In
response to requests for additional resources and information I have opened
the Hollywood Jesus store.
-David Bruce
POP CULTURE FROM A SPIRITUAL
POINT OF VIEW
BOOKS
on
CULTURE
How
it works.
Click the title you want. This will take you to Amazon.com. Click "add
to shopping cart." Return to Hollywood Jesus with your browser "Back"
button. Make your next selection. This will take you back to Amazon.com.
Click "add to shopping cart" etc. When you are ready to purchase
click "Proceed to Checkout" from the Amazon.com shopping cart
page and follow directions. Easy.
Bill is a
friend of mine, we see each other each year at the City of Angeles Film
Festival, and he teaches at Calvin College. He is an incredible thinker
and fluent with pop culture. If you want to know the
meaning of pop culture, I highly recommend this book to you. Publisher
note: "Grounded in Christian principles, this accessible and engaging
book offers an informed and fascinating approach to popular culture. William
Romanowski provides affectionate yet astute analysis of familiar, well-loved
movies and television characters from Pretty Woman to
Homer Simpson. He speaks with expertise on films from Titanic
to Casablanca and music from Mozart to Springsteen,
bringing sources as diverse as Shakespeare and Allan
Bloom into the discussion."
After
I read this book, I handed it to my 15 year old daughter. I wanted to
give her a handle on pop culture. I am indebted
to Bill. This book was published before his excellent Eyes Wide Open.
This is a ground breaking book that helps the reader in developing a helpful
critical approach toward the media, instead of being in constant fear
of it. He covers television, rap music, movies. It may be a college level
book, but I gave it to my 15 year old daughter to read. It covers all
her favorite things, like MTV, from an enlightened
Christian perspective.
Professor
Quentin Schultze is a friend of mine. He is a man of vision and insight.
His students love him. The book is brilliant. Publisher's note: "We
are responsible for how we communicate, for what we communicate, and for
how our communication affects others. Quentin Schultze guides readers
through an interesting, creative, and spiritual study of communication.
Rooted in a Christian worldview, Communicating for Life explores the implications
of individual human communication and the influence of communication on
community. Several aspects of the discipline of communication are examined,
including the flawed nature of human communication, contrasting views
of communication, and the role of media in contemporary society."
The usual
modern assumption is that Christians are supposed to leave explicitly
Christian convictions and practices behind when they engage public affairs
and popular culture. In this fascinating book, Rodney Clapp rejects that
assumption and (with lively Christian convictions intact) trespasses onto
secular territory-from global corporations to Winnie-the-Pooh,
from family values to "The X-Files", from consumerism
to Hank Williams and John Coltrane.
He shows, with panache, humor and unstinting insight, that
"Christians can inhabit the whole world-public and private, body and soul-exactly
as Christians."
"Rodney Clapp is perhaps the most perceptive contemporary Christian commentator
on the intersection of society, culture and the church. " -Michael L.
Budde, DePaul University
"Rodney Clapp is a major player in the Evangelical transition into the
postmodern world." -Robert E. Webber, Northern Baptist Theological Seminary
Robert was
the dean of the Seminary I attended and is a dear friend. He loves film
and he loves God. He is on the Board of the City of Angeles Film Festival
where I see him each year. Publisher's note: "The motion picture
is an art form that has significantly influenced human culture. Films
can shape our perceptions-from relationships and careers to good and evil.
They are often a window into the human soul, a glimpse that can be both
terrifying and holy. In view of the increasingly powerful role that movies
play in our cultural dialogue, Robert K. Johnston, professor of theology
and culture at Fuller Theological Seminary, has written a book to guide
Christian moviegoers into a theological analysis of and conversation with
film. Among the more than 200 movies Johnston cites are American
Beauty, The Apostle, The English Patient, The Godfather, Life Is Beautiful,
The Sound of Music, To Kill a Mockingbird, and The Truman Show."
I
met Mr. Bailie at the City of Angeles Film Festival. He was one of the
lecturers. He's a kind, unassuming, man with a powerful prophetic message
that changed how I view violence. Few people have studied
the spiritual meaning of violence. Gil Bailie has. guarantee you that
this book will alter your thinking.
"About once in a decade I read a book which
profoundly affects the way I see reality. This is such a book." -Sandra
M. Schneiders, Horizons.
"Anyone concerned about the rise of violence
and social disintegration in our culture, and who wants to understand
what is really happening, must read this book. It's that important."
-Sojourners.
An insider's
look at the birth, evolution, and growing popularity of Christian rock
music. As the counter-cultural movements of the sixties gathered steam,
one of its first splinter groups was the Jesus freaks. In addition to
culturally hip pastors, the scene produced a handful of musicians who
brazenly coupled rock & roll music with lyrics that reflected a Christian
world-view and often became an outright evangelistic tool. Jesus music
was born. Raised By Wolves is about this music. It traces the birth and
growth of a genre that has married seeming opposites - Jesus
and rock & roll - for 30 years. John J. Thompson looks at the social
conditions in which this music developed and how it has been evolving
in North America since the Jesus Movement of the sixties, including a
look at contemporary Christian rock. He also looks at the artists behind
this music, including groups like dc Talk, The Supertones,
and crossover artists such as Jars of Clay, MxPx,
and Sixpence None the Richer. These are the real
rebels of rock & roll who live on the fringes in an underground Christian
culture.
Yea, yea, I know. This book was written
following WW2. But, this is the book that got
me thinking about how media influences us.
It is the classic standard on the subject.
And, Ellul is one of the greatest thinkers of
our day. If you have not been introduced to
him yet, here is a great place to start. One
reviewer sums up the book this way:
"Propaganda is a relatively recent phenomenon made possible
by the channels of the mass media. Ellul analyzes propaganda
in all its forms. He argues that propaganda is indeed effective,
that it is indeed necessary, that it is indeed harmful to
democracy, and that it need not be based on lies. It is
precisely at this point that the dangers of propaganda become
apparent because often the propaganda released is truthful in
content. Propaganda is also necessary even for a government
that claims to be a democracy (and yes the United States
does engage in it on its citizens). Ellul examines the history of
propaganda as it was used by Joseph Goebbels in Nazi
Germany, Lenin and Stalin among the communists, and in the
United States. In an appendix, he deals with scientific studies,
which have aimed at measuring propaganda's effectiveness,
and with the propaganda of Mao in China (which includes the
topic of "brainwashing", unfortunately not very developed in
the text). He also discusses propaganda as put out by
churches and concludes that a true Christianity cannot rely on
propaganda. Also, the relation between propaganda and
advertising is examined."
Insight into
pop culture from a catholic perspective. Greeley teaches Sociology at
the University of Chicago and the University of Arizona. The Catholic
Imagination is Andrew Greeley's attempt to summarize what is unique about
Catholic culture. "Catholics live in an enchanted world, a world of statues
and holy water, stained glass and votive candles, saints and religious
medals, rosary beads and holy pictures," Greeley writes. "But these Catholic
paraphernalia are mere hints of a deeper and more pervasive religious
sensibility which inclines Catholics to see the Holy
lurking in creation." In seven chapters, The Catholic Imagination
considers some of the central themes of Catholic culture--sacrament, salvation,
community, festival, hierarchy, erotic desire, and the mother love of
God--particularly as they have been treated by Catholic artists.
If
you've ever seen God in a tattoo or had a revelatory experience listening
to R.E.M., Virtual Faith is for you. Tom
Beaudoin has spent his whole life parked in front of the TV, surfing online,
and jamming to the radio--that is when he hasn't been church hopping,
getting graduate degrees in theology, or serving in the Israeli army.
His book is the most comprehensive and accessible reading on the religious
nature of irreverence among members of the so-called "Generation X." While
Beaudoin skirts some of the most contentious issues raised by Gen-X pop
culture (neither "Marilyn Manson" nor "homosexuality" appears in the index),
his book is groundbreaking and important simply because it makes a bold
move: he aims two rays of light--God's and Madonna's--straight at each
other, and actually takes seriously the wild spectrum that results.
Description:
In this lively and accessible study, David Lyon explores the relationship
between religion and postmodernity, through the central metaphor of 'Jesus
in Disneyland'. Contemporary disciples of Jesus have used Disneyland for
religious events, whilst Disney characters are now probably
better known throughout the world than many biblical figures. But
this book cautions against seeing it as a simple substitution. Rather,
Lyon shows how this metaphor reveals highly innovative and potentially
enduring features of contemporary spiritual quests. In
the West, many religious institutions have declined in social significance,
but what Lyon calls the religious realm, including faith and spirituality,
is flourishing in multifarious forms. Throughout the text he examines
a wide variety of religious and para-religious behaviour, exploring its
relation to issues of identity, cyberculture, consumer culture and social
theories of time. Lyon's stimulating use of contemporary case studies
illuminates the interconnections between religion and postmodernity in
a world where holy wars are waged in cyberspace, New Age self religions
resonate with new identity quests, and Pentecostalism sparks globalization
from below.
"This is
an important book, not because all of the essayists are
unquestionably right . . . but because the most important
intellectual movement of the contemporary Western world is here being
addressed from the perspective of Christian believers. . . . I
hope this book achieves the wide circulation it deserves." -D. A. Carson,
Trinity Evangelical Divinity School
"For solid intellectual wrestling that is faithful to both modern thought
and the Christian faith, this book is an outstanding contribution." -Mark
A. Noll, Wheaton College
"This book is well-informed, well-argued, and
challenging. The scholarly depth and intellectual verve of this engagement
bodes well for the future of serious theological work among evangelicals."
-Timothy George, Beeson Divinity School
"An impressive analysis. . . . Thoughtful evangelicals
who engage this postmodern world will find this book both helpful and
hopeful." -Leighton Ford, Leighton Ford Ministries
"Culture
Shift" is an invaluable resource for Christian leaders in churches and
in parachurch organizations, seminary and Bible college students, and
thinking Christians who desire to interact with seekers and nonbelievers.
Readers will gain a lucid view of: - how the culture breeds consumers,
spectators, and self-absorbed individuals - how people think in
a relativistic world with no room for God - how to break
out of the Christian subculture to communicate with the postmodern world
"The world has moved," Henderson writes. This book will help readers discover
where it has moved and how to meet it there. Dr. David W. Henderson is
a senior pastor in West Lafayette, Indiana, and a regular contributor
to "Discipleship Journal". He has served widely as a conference and chapel
speaker in the United States and overseas.
I first picked
this book up in the eighties. It had a powerful revolutionary effect on
my thinking. It is basically a book that helps you deprogram. There is
so much that the Western culture believes that is just not true. I
recommend this book to all who dare to be challenged. It is one of my
most valued books. Publisher's note does not do this book justice:
"How can biblical authority be a reality for those shaped by the
modern world? This book treats the First World as a mission field, offering
a unique perspective on the relationship between the gospel and current
society by presenting an outsider's view of contemporary Western culture."
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