Unpop Culture

I have a problem: I want to be famous. As a college student studying film and video, my “famedom” took the form of wanting to win an Oscar for my amazing abilities, purportedly for the glory of God. Hindsight is 20/20, and I can more readily see how my aspiration was really for the glory of Cap. To date, I haven’t produced an Oscar-winning film. And even though that ship has been unmoored (it’s getting ready to set sail), I still find in myself a desire to be publicly lauded and appreciated. To a certain degree, I think we all want that. (Yep, I’m dragging you all down with me on this one. I don’t want to hang out in this dirty pit alone, so welcome to the club.) Which brings us to the example of C. S. Lewis. This past November marked the 50th anniversary of Lewis’ death. A recent national conference, The Romantic Rationalist: God, Life & Imagination in the Life of C. S. Lewis , sought to explore the key to Lewis’ influence. To begin with, though, conference host John Pip...

Originally, I had planned on watching Man of Steel this past weekend and writing a movie review for today’s post. Due to scheduling conflicts and some negative film reviews, those plans changed. Now I’m going to write some random thoughts about fatherhood instead. Anyway, the past is in the past and I can’t fly around the world at 100x light speed to turn back time, so here goes. Who Am I? With the exceptions of Spider-Man and Dick Tracy in the daily newspaper, I never kept up with the world of comics. I have still enjoyed the stories of Batman, Superman, and Spider-Man. This new Superman movie seems to paint the superhero with an atypical portion of moral ambiguity and inner turmoil. Whatever the case, this version of Clark has serious issues with identity crisis. A scene in Man of Steel (revealed in the trailers) shows a young Clark asking his earthly father, “ Can’t I just keep pretending I’m your son ?” His father’s emotional reply is, “You are my son.” Which leads to my ...

Having introduced my plan for blogging through Paradise Lost , I invite you to join me in looking at Book 1. Summary Book 1 begins with a prologue, including a synopsis of the entire poem’s plot, a plea to the Holy Spirit to aid Milton in composing this work, and a statement about the purpose of the poem. Milton’s goal is to “ justify the ways of God to men” (line 26) . Then he drops us into the middle of the epic story: Satan awakens from a stupor, having been cast out of Heaven. He finds himself floating in the lake of hell, along with the other rebel angels, all of whom are still catatonic. Satan wakes them from their thunderstruck confusion and gives a rousing speech, instilling within them a renewed hope of reigning in Heaven. He tells them of a soon-to-be new world (i.e., earth) and a new creature to be created (i.e., man), according to an ancient prophecy. Satan leads his minions to dry land, where they build a place called Pandemonium. From this meeting hall, they sit as...

We have looked at the first five of my top ten reads from 2012. Here is the second half of my list. The Horse and His Boy , C. S. Lewis Historically, I have not been a huge fan of the Narnia series. It was a pleasant surprise, then, that I found this story to be quiet entertaining. While the ending may be a bit anticlimactic, I thoroughly enjoyed this particular tromp through the world of Narnia. Spectacular Sins , John Piper This book attempts to reconcile the sovereignty of God with the problem of suffering through a unique approach—by delving into six Biblical stories of “spectacular” (i.e., large and important) sins in the Bible: the rebellion of Satan, humanity’s fall, the pride of Babel, the sale of Joseph, the “tainted” kingship of the Davidic line, and Christ’s betrayal by Judas Iscariot. Piper seeks to show how even the most spectacular sins fail to nullify God’s good purposes—that evil is ultimately used by God as the source of its own suicide. If you ...