By Jake Doberenz Most people can appreciate a good redemption story—as long as it is told in fiction. Real life redemption stories tend to make us quite uneasy. When we begin to see one pattern in a person, it becomes very hard to rewire our brains to see them in a new, different light. We…
Author: matthewbrake84
Let the Truth Have its Day: The Dark Knight, Anthea Butler, and White Evangelical Racism
By Matthew Brake It’s dangerous to build a cause based on a lie because the lie may come back and bite you. This is certainly the case in Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy. In the second movie, The Dark Knight, Bruce Wayne believes that he can end his war on crime with the help of…
2022: Top Five Posts
Every year, we post links to the top five original posts for the year (check out our lists from previous years: 2017, 2018, 2020, 2021). Blogs from previous years and calls for papers certainly get a lot of views, but this list focuses specifically on the top views for this year’s original posts. If you…
Call for Papers: Theology, Religion, and Dungeons & Dragons
Call for Abstracts: Theology, Religion, and Dungeons & Dragons Edited by Scott Donahue-Martens and Brandon Simonson Dungeons & Dragons is a tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) that was created in 1974 and popularized in the 1970’s and 1980’s, though it has found a renaissance in contemporary popular culture due in part to its prominent role in…
A Beautiful Pattern: The Aesthetics of Virtue in Knives Out
By Colin Toffelmire Rian Johnson’s celebrated murder-mystery Knives Out is intricate, fun, and funny. The plot always leans forward, the acting is excellent, and it is relentlessly clever. What’s more, for the persistent viewer, the film rewards multiple viewings. First come the various hints and clues in the dialogue, and then more subtle hints and…
Virtue Ethics and Moral Transformation in A Christmas Carol
By Jake Doberenz “Spirit!” he cried, tight clutching at its robe, “hear me! I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse.” -Dickens, A Christmas Carol Personal change is a major theme in both religion and literature. We can recognize that in any…
What About Second Advent? Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings Trilogy as Seasonal Inspiration
By Danny Anderson For the past several years, my family and I have made a tradition of watching through Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy in the Thanksgiving window. In all honesty, the tradition wasn’t born out of an intentional act of religious devotion. Thanksgiving break simply provided ample free-time to luxuriate in the…
Advent, Twelvetide, and the Unreasonable Hope of Christmas
By Katherine Billotte-Kelaidis It is a little bit awkward for me to sit down to write about “pop culture and Advent,” because a) I am from a tradition in which Advent as such does not exist (and I promise to explain below) and b) it seems to me that popular culture has, over the past…
Call for Papers: Theology, Religion, and the Office
Call For Papers: Title: Theology and The Office Volume Editors: Daniel J. Cameron & John W. McCormack Abstract and CV Due: January 31, 2023 Initial Final Paper Due: June 30, 2023 In 2020, seven years after the show officially ended, the hit NBC series The Office was the number 1 streamed tv show with over…
Unveiling the Secret of the “Seductive Stare”: Saint Teresa, Santiago Cabrera, and Desire – Part Two
By Loraine Haywood ***Click Here to read Part One! The Musketeers, Season 1, Episode 9: “Knight Takes Queen” In this episode, Aramis, the virile romantic hero, (Santiago Cabrera), Queen Ann (Alexandra Dowling), and Athos (Tom Burke) seek shelter in a monastery as Porthos (Howard Charles) and D’Artagnan (Luke Pasqualino) go for reinforcements. Under siege by…
Pop Culture and Theology 