By Andrew D. Thrasher, ThM The Lion King, a film known for its powerful songs and story line, has had a major impact across generations since the original animated film was released in 1994. A few years ago, after beginning to teach world religions, I watched The Lion King and was struck by the theological pluralism…
Tag: Christianity
The Horns and Wings of Maleficent
By Jamie Armstrong We have all heard the story of Sleeping Beauty, a story in which a young, beautiful princess named Aurora is cursed to die on her sixteenth birthday, by an evil fairy named Maleficent. Now, according to most theologians, evil isn’t really a thing of God. God is the only one who can…
The Bardo, Purgatory, and the Soul Stone
By A.G. Holdier In a matter of hours, fans will learn the fate of Thanos, his victims, and the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the grand finale to The Infinity Saga. While it’s been almost a year since the Snap (and two more MCU films have since been released) we’ve enjoyed essentially no…
Black Panther and Theology: Unity and Our Call to Face the World
By Stephanie Pacheco [SPOILER ALERT] As the characters of T’Challa’s Black Panther and Erik Stevens’s Killmonger, take their respective stances, the film personifies two major responses to the historical colonization of Africa: unity versus retribution. The film’s roaring success is in its championing of authentic unity, precisely as we are called to as Christians and…
Crazy Rich Asians and Christianity
By Dr. Linh Hoang This summer, the widely popular and spectacularly successful movie Crazy Rich Asians made Asians evermore visible to the point of being now a popular mainstay of American culture. Many Asians exuded pride in seeing an all-Asian cast dominating the big screen and drawing a diverse crowd across the globe. The movie is…
Islamic Arts and “Arabian Nights Mode”
By Fatima Hye As a Muslim in America, I always felt that there was a rift in our community. Either you were a practicing Muslim, and therefore had zero interest in the arts, or you engaged in the arts, but weren’t very practicing. In my view, this issue (that other faith-based communities sometimes face as well:…
