essays
I write on many different topics: Eastern Orthodox Christianity, movie reviews, Christian life, the culture, and more. If you’d like to sort my essays by category, click here .
Entries from May 1, 2004 - June 1, 2004
Raising Helen
Posted Thursday, May 27, 2004 in Movie Reviews
[Beliefnet, April 26, 2004]
Wait just a minute till I get you hooked up to the Wince-O-Meter. Thumbs snug? Good. OK, just relax and listen to what comes over the earphones.
I got news for you little lady. I’m sexy. I’m a sexy man of God. And I know it.”
Wow, I never saw the dial do that before.
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Abu Ghraib and Pitesti
Posted Wednesday, May 26, 2004 in Orthodoxy, The Culture
[Dallas Morning News, May 26, 2004]
While most of the world is reeling at the ugliness perpetrated by American soldiers at Abu Ghraib, I've had the feeling I've seen it all before. Rather, I've heard it, from a white-haired Romanian priest who suffered in the dread Pitesti prison outside Bucharest. Fr. George Calciu is now pastor of a small white-clapboard church in northern Virginia, and my spiritual father.
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Troy
Posted Thursday, May 13, 2004 in Movie Reviews
[Beliefnet, May 13, 2004]
What's the difference between "Troy" and a sword-and-sandal epic of forty-plus years ago? Stumped me, too. Superficially, there's a lot in common: swords, sandals, sand, buxom ladies, pompous declamation ("Your glory walks hand in hand with your doom"), and faux-hearty earthiness ("May the gods keep the wolves in the hills and the women in our beds!," an invocation you hope you don't accidentally get backwards.) In terms of the grand feeling "Troy" hopes to evoke, it could be "Ben Hur" or "Spartacus."
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Van Helsing
Posted Friday, May 7, 2004 in Movie Reviews
[Beliefnet, May 7, 2004]
Hidden under the piles of obvious things to say about ‘Van Helsing’ ‘that it’ s loud, busy, and overstuffed with CGI’is one more very surprising thing: it presents the Roman Catholic Church as a heroic force for good. You wouldn’t think that possible these days, when suspicion of ‘institutional Christianity’ is at an all-time high, when best-sellers like ‘The DaVinci Code’ inflame bizarre suspicion, and headlines about sexual misbehavior erode what trust remains.
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Postmodernism, God's Silence
Posted Monday, May 3, 2004 in Christian Life
[Today's Christian, May-June, 2004]
The Postmodern Puzzle
'Our world today is driven by post-modernism. We seem to tailor everything to best meets our needs—including our perception of God. What can we do to battle this tendency? Please help me.' —Pastor Nicholas Lolik Lemi, Church of God in Southern Sudan
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