The Evangelical Manifesto

On the remote chance that you may not already have read it, I should post the news that An Evangelical Manifesto was published and presented earlier this week, on May 7.

The Steering Committee for the document includes…

  • Timothy George
    Dean, Beeson Divinity School, Samford University
  • Os Guinness
    Author/Social Critic
  • John Huffman
    Pastor, St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, Newport Beach, CA
    Chair, Christianity Today International
  • Rich Mouw
    President, Fuller Theological Seminary
  • Jesse Miranda
    Founder & Director, Miranda Center for Hispanic Leadership, Vanguard University
  • David Neff
    Vice President and Editor in Chief, Christianity Today Media Group
  • Richard Ohman
    Businessman
  • Larry Ross
    President, A. Larry Ross Communications
  • Dallas Willard
  • Professor of Philosophy, University of Southern California
    Author

And, via Ross Douthat, here are responses to it by:

Alan Jacobs (here, and here) and Michael Brendan Dougherty. Other responses will be posted here as fast as I become aware of them. (Well, almost as fast.)

Two Soderberghs and a missing Kiarostami: early rumblings about Cannes 08

I’m two weeks behind on posting this, but it’s too tantalizing to ignore. Here’s Robert Koehler musing about the lineup for this year’s Cannes Film Festival…

Just look at some of the filmmakers in the roster, and you’re looking at a window on the future of cinema: Alonso and his Thierry del Fuego-set Liverpool, Albert Serra and his Three Wise Men odyssey El Cant dels ocells, Claire Simon’s Les Bureaux de Dieu, Raya Martin and his five-hour Now Showing and the best Romanian you haven’t heard of–Radu (The Paper Will Be Blue) Muntean and Boogie.

He concludes with:

…a mystery: Although Abbas Kiarostami’s Shirin was expanded into a feature based on the short he contributed to Cannes’ Chacun son cinema and Kiarostami, is, well, Kiarostami, he’s nowhere to be found in the lineup. Any lineup. Why isn’t it in Cannes? What happened?

The Dude Abides: The Gospel According to the Coen Brothers

Word is spreading fast about the next book by “God Girl” Cathleen Falsani, religion columnist for The Chicago Sun-Times. The Dude Abides: The Gospel According to the Coen Brothers will be a welcome focus on the quiet but everpresent spiritual questions at the core of the Coens’ films.

I met Cathleen Falsani, the author, at the Calvin Festival of Faith and Writing a couple of weeks ago, and it was a pleasant surprise. I’ve been reading her work here and there for years. (I think I discovered her through Steve Beard’s Thunderstruck site.) She approached me after my Through a Screen Darkly lecture to tell me that she was glad I’d brought up No Country for Old Men in the presentation, and went on to tell me about the book. It sounds very cool, but she’s got another one coming out right now called Sin Boldly that looks interesting too. Can’t wait to read either one of them.

So, learn to make a White Russian, and you’ll be all set. When the book arrives, you can kick back every evening with a glass in one hand and Falsani’s book in the other, and learn to see the Coen Brothers through a new lens. (I wonder if the book will include Burn Before Reading, or if the printing will happen too late for that….)

Neil Young versus the MP3

Ready for Harvest Moon on Blu-ray?

When Neil Young announced the impending release of his Archives on Blu-ray Disc earlier this week, he made it clear that there was a technical reason for his decision.

As well as making his entire back catalogue and a large amount of related items available in one collection of shiny discs, he was striking a blow against the MP3. “Putting on a headphone and listening to an MP3 is like hell,” he said. His aim is to give the audience “quality whether they want it or not. You can degrade it as much as you want, we just don’t want our name on it”.

A hero will rise… to save the state of book reviewing

As book reviewers vanish from newspapers, will anyone stand up and offer a solution? Here’s a story of one controversial attempt.

Marion’s mandibles

I don’t know about you, but are you getting unsettled by Karen Allen’s perpetual, ear-to-ear grin in the promotional shots for Indy 4? It’s kind of creeping me out. I hope Marion Ravenwood’s return to the Indy world will remind us of the tough-talking, punch-throwing dream girl who won our hearts in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Marion gone soft and smiley? Say it isn’t so!

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