The story line of “Restless” is not one that will cause people to flock to the movie theaters: terminally ill teenage girl meets high school dropout guy who crashes the funerals of strangers. They spend some time together before she succumbs to her illness.
“Moneyball” is a baseball movie, so right away that limits its audience. However, there are many other appealing dynamics in the film that transcend baseball and are just about life.
“Dolphin Tale” is one of those “family films” that you know are going to feature good-looking children, beleaguered parents, a little bit of stress, and the triumph of love and acceptance. So what’s wrong with that? Nothing.
George M. Marsden writes, “The Reformation began at a university with a scholar’s insight.” Rob Hoch, assistant professor of homiletics and worship at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary, is an insightful scholar who seeks to reform the relationship between church and seminary.
Bart Ehrman has once again written a sprightly, challenging and informative volume. Some of his previous books too often offer a rehash of well-known scholarly conclusions, served up in an exaggerated fashion that is often misleading.
by Jane Rogers Vann Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville, Ky. 152 pages REVIEWED BY JUDITH FULP-EICKSTAEDT
“People of faith are hungry for encounters with God in their congregations and for ways more thoroughly to absorb and be changed by those encounters. It is for these congregations that I write.”
This is the kind of movie that invokes every viewer’s experience with racism. So this review will reflect a more personal perspective than normally expected, since emotional detachment is virtually impossible, if not downright dishonest.
Wow, what do you make of a film like this, which delivers exactly what it promises and with a straight face? Just go with it? Make fun of it? Consider it a self-parody? An unwitting farce? Hollywood camp? Or do we make this kind of adventure/sci-fi/CGI film just because we can?
Journey in the Wilderness: New life for Mainline Churches
by Gil Rendle
Abingdon Press. 2010. 176 pages.
REVIEWED BY Allen D. Timm
Last year a group of more than 100 young adults gathered for dinner once a month in a room over a bakery in inner-city Detroit. The Detroit Soup Project invited participants to donate $10 each and to present a project to improve Detroit. They would listen, debate and vote. After each meeting, one of them went out with $800 as a grant for a project that would improve the city of Detroit.
Sharing Possessions: What faith Demands (Second Edition)
by Luke Timothy Johnson
wm. b. eerdmans Publishing company. 198 Pages.
REVIEWED BY ANDREW FOSTER CONNORS
Luke Timothy Johnson, a first-rate New Testament scholar, begins with a plodding reflection on what it means for human beings to possess anything. Despite this beginning, this book deserves a serious reading. Johnson argues convincingly for an expansive definition of “having” that includes anything over which we claim ownership — relationships, time, principles, values and things.
Friending: Real Relationships in a Virtual World by Lynne M. Baab Downers Grove, Ill. InterVarsity Press. 185 pages. re viewed by MARY HARRIS TODD
“It’s going to damage the way people communicate! It’s going to damage relationships!” some 20th century experts worried when a new communication technology became common in private homes.
This is the eighth and final installment of the famed “Harry Potter” film series. There are no more books to provide the basis for more, unless author J.K. Rowling decides to take pen in hand again for the next generation – an intriguing possibility which she distinctly leaves open at the end.
OK, so it’s not very exciting. But there’s a sublime kind of satisfaction to watching this well-made documentary about one loggerhead turtle, who remains nameless, but for ease of storytelling, let’s give it a shot: Deborah.
You have to enter with low expectations. This is an Adam Sandler comedy, and Kevin James is in his overweight, slightly bewildered and occasionally overwhelmed Everyman persona. He plays Griffin, who works at the zoo, and is one of those “gentle with animals” guys who talks to them when he feeds them and brings them little gifts just to do something nice for them.
Marcus Borg is a prolific writer of books that present a progressive (some would say “liberal”) approach to biblical scholarship and Christian life in a style easily accessible to a mass audience.
