By Danny Anderson As a consumer of art, I generally agree with Franz Kafka when he wrote “I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us.” I don’t take this to mean that we should avoid books we like. Rather, we should learn to appreciate art that challenges us…
Author: matthewbrake84
WANDAVISION and a Biblical Approach to Processing Grief
By Christopher Cummings Appearances are deceiving in the new Disney+ drama WANDAVISION. Set in the aftermath of the latest Avengers movie, Wanda Maximoff and her android beaux Vision enjoy domestic life in the suburbs of New Jersey… despite Vision’s heroic death several years prior. Unbeknownst to Wanda, she’s using her supernatural gifts to avoid her grief…
Book Review: Theology and Prince
Recently, my friend Dr. Jeremy Perigo agreed to review Theology and Prince (part of the Theology and Pop Culture book series) for the American Academy of Religion‘s Reading Religion book review site. Here is a snippet of Dr. Perigo’s review: “This collection of essays will quickly become an essential starting point for future Prince scholars….
We Need Monsters to Understand God: Godzilla vs. Kong and the Theological Use of Kaiju Films
By David Armstrong The main distinction between gods and monsters in ancient mythology was how they used their power. Marduk is a descendant of Tiamat, and Zeus of Kronos (and therefore a brother of Typhoios), and yet both gods are gods rather than monsters precisely because they use their abnormally excessive power to preserve, defend,…
Theology and Horror: Answering the Concerns of the Critics
Guest post by John W. Morehead As a co-editor with Brandon Grafius of the new volume Theology and Horror: Explorations of the Dark Religious Imagination, I was asked to submit a post to help bring attention to our new work. I will use the opportunity to respond to tendencies that at times see a disconnect between…
Analyzing Religion in Jonathan Hickman’s Powers of X #3
As many of you who follow this website know, I have sporadically been linking up to a blog series (by David Canham) from our friends at Sequart about Jonathan Hickman’s House of X/Powers of X series that launched the current X-Men era at Marvel Comics. The series is full of religious ideas and symbolism, and…
WandaVision and Toxic Self-Care
By Danny Anderson [Spoilers (if that’s even still possible)]. Over the last two months, I was sucked into Wanda Maximoff’s hex like everyone else. Many other people have, or will, write about the gripping meditation on grief that WandaVision provides. Still others (with far more patience than me) will spin out of Wanda’s alternate reality into…
Integral Ecology, Wisdom, and Faith: Raya and the Last Dragon on Radical Solidarity
By David Armstrong Western society seems to be skeptical about our collective ability to find common cause just now. Yet this disbelief also comes at a time when a united human phronema is most needed to address global threats to our human flourishing and even existence. The coronavirus pandemic, climate change, and the devastating inequality of wealth and…
Anti-Life Justifies My Ignorance: Evangelicalism and the Pandemic
By Matthew Brake Grant Morrison’s Final Crisis billed itself as “The Day Evil Won.” The evil New God Darkseid had finally attained the long sought for Anti-Life Equation, a macguffin that gave him the power to control and subjugate the minds of others. In Morrison’s story, Darkseid’s coming is heralded by a “Religion of Crime”…
Grief, Loss, and Love Persevering in WandaVision
By Rev. Sam Blair [SPOILERS!!!!] If 2020 taught us anything, it was to expect the unexpected, and then to have those expectations shattered as well. Even so, I would not have guessed that a Marvel series would begin a national discussion about grief and grieving. And yet, here we are, memes and all. I work…
Pop Culture and Theology 