When Violence Is Not the Answer but Certainly the Question: Bruce Cockburn’s “If I Had a Rocket Launcher”
The question of the dissemination of dangerous ideas through art is always a contentious one.
The Search for Peace in the Life of Tony Hawk
A recent documentary reveals how the world-famous skateboarder wrestled with finding meaning and purpose.
The Cost of Peace in Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast
Belfast is a tale of triumph and survival in the darkest of circumstances.
Captain America and the Divided States of American Christianity
God is not constrained by our human divisions.
On Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers, Kendrick Lamar Finds Peace with Self by Accepting Conflict
Instead of simply preaching his thoughts on those controversial topics, Lamar shares his experiences and resulting perspectives on the matters.
The Unexpected Parenting in Jodie Whittaker’s Doctor Who
As the Doctor travels through time and space, she becomes a surprisingly good parenting example for those of us without a TARDIS.
Unveiling Ragnarok: Teens, Parents, and the Apocalypse
The apocalyptic stakes of Ragnarok truly speak to the crisis the church is in.
The Pains and Promises of Parenthood in Fredrik Backman’s Beartown
An encouraging and hopeful story about the realities of facing and embracing the respective pains and promises of parenthood.
Sex Ed Through Stories: Helping Our Kids Acquire Healthy Shame
Surrounded by a world of shameless porn and an attitude in the church that sees all shame as unhealthy, we need to remember that it is a holy thing, a beautiful thing, to blush.
How Foresight Changes the Battle: Miss Sloane and Spiritual Warfare
So it is with the “plot” of spiritual warfare throughout human history. Like Miss Sloane, God begins his story with a monologue of such significance that it shapes and reveals all that is to come.
When “Tough Love” Isn’t Loving: Grace for Those on Their Last Chance
Last Chance U shows us that when our options are spent, when punishment doesn’t work, and when there’s little hope left, we need love and grace.
First Cow and Nomadland: Perspective from the Margins
First Cow and Nomadland offer their characters to us as fellow travelers on the road of life, who know that home isn’t just a place, it’s friendship.
Lyrics of Lament: Suffering and Theodicy in Hip-Hop
When Tamir Rice and Trayvon Martin were killed, when children die around the world of preventable disease, when children and teens experience the “death” of family and get bounced around foster homes, evil is manifest. Suffering has a face. Suddenly questioning God’s plan seems the most reasonable course of action.
A Grief Obscured: Horror and Hope in A Dark Song
Writer-Director Liam Gavin’s A Dark Song (2016) promises its audience horror, delivers creeping unease, and ultimately yields itself up to awe—taking us on a journey from the depths of entropic despair to the heights of spiritual renewal.
Outwardly Wasting Away: Hope in the Horrible-Childhood Memoir
The most basic hopefulness present in every autobiographical disaster tale is its very existence. The name of the author on the front cover, together with their picture on the back flap, proclaims to the reader, “I survived.”
Faith, Hope, Love and Monsters
Love and Monsters pushes beneath the familiar “unstoppable force of love” trope to unveil our varied attempts at quelling the painful longing that often hangs in the shadows of it: loneliness.
