Skip To Search or skip to content.
Elsewhere, 1/5
- Jeffrey Overstreet wonders, “What would you rather do? See a great foreign film, or jump in a volcano?“:
Once in a while, a great work of art gives us a great opportunity to explore and discuss timely questions about morality and spirituality. But, more often than not, when I see this happen… either on a national or international stage… I find very little discussion at all amongst Christians. Christians don’t tend to show up at that table very often. It’s discouraging, because if something that offends us shows up, boy howdy… we come running to the table with our protests.
- Pantone has picked PANTONE 18-3943 Blue Iris as the color of 2008:
Combining the stable and calming aspects of blue with the mystical and spiritual qualities of purple, Blue Iris satisfies the need for reassurance in a complex world, while adding a hint of mystery and excitement.
- Shawn Blanc offers up a detailed overview of Transmit, my favorite Mac FTP client. (This is part of his series of articles on “Some of The Greatest Software Available For Your Mac”.)
- Watch the trailer for Snow Angels, the latest from David Gordon Green.
- This isn’t exactly surprising, but still very cool: BioWare is reportedly working on Jade Empire 2. Bring on the wuxia this time around, I say!
- Cabel Sasser has just posted his 2007 Cabel Yay! Awards. And I missed this the first time around, but he saw an in-progress cut of WALL-E a few months ago:
...the movie was amazing, daring, funny, and thoughtful, also offering one of the most memorable first acts of any film I’ve ever seen. That’s all I’ll say about that.
- U.S. album sales fell 9.5% in 2007, while the sale of digital tracks increased 45 percent. The best-selling album of 2007? Josh Groban’s Noël, which sold around 3.7 million copies.
Comments
neil
January 7, 2008 11:21amI think the first item on your list here merits more exploration by you, Jason, but in a general sense. I’ve been frustrated a little lately with this kind of thinking. I’m an artist and a Christian and as such take a special interest in faith and culture. But also, having been wrung the emergent church wringer, it just feels sometimes like too much effort is spent trying to incorporate art into our faith understanding. I know it is of value, but perhaps not at the expense of focusing on right theology, or understanding of scripture, or the purpose of the church in our world, etc. as it seems easy to do. I think it’s maybe more of a problem in the west than elsewhere (though I’ve only lived in the western world), due to the state of our pop culture and the things we idolize collectively. In countires with a more rich tradition of religious art — art that is not cheesy and marketed in the way the Christian bookstore junk is — I think faith and art fit better together.
Just some rambling thoughts here. I don’t know Jeffrey Overstreet personally, but I know the culture in the Northwest and SPU (his alma mater) and it feels to me that it is easy sometimes to get distracted by the art cause and make it the centerpiece of the altar.
I’d love to understand its proper place. I am a (hopefully) recovering art-worshiper, myself.
neil
Jason
January 9, 2008 9:57amThose are some great questions, Neil. Methinks I’ll need to post an entry (or two). ;)