save the box office from superhero movies?
I woke up this morning, checked the box office numbers for the weekend, and saw with horror and disappointment (but not, I admit, surprise) that the new Spider-Man film (the second in a shamelessly rebooted series) is going to pull in $90 million at the North American box office. Amazing Spider-Man? You want to see […]
Will Bibleman defeat Boghossian’s Epistemic Knight?
A few days ago Derek M drew my (and the collective “our”) attention to the following proposal from Peter Boghossian for inculcating atheist beliefs and values in pop culture, and in particular within children: “Whether or not we can be successful in helping people see value in epistemological rigor is an empirical question. I have […]
Bruno Mars on beauty and happiness: An exercise in taking vacuous pop lyrics seriously
The other day I was doing some work when a song came on the radio. Since I’m blissfully unaware of the latest stars in pop music, I hadn’t previously heard of the artist (Bruno Mars) or the song (“Treasure”). It turns out that Mr. Mars is a popular artist these days. So now I’m in […]
When Archie got Jesus: A history of Christian Archie comics
When I was growing up I had a stack of Archie comics that was about fifty inches high (and that’s not even counting the dozens and dozens of digests). To this day I lament the fact that I gave those treasured comics away when I hit university. What was I thinking?! One day in the […]
