Gospel.com Blog

Hollywood Jesus is a site devoted to pop culture from a spiritual point of view. Every week, they offer reviews and analysis of the latest movies, books, comics, and other pop culture artifacts.

You can keep up with their regular updates at HJ Live!. But in case you missed it, here’s a rundown of some of the new items at HJ this week:

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Each Friday, Past the Popcorn offers a thorough look at the latest round of films opening on big screens.

A double-whammy in one week: the DVD release of Amazing Grace, and the theatrical release of Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium. What will these guys pull off next? Kathy Bledsoe calls Magorium—a G-rated family-pleaser—a “beautifully written, multi-layered masterpiece.” From the acting of Dustin Hoffman, Natalie Portman, and a solid supporting cast to the production design, everything hums. Plus, says Kathy, the film is “refreshingly full of quality material to discuss with children.”

The other major release this week is Beowulf, the much-anticipated motion-capture-animation action film from Robert Zemeckis. But Mike Brunk finds it very uneven. “Sometimes it wants to be taken seriously; sometimes it seems to aspire to be little more than a cartoon,” he says. Still, if you’re looking for a big dragon battle, Beowulf scores there. But be aware that the PG-13 rating is serious—maybe even on the light side given animated nudity.

In other releases, Greg Wright has a hard time living with Love in the Time of Cholera; Mike Brunk finds Southland Tales intriguing but tedious; and Jeff Walls finds Alison Eastwood’s directing debut a trial.

Have you ever thought about reading through the entire Bible? Maybe you started reading it from the beginning, but your enthusiasm petered out after a few weeks. Or maybe one look at the intimidating size of the family Bible was enough to scare you away.

Fortunately, there are some good tools here in the Gospel.com community to help you conquer “Leviticus burnout.”

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The Revival Conference 2007 wrapped up recently. If you weren’t able to attend but believe in the importance of spiritual revival today, you’re in luck—media content from the conference is being made available online! Head over to the Revival Conference website to tune in to revival messages from some of today’s most insightful preachers and teachers.

If these messages whet your appetite for more revival teaching, Sermon Index (the ministry that sponsored the conference) has much, much more where that came from—it’s got thousands of classic sermons in MP3 format available for free download. The 14,000 sermons there should provide you with listening material for the next few years….

Call it a savvy marketing, call it media evangelism—evangelical Christians have a history of using every available medium to get the Gospel message across, whether it’s printed tracts, radio broadcasts, or big-screen films. The Billy Graham Center has a fascinating online exhibit of one of the quirkier niches in evangelical history: classic Christian posters!

There’s a great gallery of vintage posters, from “come to the meeting” posters advertising revival meetings to somewhat quirkier posters. It’s interesting to compare posters from different parts of the world, from a stark London poster to lavishly illustrated Chinese posters.

Be sure to check them all out, and don’t miss this page of classic posters that aren’t a part of the exhibit.

A side note: Several of the posters, you’ll note, advertise Billy Graham crusades around the world. The Christian History Institute has an interesting account of Graham’s monumental 1954 evangelism crusade, if this particular corner of evangelical history interests you.

Are big, planned events still necessary or useful in youth ministry today? So asks Mark Cornelison at the Youth Ministry Exchange. He argues that the logistical nightmare of planning youth ministry events is still worthwhile—so long as we understand the place of those events in ministry, and have a clear idea of what we hope to accomplish with them.

The Youth Specialties ministry addressed this same question a few weeks ago in Wendy Walker’s article More Than a One-Night Stand: Behind Mere Event Hype (PDF).

Each Friday, Past the Popcorn offers a thorough look at the latest round of films opening on big screens.

This week, the strongest new releases are serious, adult-oriented examinations of evil in the world—and these aren’t horror films, either. They’re dramas and documentaries.

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You can send a Bible to a U.S. member absolutely free! Just fill out a brief form and the good folks at International Bible Society will donate a Bible to a soldier, at no cost or risk to you.

International Bible Society has been providing scripture to soldiers since the War of 1812. They’ve got many other free resources as well, including the Daily Manna from the Net daily scripture reading and the Call to Prayer prayer guide.

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Christians rarely have trouble remember that Jesus was God—after all, that’s pretty key to our understanding of the Gospel story. But in focusing on his divine nature, is it possible that we overlook and minimize the fact that he was also fully human?

Jesus’ dual nature as both God and man is a difficult concept to wrap our minds around, but it’s a important part of Christian belief. Delve Into Jesus offers us some help in understanding this paradox with a new devotional essay, Human God.

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Looking to give your day a spiritual boost? Even a minute or two spent with a good devotional can change your outlook on the day’s events. If you’re looking for a devotional to get your day started off on the right foot, you’re in luck: there are a lot of great ones to pick from here at Gospel.com.

We’ve picked out some of the best ones—a mix of new devotionals and timeless classics—for you to take a look at.

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