Carissa Smith
Hamlet 2: Is “Rock Me, Sexy Jesus” Blasphemous?
Carissa Smith examines a little-known but much decried summer comedy.
Do the Olympics Idolize the Human Body?
One day, our resurrected bodies will be free from pain—all that mounting with wings as eagles and running without growing weary. One of the things I enjoy about the Olympics is how the athletes’ strength and speed can hint at the futures of our glorified bodies. But sometimes I wonder if the Olympics set up the human body as a false god to be worshiped.
‘Breaking Dawn’: Do We Want a Happy Ending?
In the final post in CAPC’s coverage of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga, Carrissa Smith focuses on Breaking Dawn, the fourth and final volume in the series.
‘Eclipse’: No Cheap Grace, No Easy Love
Twilight, the first novel in Stephenie Meyer’s bestselling series, surprised me by being well-written. Eclipse, the third volume, surprised me by dealing with very painful and complex situations in a mature way. Twilight and New Moon both reminded me powerfully of what it was like to be a teenager; Eclipse reminded me of what it’s like to be an adult in a fallen, yet glorious world.
‘New Moon’: Do Vampires Have Souls? And Other Pressing Questions
In the second post in CAPC’s coverage of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga, Carrissa Smith focuses on New Moon, the second volume in the series.
‘Twilight’: A Positive or Negative Influence for Teens?
Carissa Smith reviews the book that no one who’s male or over 18 wants to admit they’ve heard of.
A CAPC Dialogue: Violence in Blood Meridian
In the first installment of a CAPC dialogue, Alan Noble and Carissa Smith discuss whether or not the violence in Blood Meridian is good or helpful.
So Brave, Young, and Handsome (No, this post is not about CAPC writers)
What would happen if you took a copy of Les Miserables and highlighted the bits about Jean Valjean, that illustration of grace and mercy, and Javert, relentless man of the law, and left out all that other stuff about student revolutions and orphaned waifs and the never-ending Battle of Waterloo? Okay, yeah, you would get The Fugitive. But add in trains, carnivals, cowboys, and the dying dream of the Old West, and you’ve got Leif Enger’s So Brave, Young, and Handsome, a distinctly American tale of redemption.
Rapture Ready!: Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture
Daniel Radosh, New Yorker contributor and self-described Humanistic Jew, delves into the strange, sometimes cheesy, sometimes transcendent world of Christian pop culture in his new book Rapture Ready!: Adventures in the Parallel Universe of Christian Pop Culture. The array of topics he covers is itself stunning: Testamints, “Friends don’t let friends go to hell” T-shirts, the Holy Land Experience theme park, The Great Passion Play, BibleZines, Left Behind, Frank Peretti, Bibleman (evangelicaldom’s caped crusader), Stephen Baldwin, the Cornerstone Festival, purity balls, creationist museums, Christian comedy, Christian skateboarding, Christian raves, and Christian pro wrestling.*
Alan Jacobs’s The Narnian: The Life and Imagination of C. S. Lewis
The Narnian gives the reader a sense of the development and scope of Lewis’s intellectual and emotional life—often in relation to the more “factual” events of that life. Entertaining and accessible, Jacobs’s biography is ideal for the reader who has encountered the Chronicles of Narnia and wants to know how they relate to Lewis’s other writings, especially his apologetic works like Mere Christianity.
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