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Ouch. As best I can tell online, here is the Washington Post story of the day — care of the Associated Press — on the national and global developments in the Anglican World War.
News reports on the exploding conflict in the Middle East surround the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier by “Palestinian militants.” On the surface there are few religious issues in play here, but a little digging will indicate that the religious convictions of two groups of people are central to the region’s conflict.
Today’s New York Times report about the sobering epistle from Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams included several passages that I am sure raised eyebrows extra high among Anglican leaders in Pittsburgh and Episcopal leaders in New York City. As you would expect, this news story by the team of Laurie Goodstein and Neela Banerjee will be carefully parsed on this side of the Atlantic, because the Times is the holy writ for leaders in The Episcopal Church (formerly the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America).
Allow me, in the midst of the Superman and Anglican news, to pop a quick post in here in which I shamelessly promote the work of a friend of mine — William R. Mattox Jr. In addition to being a friend, he is a frequent speaker in the journalism program that I lead here at the Council For Christian Colleges and Universities. What else should I confess? Oh, he already owes me lunch.
I’m a huge baseball fan. If I could have dinner with anyone living or dead, it would be Albert Pujols. If I were ever to launch a political campaign, it would be to abolish the designated hitter rule. And I frequently begin statements with the phrase, “When I become baseball commissioner . . .”
We knew Superman Returns contained some pretty heavy religious imagery, the Christian and Jewish type to be specific, but the film is now drawing positive comparisons with Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ. On top of that, the film contains some un-Christlike imagery — unless you believe the researchers behind Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code — that has drawn some fascinating speculation from movie reviewers.
The aftershocks from the 2006 edition of the oldline Protestant sex wars continue to rattle around through the infrastructures of churches at the local, national and global levels.
The rumors are true. Superman Returns, which is receiving glowing reviews, is chock full of religious themes and imagery.
Our friends at Gospelcom.net are still working to repair and upgrade our comments pages, which were taken down in the midst of a tsunami of spam this past weekend. We hope to open up some of the newer posts for comments here shortly.
