How would you like to be a part of my first-ever class on cinema, the visual arts, and apologetics?

How would you like to spend time looking closely together into a gallery of imaginations, visions, and lives — and talking about what it all means?

Rear_Window_film_posterI’ve been dreaming about this opportunity for years — a chance to spend several weeks looking closely at the relationship between the history of visual art and the history of faith, with a particular focus on cinema.

I’ve been taking notes, reading, and arguing with myself about which films would be best to bring to such a conversation.

And now, it’s happening.

I’ve taught week-long film seminars at The Glen Workshop. I’ve taught weekend film workshops at a variety of schools. And I taught a quarter of creative writing at Covenant College. But I’m delighted to announce that Houston Baptist University is the school that, taking note of my 15 years of “teaching” online about the relationship between film and faith, has offered me my first opportunity to teach a full course on the subject, and to get students writing creatively about cinema. Through their graduate program in apologetics, I’m teaching an online course called “Film, the Visual Arts, and Apologetics.”

I visited HBU a year ago, when they invited Scott Cairns and me to speak at their annual writers’ conference. I felt honored to be in such accomplished company, and to find so many kindred spirits there. I even got to visit Joshua Sikora’s class on the films of Terrence Malick, where I found a large group of students eager to dig deep into questions about the interplay of spirituality and cinema. I find it exhilarating when a Christian college takes on challenging cinema so fearlessly. So I’m blessed to have this new opportunity to participate in what they’re doing at HBU.

We’re going to have a grand time. Apply by May 1, and you can be part of this first Fellowship of the Moviegoers.

We’re going to read about beauty, look at historic works of visual art, watch challenging films, and talk about what we’re experiencing over eight weeks… and very possibly become a close-knit film-loving community.

I’d love to have you along for the journey.

And no… you don’t have to travel to Houston. The class is online.

What movies will we watch? That’s for the students to discover. But I’ll say this. One of them may be…

James_Stewart_in_Rear_Window_trailer_2

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