Oftentimes in my teaching of creative writing, I include on the syllabus this passage from the poet Muriel Rukeyser’s book The Life of Poetry:  “Faith is found here, not in a destiny raiding and parceling out knowledge and the earth, but in a people who, person by person, believes itself. Do you accept your own…

Cinema at its best has the power to transform minds, to inspire generations, and to speak across geographical, intellectual, and educational borders. Cinema can encourage, motivate, and challenge the hearts, minds, and souls of anyone willing to engage within the visual journey. We’ve witnessed stories of faith, sacrifice, redemption, and persecution. We’ve discovered the call…

Cinema at its best has the power to transform minds, to inspire generations, and to speak across geographical, intellectual, and educational borders. Cinema can encourage, motivate, and challenge the hearts, minds, and souls of anyone willing to engage within the visual journey. We’ve witnessed stories of faith, sacrifice, redemption, and persecution. We’ve discovered the call…

There are, arguably, many ways in which we need to wake up, hence the need for the variety of stories in this list. Some of these films (Something, Anything; Marty; Punch-Drunk Love) involve meek people waking up from lives dominated by peer pressure and social expectations from their friends or family. Other selections on the…

“My father says almost the whole world’s asleep. Everybody you know, everybody you see, everybody you talk to. He says only a few people are awake. And they live in a state of constant total amazement.” —Patricia, from Joe Versus the Volcano It seems that we now live in an increasingly polarized, disenchanted, fragmented, and…

Though the year of 2016 was a weighty year for politics and world events, it was also a great year for movies. The Arts and Faith Ecumenical Jury of 2016 has compiled a list of ten excellent films we found to be especially noteworthy. This year’s thirteen jury members include professors and pastors, professional film…

Though the year of 2016 was a weighty year for politics and world events, it was also a great year for movies. The Arts and Faith Ecumenical Jury of 2016 has compiled a list of ten excellent films we found to be especially noteworthy. This year’s thirteen jury members include professors and pastors, professional film…

Continued from yesterday. Read Part 1 here. Coninuing yesterday’s list of films, here are five other films (ranked) the 2015 Arts & Faith Ecumenical Jury recommended for Christian audiences, plus a list of honorable mentions (unranked):   5) Love & Mercy—Bill Pohlad Love & Mercy—about the struggle of the Beach Boys’ anchor Brian Wilson to…

The 2015 Arts & Faith Ecumenical Jury Film Awards had a decidedly international flavor. Six of ten films recognized by the Image-sponsored discussion forum were foreign-language films, including the top three entrants. Perhaps because of that international flavor, this year’s list of films specifically recommended for Christian audiences looked beyond representations of Christianity and included…

This morning, with my wife at work, my four-year-old daughter at pre-school and my infant son asleep in the next room, I watched the 1955 Danish film Ordet directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer, recently voted the #1 film religious or “spiritual” film in a poll facilitated by Image and voted on by forty critics and…