Maher has loftier ambitions than laughs. He wants to save the world from the idiocy he unearths in the American heartland, and he believes the best way to fulfill this aim is to mercilessly attack religion and all those who adhere to it. And that’s why the film, like so much written by critics of religion in recent years, must ultimately be judged a failure.
“I was on Jeopardy! recently. Maybe you saw it. I was the woman in the middle. The one with the clerical collar on.” Cafe contributor the Rev. Kit Carlson writes about her 15 minutes of fame.
Religious people are shown in interviews and film clips only as gullible and fanatic, as fraudulent and nutty. There’s one exception that proves the rule, a Catholic astronomer priest who shows that a scientific worldview can only be post-enlightenment and that therefore the biblical view of creation cannot be seen as scientific. Alas, he gets two minutes.
The Rev. Kit Carlson of East Lansing, MI, a Café contributor, “asked the questions” on Jeopardy this week as she follows a family tradition of
Nathan Brockman of Trinity Church, Wall Street, reviews The Dark Knight and wonders what it takes to hold the center when the world is going
Spore is a new video game, created by the same fellow behind the virtual world phenom “The Sims.” This time, he’s taken that virtual world
Cinematical points us to an indie film that premiered at the Toronto Independent Film Festival earlier this week: “…Dean Spanley, a wonderfully charming and whimsical comedy about an Anglican priest who believes he is the reincarnation of a dog.”
“Beverly Hills 90210” fans discover in Tuesday’s episode of the “90210” sequel that Kelly Taylor’s troubled mother, Jackie, hasn’t changed much. The same can’t be said for Ann Gillespie, who plays Jackie: She’s gone from actress to Episcopal priest. Between sermons, weddings and funerals at Christ Church in Alexandria, Va., the Rev. Gillespie squeezed in an appearance on “90210,” CW’s follow-up to the hit Fox series that aired from 1990-2000.
On YouTube, you can watch video of a chewing-gum sculptor from Romania and an office badminton match among cubicle dwellers. And then there are the videos of the Rev. Steven Rice, who ponders such theological questions as why we pray and whether observing the pagan ritual of Halloween is OK for Christians.
We’ve done a little bit of reading, searched a few Web sites, but we still don’t quite get this Greenbelt business. The festival (if that’s the right word) drew 20,000 people to a race track in Cheltenham, England, for three days of what seems to have been innovative worship and intriguing conversation–and the Church Times takes is seriously!–so we feel we should understand it better than we do.