By Brandon R. Grafius Every prophet in the Hebrew Bible has a call narrative, a story where God speaks to them directly and commissions them to be a prophet. Think of Moses at the burning bush, the young Samuel being woken by a voice in the middle of the night, or Jeremiah being touched on…
Tag: Pop Culture
Religion, Consumerism, and Absurdism: Modernity and the Quest for Meaning
By Cole DeSantis Popular culture is not known for being the most self-aware phenomena in human society. Many of the trends that constitute “pop culture” are considered fashionable because they are taken to be cool, novel, or because they appeal to us on some visceral level. Pop culture is something to be enjoyed, not really…
Popular Culture’s Hidden Depths: René Girard, Theology, and Pop Culture
By Ryan G. Duns It seems fitting that a post intended to explain the importance and relevance of René Girard, Theology, and Pop Culture take, as its point of departure, some aspect of popular culture. Let me begin, then, with a snippet from the 1996 hit “Wannabe” performed by the Spice Girls: Yo, I’ll tell you…
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…
THEOCON Goes Virtual! Sept. 19!
Hello friends! If you follow this site, then you may have seen some posts about an event called TheoCon in the past. TheoCon is an all day event where people come to discuss the intersection between faith, philosophy, and popular culture! Founded by Rev. Shayna Watson in 2018, this is TheoCon’s third year in existence….
Matthew Brake: Guest Blogger
Hello everyone! I was recently asked by my friend and fellow TheoCon planning member, Miss Whitis, to write a guest blog for her site. I told her “yes” even as I grew nervous about what to write about. Then I thought, “Why not stick with what know?” So I wrote about Pop Culture. More specifically,…
Review for Theology and the Marvel Universe from the Theology, Religion, and Pop Culture Network
I’m happy to let everyone know that they can read a glowing review of the Theology and the Marvel Universe book over on the Theology, Religion, and Pop Culture Network as part of their online publication, The TRPC Review. There’s also a really great article by Dr. Justin Martin on Batman and Theology that you…
Debriefing the Batman Conference
Hello friends! A few weeks ago, I was able to attend a conference at Bowling Green State University celebrating the 80th anniversary of Batman. It was a very fun conference. I presented twice: once on the depiction of evil in Grant Morrison’s Batman run, and on Joker and Nietzsche. While there, I was able to…
Matthew Brake on the Sectarian Review Podcast
Hey everyone! I (Matt) had a chance to be interviewed by Dr. Danny Anderson on the Sectarian Review podcast. Click the link below to listen and feel free to check out the show notes: “Happy New Year to all! We start the year off by exploring how Popular Culture can open up important theological conversations….
2018: Top Five Posts
We’ve now come to the end of our second year as a blog site, and oh what a year it has been! Our contributors have produced a lot of great content (special shout out to Corey Patterson for his regular contributions this year. He just got a gig with Monkeys Fighting Robots that I know…
Pop Culture and Theology 