You won't be able to add your comments to any of the posts below. Another consequence of my blog blunder. All new posts, though, will function as they should. Also, please note that the URL for this blog has changed. It's now: www.bibleand.blogspot.com.
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Christmas Eve on FOX NEWS and CNN
On Dec. 24th I found a front-row vantage on the annual "War on Christmas," while running on a treadmill at my hometown gym: two televisions side by side, one set to CNN and one to FOX News Channel.
It was the afternoon, and FNC was exploiting (and perhaps positively shaping?) the religious commitments of its base audience, by showing a special on Rick Warren (famous evangelical pastor of Saddleback Church and author of the multi-million dollar bestseller The Purpose Driven Life) entitled "Purpose Driven Life: Can Rick Warren Change the World?" The story explored Warren's new found commitment to reverse-tithing and fighting poverty around the globe... and his wife's struggle against cancer.
FNC was also advertising (every 2 minutes or so) its evening line up for that night: a special pandering to the right-wing of the religion-and-public-life set, hosted by Newt Gingrich, and entitled One Nation Under God: Religion and History in Washington, D.C.. Families could sit down together after Christmas eve supper and tune into Fox for a discussion of why America really is a Christian nation—dontchaknow?
CNN, in the meantime, had it's own religiously themed line-up slated for prime time: After Jesus: The First Christians. This would be a special interviewing Bart Ehrman and Amy-Jill Levine, among others.
I found the juxtaposition telling: the evangelical right (or left?) on FOX, lined up against the historical critics on CNN. Who would win the ratings war?
I managed to tune into "After Jesus" that night. Parts of the show were good. For instance, the graphics were truly incredible: some techie had turned hundreds of beautiful classical paintings of early Christian scenes into moving, "three dimensional" panoramas.
But on balance, the show was terrible.
The music and dramatic narration (by Liam Neeson) was straight-up DaVinci code sensationalism, while the slap-dash review of the years 30–325 C.E. was, to say the least, confusing and over-simplified. (To say a bit more: it was also occasionally uncritical with regard to the Biblical sources used). The interspersed interviews with the critical scholars — most of whom offered only freshman-level summaries of old-school scholarly consensus dressed up as "news" — lent only a touch of credibility to the project.
Of course, the worst part was the commercials: they occurred about every 5 minutes. For some reason I forced myself to sit through the whole two hour program, watching with my mom and dad.
'Twas the Night Before Christmas,
and in states blue and red,
we all got religion
while the execs got fed.
The Gingrich special is being rebroadcast on Jan 1st.
Happy New Year!
Saturday, December 9, 2006
A Worthy Biblioblog...
I don't know if y'all have seen The Bible Films Blog by Matt Page but it is worth a look!
Wednesday, December 6, 2006
Saturday, December 2, 2006
Religion and Literature at 2007 MMLA
The call for the 2007 Religion and Literature session of the Midwest Modern Language Association follows. Interested parties please respond with short (250 word) proposals and contact information.
Spiritual Anarchists and Sacred Troublemakers: (Auto)Biographies of the Saints as Subversive Discourses.
The lives of exemplary religious figures can exert a disruptive effect on accepted canons of religious literature. While accounts of the lives of saints and other religious virtuosi eventually play a central role in the lives of ordinary practitioners, these same exemplary figures often stand in opposition to authoritative religious and cultural institutions of their times. Attempts to bring these figures into the fold of orthodoxy typically involves an elision of the more seditious aspects of saintly lives. This session seeks papers that address the subversive elements that reside in the (auto)biographies of saintly personages. The organizers are particularly interested to address the topic from multiple religious traditions; papers addressing figures outside the Judeo-Christian tradition are especially, though not exclusively, invited.
Friday, December 1, 2006
From Thirteen to Nativity
After watching the well-crafted but extremely desolate film Thirteen, by director Catherine Hardwicke (2003), I vowed to lock my future daughter in a closet between the ages of 11 and 18.
Hardwicke has a new movie now: The Nativity.
I'll be very curious to see what's motivating this film. Which side of the "War Against Christmas" is "The Nativity" fighting on? Lol.
Predictions, reviews, reactions?
Sovereign assistance
I'm currently working on a number of ideas which seem interrelated but need, I feel, a defining center. My SBL paper dealt with theories of political sovereignty in Giorgio Agamben's book on Paul (The Time That Remains), and I'm interested in extending this work, but in a way that would allow me not only to discuss theoretical, but also literary and pop-cultural appropriations of the New Testament. I've written on violence and theology in British playwright Sarah Kane's work, on Johnny Cash's fictional life of Paul, on Jonathan Edwards' polemical/political readings of certain Pauline texts, on Derrida's readings of the NT, and so on. What all of my recent work has in common, I think, is an interest in exploring how issues of sovereignty and political community are given shape via creative (mis)appropriations of NT texts. The question is how to bring it all together. I'd welcome your thoughts, as well as any suggestions you might have for further reading.
By the way, be sure to check out David's (aka WDH) comment to my initial post for information on the upcoming M/MLA session he and Meredith are organizing.
OK I'm on
Jay
Thanks for starting this. I'm on - my first blog posting ever. Will look forward to lively discussions.
No comments:
Post a Comment