Every God wants to die: Belated reflections on Westworld

A thoughtful piece on an excellent show by Adam Kotsko at AUFS: This is a show about the death of God, one of the most deeply theological shows I have seen. It is in many ways a Gnostic myth, with Jones in the role of evil demiurge and the long-lost Arnold representing the true God of…

Cloud Atlas, Religion, and Love: Holism and Postmodern Belief

Andrew D. Thrasher, ThM “I call it the Cloud Atlas Sextet. There are whole movements imagining us meeting again and again in different lives, different ages.” The movie Cloud Atlas weaves a complex narrative wherein the cast of characters are born, learn to love, and die, again and again. The six “movements” in the plot…

Blade Runner 2049: 5 Star Review

Check out Leah Schade’s review of Blade Runner 2049 over at EcoPreacher: Blade Runner 2049 is cli-fi (climate fiction) at its best with superb visual effects, an absorbing storyline, fascinating characters, and poignant religious/philosophical themes. Read more here.

Fantasy and Pluralism: Unpacking the Religious Sources of The Wheel of Time

By Andrew D. Thrasher, ThM One of the best Fantasy series produced in the last 50 years, Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson’s The Wheel of Time, a 15 book series of almost 15,000 pages produced over a 24 year span, encompasses a fantastic worldview displaying a pluralistic coherence of religious elements found in world religions….

The World, the Flesh, and the Devil in Game of Thrones

By Matthew William Brake [SPOILERS!!!] In the Christian circles I run in, there is some tension about whether Christian people should watch Game of Thrones because of some of the graphic, and specifically sexual, content (go over to the Popcorn Theology Facebook page if you don’t believe me). It is true that Game of Thrones…

Batman: An American Myth

By Aust Phoenix Two things make for a good hero: recognizable physical traits and the narrative arc of their story—their mythology. Batman is such a figure. Even without having read a comic or seen a movie, most people will know the basic premise of Batman’s story and recognize his outfit. Bruce Wayne is a son…

Listening to 80s Music with Karl Barth

By Jack Holloway I make a lot of “best of” playlists. Recently, I made a playlist of what I think are the 150 greatest 80s songs (find it here). I listened to hours and hours and hours and hours of 80s music, soaking it all in, and, like the Apostle Paul, “examining everything carefully, holding…