The Ideology of Love in Film We have all seen it; a film wherein a lover pursues another for the duration of the movie, creating tension and perpetuating the feeling of an unattainable partner. This is necessary for the plot and for the ideology of love to function. If the lover’s partner is obtained in one climactic scene, as they are in many films, the political ramifications are tremendous. The longing is no longer there, the...
SPOILERS AHEAD! RUN FOR THE HILLS! Darren Aronofsky’s new film, mother!, is absolutely stunning. I was mesmerized and blown away. Let me say at the outset that one’s enjoyment of this movie is almost entirely based upon two factors: (a) knowing as little about the film as possible before seeing it, and (b) actually figuring out what you’re watching to some extent. If you know what it’s about beforehand, you may find it predictable. If you...
What I want to discuss here is controversial. Additionally, what I want to address is not novel. Here is the thought I’d like to ‘think aloud,’ so to speak, in the provocative world of the blogosphere: Is 1 Corinthians 14:33b-36 original? I should say up front that my focus is not on Complementarianism vs. Egalitarianism per se. There are Egalitarians and Complementarians who take 1 Cor 14.33b-36 to be original, yet each have different interpretations about...
The story of Noah and his ark is one that will never lose its ability to captivate young minds. When I was a child, I regularly reenacted the scene in our bathtub with plastic figures (unbeknownst to my parents, who were paying the water bill) and shared the story with my friends. But then something terrible happened: we all grew up. Some simply drifted away from the congregation, consigning the fanciful tale to the naïveté of their...
Shortly before graduating from Biola University in the Spring of 2008, I took a job working as a part-time pastor at a new, predominantly Korean, inner city church plant in Los Angeles. A couple months into the job, I found myself in Buffalo, New York for our denominations’ annual conference. I still cannot forget a conversation that I had—along with two other colleagues—with a certain Army chaplain. Talk about a collision of Christian worldviews. Here...
This upcoming Sunday is Oscar Sunday. The 84th annual Academy Awards ceremony will announce the best efforts in the film industry from 2011. Perhaps the most coveted award, Best Picture, will be decided among 9 nominees. The only film from 2011 to be nominated that I saw was The Tree of Life (I should have been able to include Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part Two in this list… Biggest snub of the year). The Tree of Life has also been...
Withstanding the apostles and Jesus himself, Saint Aurelius Augustine is arguably the greatest Christian theologian of the first millennium. His contributions to the understanding and development of Bible interpretation are incalculable. He was a man ahead of his time. Indeed many of the current debates on hermeneutics and postmodern literary criticism appeal to Augustine for insight on issues of meaning, role-of reader, and semiotics. Augustine’s hermeneutical reputation is often limited to his allegorical exegesis, yet...
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