Welcome to New Orleans’ truly courageous families

September 14, 2012 by

Carolyn Parker in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, photo courtesy of PBS POV.HOW TO SEE PBS POV’S CAROLYN PARKER:
The national debut is Thursday, September 20, 2012, in the PBS POV film series. However, PBS air times vary widely. Check local listings or visit the PBS POV website for the Carolyn Parker film. That web page has a trailer for the film, a link to check local listings, plus that’s the page to watch for updates on alternative showings. Sometimes films are posted online or are available for digital devices.

Review of the Documentary,
‘I’m Carolyn Parker:
Good, Mad and Beautiful,’

By ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm

The 2005 devastation of Hurricane Katrina is one of the most popular American sagas of tragedy and survival. Evidence of that is the highly praised HBO series TREME about New Orleans families rebuilding their lives after Katrina. In addition to various film and TV glimpses of post-Katrina life, there are books, too. That includes Dick Wolff’s moving The Fight for Home: How (Parts of) New Orleans Came Back, which also tells Carolyn Parker’s story.

In the documentary and the book, Carolyn Parker lives through a gripping, years-long odyssey to hold her historic home together in one of the poorest sections of the infamous Lower Ninth Ward. Wolff not only wrote the book about Carolyn and other survivors—he also is a producer on this documentary, shot over five years. The film’s director is Oscar-winning Jonathan Demme, best known for his feature films such as Silence of the Lambs and Philadelphia.

Wolff and Demme are terrific storytellers themselves and they cut away all the stuff you already know about Hurricane Katrina to give us just this vivid slice of real life: Carolyn Parker’s life, that is. Even at that scale of one woman and one family, the real-life truth becomes clear: In America’s ever-deepening chasm between rich and poor—the poor live like modern-day Jobs, the tragic figure in the Bible who faced one awful scourge after another. Folks like Carolyn Parker are tough and they love their families just like rich people do, but every single step toward survival is tougher than it is for the rest of us.

When we meet Carolyn Parker, neighbors line up to tell Demme and his crew that this is one noble, beloved woman. This is a woman who tenaciously clutches classic American values of right and wrong, love of family and her deep Christian faith—and who makes it clear to neighbors that her home is an oasis of those values no matter what else is rumbling through that ravaged area of New Orleans.

Carolyn Parker’s home after her 5-year odyssey.All that was challenged by the monster hurricane. Of course, we know the failure of Bush-administration responses. Demme doesn’t dwell on that, because the real story here is that Carolyn Parker’s woes went on for years. If you love TV shows about real-life home renovations against all odds—such shows are everywhere on cable TV these days—then you’ll enjoy seeing how Carolyn and her friends and her wonderfully supportive daughter manage to overcome everything life throws at them.

In 2010, ReadTheSpirit reported on another such courageous neighborhood of New Orleans, the Vietnamese-Catholic neighborhood that rebuilt in a similarly dramatic way. Now, Carolyn Parker takes us into the heart of the Lower Ninth Ward and welcomes us—like this warm-hearted woman welcomes all visitors—to learn what real life feels like in utterly impoverished America. And, lest you fear a depressing ride, this isn’t entirely terrible stuff. We learn how Carolyn cooks her popular stovetop turkey. We see Carolyn at worship in her Catholic church. We hear her explain how we all should set aside a special corner of our homes as a small shrine for prayer. This is, indeed, a wise woman with lots to share.

If you care about Americans struggling to survive in the poorest corners of our country, then don’t miss Carolyn Parker. She’s pushed the front door open for the filmmakers—and for the rest of America, too.

Care to read more about these issues in America and worldwide? The OurValues column compares U.S. data on poverty and financial opportunity with more than a dozen other developed natoions.

Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.

Zombie guy Clay Morgan on why we’re drawn to death

September 3, 2012 by

CLAY MORGAN posing with the famous University of Pittsburgh Panther, a bronze statue installed in 2001 near the university’s William Pitt Union. In the background is a National Historic Landmark—the 535-foot-tall, 42-story Cathedral of Learning—the second tallest university building in the world.Ever since we published our review of Clay Morgan’s timely new book for small groups, Undead, and followed that with a 3,000-year tour of milestones about zombies, vampires and other ghouls—readers have been asking us: Who is this guy!?! Undead is Clay Morgan’s first book. We think that we’re all going to be hearing a lot more from this talented young historian, writer and Christian educator. So, today, we are publishing ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm’s interview with Clay in …

November 2012 Update: As the latest Twilight movie debut nears, Twilight expert Jane Wells publishes a column that includes Clay Morgan’s Undead preview video. Enjoy.

HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR INTERVIEW
WITH CLAY MORGAN
ON ‘UNDEAD’

DAVID: People hearing about your book will think of you as the “Zombie Guy,” so let me start by asking about your day job.

CLAY: My day job is as a college teacher at three different institutions in Pittsburgh, including the University of Pittsburgh. I mostly teach history and political science. I work in areas of sociology, too, and I spend a lot of time looking at what popular culture can tell us.

DAVID: You’re also respected as an expert in leading groups in congregations. Are you ordained?

CLAY: No, I’m a lay person who has done a lot of work in youth ministry.

DAVID: Your publisher is associated with the United Methodist church. How do you describe yourself religiously?

CLAY: I’m a follower of Jesus and I try not to misrepresent Jesus. I’m a writer and teacher so I respect someone like N.T. Wright, who is a brilliant teacher of Christian apologetics, but he is an academic. That’s a different style of writing than what I do. I’m not writing as an academic Bible scholar like Wright. I’m not writing as a theologian teaching high-minded scriptural lessons.

In writing Undead, I wanted a book that can be used in churches that will draw the kind of 20- and 21-year-old young people who walk into my office and say: “We hear you’re a Christian.” And I’ll tell them: “Yes, I’m a Christian.” As we talk, they’ll say, “I thought Christians were …” and they’ll complete the blank with some derogatory comment. I was thinking of that kind of student I see every week when I wrote this book. I think that anyone of any age who enjoys reading the Bible will have a good time with Undead, because I do look at the six individual accounts in the New Testament where people came back to life. I look at this book as enough material for a six- or eight-week series in a small group.

‘LEFT AT A FUNERAL HOME WHEN I WAS 4’

Click the cover to visit the book’s Amazon page.DAVID: Early in your book, you describe your own fascination with death as stemming from an incident early in your life. You write: “My family accidentally left me at a funeral home when I was 4 years old. I was lost, surrounded by strangers in dark rooms.”

CLAY: It’s a family legend now, but it’s a true story. I have two older sisters and back in the ‘80s when this happened, we had a station wagon with an acre of space in the back. I don’t even remember who had died, but my family went for a viewing. When my parents were done, the family got in the car and my sisters led my parents to believe I was in the back of the car. It was just a funeral home with people there for a viewing. I can say that now as an adult, but at the time it was the trifecta of childhood terror. My attention was focused on that body in the middle of the room and I’d been left there alone with these strangers.

I remember that I started crying and a teen-aged cousin helped to calm me down. By the time my parents realized what had happened and they returned, I was sitting on the front steps of the funeral home and not crying any more.

‘ETERNITY IS SET INTO OUR HEARTS’

DAVID: Death has a deep, deep impact on the living. We just wrote about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s interest in spiritualism. He had lost family members around World War I. When someone we love dies too young—crosses over into whatever else is out there after death—that really changes the way we think about both life and death. It certainly transformed Doyle’s life.

CLAY: The historian in me thinks back to the period when spiritualism spiked in America after the Civil War. So many people were dying. Even Mary Lincoln, the president’s wife, had terrifying events in her life and she turned to trying to communicate with one of her children who died. Then, World War I reignited the whole interest in spiritualism for a while. Doyle was in the headlines in that era.

But throughout the 20th century, we’ve managed through technology and improved medicine to increase our life spans. Now, we have this desire to live forever, which is built into us, and we actually think we can do it.

DAVID: That’s a longstanding desire, isn’t it?

CLAY: Solomon said that “eternity is set into the hearts of men.” That hasn’t changed throughout history. What’s changed is that we’re in denial, thinking that we could live forever. We hope that through surgery and supplements and gyms—and all the other things we can do these days—that we can deny death. But the truth is: Nobody gets out of this alive. Thoughts of death produce haunting feelings in all of us.

COMICS CAN CONNECT NEW PEOPLE

DAVID: I was impressed, when I first saw your book, that you clearly love comics. You’ve got some specially commissioned 1-page comics sprinkled through the book. ReadTheSpirit has published quite a few stories about the popularity of comics and graphic novels. You talk about the popularity of “Walking Dead” in your book, which now is in its third season on TV. And “Walking Dead” started as a series of comic books. So, what draws you to comics in this case?

CLAY: Too often, the Bible is presented in a stagnant way. We miss out on so much of the good stuff in the Bible by sanitizing what’s happening in the Bible stories. I wanted people to experience these stories in a modern way. So, I thought: What would some of these stories look like if we showed them in the style of a graphic novel? The artist is Gary Morgan—no relation although we share a last name. He started to play around with these stories in the book and came up with these panels to represent some of them as comics.

Comics appeal to people who might not normally be interested in what goes on in church. Comics can be a way that more people can connect with these stories that are so familiar to us.

DAVID: You even appear in one comic, right?

CLAY: Yeah! I got to step into the action a little bit. Gary did this one incredible page as an introduction that’s Pittsburgh as a zombie apocalypse begins. The skyline of Pittsburgh is there, so I like that. And I’m in there, too.

‘POPULAR CULTURE ISN’T AN ENEMY. IT’S A MISSION FIELD.’

DAVID: Help me sum up the book. At this point in our interview, readers clearly will understand that you’re exploring some eerie material, that you’ve got a good sense of humor and that this is—well, very different than anything else they might have chosen for a small-group study. But there’s a very important message here.

I would describe it this way: If you’re active in a church and you’re seeing all this bizarre stuff out there in popular movies, TV, comic books and popular novels about vampires and zombies and all the rest—you should realize that this is your turf. Don’t look at all the fascination with these eerie tales as something that’s irrelevant, or worse, as something you should reject. This is your turf. Exploring issues of life and death—and what comes after death—is the home turf of the church.

How am I doing? Am I close to a pretty good summary here?

CLAY: That’s definitely a huge part of the take away in this book. The one thing I would add is: This book also looks at the struggles we all face between spiritual life and spiritual death on a daily basis. We all know what it means to feel empty inside. We all crave life. That’s our daily struggle.

People will say: I don’t get the zombie thing. I don’t want to read about all this stuff. That’s not for me. And I do understand that a lot of these movies and TV shows are full of horrific things that some people won’t want to see. I’m not saying, in this book, that we all have to enjoy everything in popular culture. But we do need to understand what’s so popular out there—and we need to ask why it’s so popular, why people are so drawn to it.

A lot of people have forgotten today that when C.S. Lewis first wrote The Screwtape Letters that it really was a pretty shocking story of demons conversing about humans. Christians have read the Screwtape Letters for so many years that we now recognize it as a classic, a masterpiece of spiritual writing. I’m not saying that I’m C.S. Lewis, but I am saying: C.S. Lewis made this connection, too.

Our popular culture isn’t an enemy. It’s a mission field. We can be appalled by what we see out there. We can turn away. Or, we can realize that we all are trying to chase down avenues of rebirth and redemption every day of our lives. And, we can gather together and have some great conversations by looking at all of these stories that are right there everywhere we turn.

BUY THE BOOK: You’ll find UNDEAD: Revived, Resuscitated, and Reborn for sale at Amazon.

FOLLOW CLAY MORGAN: He’s reachable on Twitter @UndeadClay.

Please help us to reach a wider audience

We welcome your Emails at [email protected]
We’re also reachable on Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, Huffington Post, YouTube and other social-networking sites. You also can Subscribe to our articles via Email or RSS feed.
Plus, there’s a free Monday morning Planner newsletter you may enjoy.

Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.

Inspiring Zombies and Vampires and Ghouls (oh my!)

August 26, 2012 by

First, enjoy Part 1 of our coverage of Clay Morgan’s UNDEAD: Revived, Resuscitated, Reborn.
Also, meet historian, educator Clay Morgan in our author interview.

From the Zombie Psalm to Twilight:
3 Millennia of Popular Milestones

A look at some of the many pop-culture references related to Clay Morgan’s UNDEAD.

3,000 YEARS AGO: THE ZOMBIE PSALM

Tommie Harris and what Clay Morgan calls The Zombie Psalm.Search the precise phrase “The Zombie Psalm” (in quotes) in Google today and you’ll see an amazing sight—less than 1 page of results. That’s because Clay Morgan is just now trying to coin that phrase to describe a very popular and downright haunting passage in Psalm 91. It’s the passage that declares:
You will not fear the terror of the night,
or the arrow that flies by day,
or the pestilence that stalks in darkness,
or the destruction that wastes at noonday.
A thousand may fall at your side,
ten thousand at your right hand,
but it will not come near you.
According to Clay, the Psalmist probably was envisioning the ghastly death and pestilence associated with ancient battlefields. Thousands were dead or dying; disease was running rampant and into this zombie landscape, the faithful warrior was stepping once again. In fact, this isn’t as crazy as it sounds. Psalm 91 has long been known as The Soldier’s Psalm. Wallet-sized copies have been carried into battle by countless men and women. How popular is it today? Pro football defensive standout Tommie Harris writes Psalm 91 on the adhesive breathing strip he sticks to his nose before each game. Tommie has said in interviews that the particular Psalm 91 passage Clay highlights is his own prayer on the football field.

2,600 Years Ago: EZEKIEL AND DEM DANCING BONES

Do you doubt that our current fascination with the undead stretches back to ancient roots? Just start singing along with “Dem Bones,” which retells a famous story from the prophet Ezekiel. That vision inspiring African-American slaves to trust in God’s power to overturn the cruel system that bound them. We have the poet James Weldon Johnson to thank for writing the melody and preserving that spiritual for us today.

2,000 Years Ago: UNDOING DEATH BECOMES A CHRISTIAN HALLMARK

For more on this, see Part 1 of our coverage of UNDEAD: Revivied, Resuscitated, Reborn.

Around 400 AD: CHRISTIANS CLING TO SKELETONS OF SAINTS

Reverently preserving the bones of the dead began long before Christianity. Then, after Jesus, some of the earliest Christian worship services during the era of Roman persecution were held near the graves of martyrs. Later, when Rome officially recognized Christianity, many of the faithful focused their faith on the spiritual power of relics associated with Jesus and the first Christian saints. By around the year 400, the competition for relics was growing, partly because relics drew pilgrims to major shrines and pilgrims brought money. St. Jerome felt that this was becoming enough of a problem that he had to clarify the practice: “We do not worship, we do not adore, for fear that we should bow down to the creature rather than to the creator, but we venerate the relics of the martyrs in order the better to adore Him whose martyrs they are.” There’s not a wilder tale of the competition for relics than the holy hopscotch involving John the Baptist’s head. THIS WEEK brings one of the oldest commemorations in the worldwide Christian church, involving that dramatic beheading.

IN THE YEAR 1300: DANTE TAKES A FAMOUS TOUR OF HELL

The brilliant Italian poet Dante Alighieri lived until his mid 50s before dying in 1321, but he cast himself as 35 in the year 1300 as he set off on his famous tour of hell, purgatory and heaven. He produced one of the world’s greatest literary masterpieces (and undead-fest supreme), The Divine Comedy. This lengthy epic is packed with sophisticated word play and symbolic twists and turns. The souls being tortured in hell for the sin of lust, for example, are forever pushed this way and that way by a powerful wind. Those being punished for the sin of anger find themselves endlessly fighting other lost souls—or sinking into a deep swampy pool of anger. Dante supposedly was warning readers of the dangers of temptation, and the pathway to heaven, but he also gave us all a deviously imaginative vision of foul play. Mystery writers in particular have found themselves drawn to Dante. In fact, one of Dante’s many famous translators was the British mysery writer and outspoken Christian activist Dorothy L. Sayers.

1690: NEW ENGLAND SCARES MILLIONS OF KIDS … TO SLEEP

It’s tough to pinpoint the origin of the terrifying bedtime prayer, but by 1690, it was distributed to American families in the form of The New England Primer. Remember the prayer?
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I shall die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
In his book, Clay Morgan says this is just a glimpse at “how terrifying” it was to live with the prospect of earlier understandings about the fate of our souls upon death. Today, he writes, he doesn’t know a parent who would make young children recite this prayer.

1818: FRANKENSTEIN’S MONSTER IS BROUGHT TO LIFE

Mary Shelley lived in a maelstrom of creative energies—surrounded by her husband, a great Romantic poet, and their friend Lord Byron—not to mention other like-minded writers, artists and activists. She created the first of the great monstrous figures of 20th-century pop culture in Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus. But she also turned out other books as well. That includes a pioneering work in what we would call today science fiction: the apocalyptic The Last Man. One can only imagine what Mary Shelley and her crowd would make of our fascination with the undead, today.

1827: A MUMMY UNWRAPPED FOR THE WORLD TO SEE

Something amazing was stirring the women in Britain in this era of Romantic arts and letters. The second of the great undead figures of 20th-century pop culture, The Mummy, debuted as an 1827 novel by the English botanist Jane C. Loudon. (That’s right, she and her husband were most famous for serious studies of plant life.) Before penning her own classic, Jane Loudon almost certainly had read Mary Shelley’s influential novels. Plus, historians say that Loudon, as a little girl, is likely to have attended a public unwrapping of a mummy in a London theater in 1821. In that era, European exploration of Egypt was yielding widespread fascination with all things having to do with the wonders of the ancient pharoahs.

1842: PULLING THE MASK OFF THE RED DEATH

The Brits didn’t have an exclusive corner on fantasies of the undead. The Romantic movement had crossed the Atlantic and one of the chief proponents of a very dark romanticism was Edgar Allen Poe. Before he died at a youthful 40, Poe had written some of the most haunting tales of death and the undead that the world has ever seen. His Mask of the Red Death debuted in Graham’s Lady’s and Gentleman’s Magazine in 1842. The genteel publication, aimed pointedly at women as well as at male readers, is another sign of the huge popularity of undead tales with female readers.

1843: GHOSTS PERFORM A CHRISTMAS CAROL

Even Clay Morgan admits that his favorite version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is one of the comic versions: Bill Murray in the 1988 movie Scrooged. What with musical versions and a very popular Muppet rendition, it’s easy to forget that Dickens wrote a flat-out ghost story that featured bone-chiling warnings from the undead. That’s why Dickens opens his classic Christmas story with these lines: “Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and Scrooge’s name was good for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a doornail. Mind! I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a doornail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country’s done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a doornail. Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did.” Get it!?! Despite all the songs and laughs that we associate with Scrooge today—this is truly a tale of the undead.

1863: LINCOLN EMBRACES THE DEAD

In our recent coverage of the noted historian of American religion, Stephen Prothero, he describes Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address as “the greatest American speech ever.” A lot of historians of religion—including Clay Morgan—refer to the speech at the Civil War battlefield as a turning point in our collective religious culture. Some scholars have argued that the leaders of the George Washington era invoked a Moses-like image of the nation’s religious destiny. At Gettysburg, Lincoln invoked the dead, sacrificial blood and summoned a Jesus-like image of our American spirit. This is such a rich chapter in our history that Clay Morgan also focuses on the spiritual lessons of Lincoln’s life.

1897: COUNT DRACULA TAKES A BOW

Before the 19th century ended, a man who was well known in London for his work as a theatrical manager gave the world the last of the great 20th-century undead monsters: Dracula. Bram Stoker spent a long time researching European folklore on vampires before writing his horrific novel. The book was not a runaway bestseller, but it receive high praise from British literary lights. The Daily Mail lauded Stoker as surpassing both Mary Shelley and Edgar Allen Poe.

1921: WWI AND THE COTTINGLEY FAIRIES

Earlier this summer, ReadTheSpirit published a two-part story about Sherlock Holmes’ creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and his embarassing declaration later in life that he had scientifically proven the reality of fairies in the English countryside. At that point in his life, Doyle was crushed by a series of deaths in his family that clustered around World War I. That horrific war also scarred other writers, including C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. In Doyle’s case, the loss of a series of relatives around WWI led to a period of deep depression. It also led Doyle to embrace spiritualism and a fond hope that either science or the Christian faith would find a way to pierce the wall between life and death.

1922: TREASURES OF KING TUT (AND A MUMMY’S CURSE?)

Almost exactly a century after little Jane Loudon is likely to have watched a public unwrapping of a mummy in London, explorer Howard Carter rocketed Egyptian mummies to front-page news around the world. (That’s Carter in the photo at right.) In late 1922, Carter and his sponsor Lord Carnarvon caused a sensation by entering the tomb of King Tutankhamun. Not only did mummies leap back into pop culture with a vengeance—but also with distinctly evil intent after rumors of an eternal curse of the pharoahs. That myth arose after Lord Carnarvon died in 1923 while still in his 50s. He died of a mosquito bite that became infected and resulted in blood poisoning—enough to fuel nightmares of mummies reaching from beyond the grave. Today, serious historians call the “mummy’s curse” nothing but hysteric claptrap, but that didn’t stop a steady flow of shocking headlines. The King Tut tomb also shaped a century of fanciful media. For example, the oldest surviving Dr. Who science-fiction series from 1960s television is The Tomb of the Cybermen. The robot-like creatures later became regular foes of The Doctor on British television, but the original multi-part series was designed by BBC producers to mirror the opening of King Tut’s tomb in the 1920s.

1931 AND 1932: BIRTH OF THE ANCIENT/MODERN MONSTERS

Most of the 20th Century’s great undead monsters stepped onto the silver screen in the era of silent film. The most chilling of the silent horrors was the 1922 version of Dracula, called Nosferatu. The eerie imagery of Max Schreck as the vampire—sometimes just Schreck’s shadow cast on a wall—hasn’t been surpassed since the creepy film was first shown in theaters. When sound began bursting from Hollywood, Bella Lugosi brought Dracula back to life in a sleek new style and Boris Karloff gave us Frankenstein’s monster complete with the bolts in his neck and an over-sized physique. One year later, in 1932, Karloff gave us his classic Imhotep, aka The Mummy.

1930’s: HAITI AND OUR FEAR OF ZOMBIES

As Clay Morgan points out in his book, our current love of zombies dates back roughly to the 1930s with the movie White Zombie. Of course, American assumptions about zombies in that era are mingled with cultural bias and racism related to the Haitian roots of what Haitian’s refer to as Vodou. Zombies are not a major part of the faith that blends elements of African and Christian cultures. In fact, from a Haitian perspective, Vodou’s proudest moment was the Bois Caiman, a 1791 Vodou invocation of the spiritual power to throw off the nation’s slave-owning powers. Within the complex spiritual tradition, zombies are regarded as a dark art in which powerful drugs are used to control a person’s will.

1968: NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (AND ZOMBIES WE LOVE)

For all intents and purposes, Clay Morgan points out, our current obsession with zombies was born in 1968 in the gritty, black-and-white, low-budget horror film, Night of the Living Dead. Clay writes: “Tragedies struck in quick succession in 1968—the Vietnam War had already divided the country before January of that year when the Tet Offensive showed anxious citizens that the end of the conflict was not coming soon. Then both Martin Luther King Jr. and Senator Robert Kennedy were assassinated within one moth of each other. Racial divisions and protests drove national conflict as many found ways to escape the madness of it all. By that point, flesh-eating zombies fit in quite well with the absurdity of life that millions of people found so hard to understand.”

1972: A KINDER, GENTLER DRACULA—COUNT VON COUNT

Clay Morgan actually begins his book with his own childhood memories of Count von Count, who first appeared on Sesame Street in 1972. After all the other ghastly associations with zombies, vampires, ghouls and other forms of the undead, a warm and fuzzy version of Dracula ushered in a whole new era of vampire love.
REMEMBERING THE ORIGINAL COUNT: Millions, like Clay Morgan, immediately recognize the Count’s look—but they also know his voice and distinctive laugh. The original voice of the Count, Jerry Nelson, recently died. CNN online has a tribute to Nelson that includes several memorable Count video clips.

2002: VAMPIRES ON VACATION
30 DAYS OF NIGHT

Flash forward 30 years from Count von Count and there is absolutely nothing warm and fuzzy about the sharp-toothed, blood-dripping vampires in the comicbook epic by Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith. 30 Days of Night refers to the odd geographic phenomenon of long-term darkness in Barrow, Alaska—a natural allure for light-sensitive vampires. Clay Morgan is a fan of comics and graphic novels and calls this comic tale “a blood-sucking Mardi Gras.” And, no, he’s not talking about a family-friendly Mardi Gras. Clearly, Americans may want to fall in love with the undead sometimes, but we also want to scare ourselves silly along the way.

2005: GIRLS, MEET SOME VAMPIRES YOU’LL JUST LOVE!

By 2005, the stage was set for chills and thrills—horrors and hugs from the undead realm. Originally published as children’s literature (Breaking Dawn won the British Book Award in 2008 for Children’s Book of the Year), Twilight now has crossed over from girls to adult women. Stephenie Meier has sold more than 100 million copies—and the Twilight odometer keeps spinning.

2005: HAD ENOUGH FOOTBALL? TRY HUMANS VS. ZOMBIES

That autumn, HvZ debuts at tiny Goucher College near Baltimore. Now supported by a non-profit website, Humans vs. Zombies is turning into a worldwide phenomenon.

2010: THE WALKING DEAD STUMBLES INTO NETWORK TV

The AMC network, crowing about its rave reviews for Mad Men and Breaking Bad, jumped into the realm of the zombies in 2010. The third season of The Walking Dead starts in autumn 2012. Clay Morgan says our current zombie fad is strong evidence of widespread anxiety in American culture. He writes: “Tragedy and zombie popularity are inversely proportional. The worse things get, the more we buy into the apocalypse. The 1980s and 1990s weren’t perfect, but they were relatively peaceful and prosperous. Not surprisng then that you won’t find massive mainstream appeal to zombies like we see in a post 9/11 world.”

2011: UNDEAD, YET OH SO CARING—THE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE

By last year, American culture was overloaded with zombies. The 2006 novel, World War Z, has given way to a big-budget movie version starring Brad Pitt, due to hit theaters in summer 2013. Even the federal government is getting involved through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Starting in 2011, the CDC began producing some of its most popular guides to public health using tongue-in-cheek zombie themes. Most famous is Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse by the CDC, posted online in 2011. Now, in 2012, the CDC is back with a graphic novel called Preparedness 101: Zombie Pandemic (cover at right). We think the staff at the CDC should be praised for the creativity. In this era of dire budget cutting, the CDC is finding a way to put the undead to work for the public good!

2012: TWILIGHT’S LAST GLEAMING (MAYBE)—BREAKING DAWN, 2

Apparently, the Twilight film series will end with the debut on November 16 of Breaking Dawn Part 2—although some online rumors suggest that more films with the Twilight characters might follow. You may think that we have strayed far from Christian connections, but that’s not true. Enjoy our coverage of Jane Wells’ Glitter in the Sun, a Twilight Bible study book.

Got a question or an update that we shouldn’t miss in our chronology?
Email us at [email protected] with your thoughts.

And, enjoy Part 1 of our coverage of Clay Morgan’s UNDEAD: Revived, Resuscitated, Reborn.

Meet Clay Morgan in our author interview.

Please help us to reach a wider audience

We welcome your Emails at [email protected]
We’re also reachable on Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, Huffington Post, YouTube and other social-networking sites. You also can Subscribe to our articles via Email or RSS feed.
Plus, there’s a free Monday morning Planner newsletter you may enjoy.

Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.

What is Rob Bell doing now? A new book and network TV

August 5, 2012 by

THE BIG NEWS IS: Rob Bell is finishing a new book—actually lots of new books, if you count the colorful new editions of his first five books plus the brand-new book coming out in 2013.

The BIGGER News Is: Rob hopes to leap from his best-selling short Nooma video series into network-class TV, partnering with the red-hot writer and producer Carlton Cuse. Although most people associate the name J.J. Abrams with LOST, Cuse was executive producer and co-wrote a third of the episodes—including most of the episodes containing mysterious spirituality. Cuse also is known as a master of “transmedia,” which refers to delivering content across multiple media platforms.

The two friends are combining Cuse’s experience and vast reach in Hollywood with Bell’s own talents praised by TIME magazine in naming him, last year, the only pastor in its “100 most influential people in the world.” TIME calls Bell “a master of social media” and said he is “wielding music, videos and a Starbucks sensibility” in “the forefront of a rethinking of Christianity in America.”

Stay tuned!! ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm has known Rob since the early years of Mars Hill and the release of Velvet Elvis. Rob welcomed this interview and, then, in early September will come back to ReadTheSpirit to talk more about the TV project.

What we can tell you now: Rob is closely guarded about his work with Cuse. In the new, streaming video from West Hollywood’s Viper Room, Rob speaks briefly about Cuse and LOST and his plans in LA. First, he jokes that his main reason for moving to LA is the great surfing (and it’s not exactly a joke, as you’ll read in our interview). More importantly, Rob says in his Viper Room video that he moved to LA, not to pastor a new church, but in LA: “Things get made here that go everywhere. This is where things are made that get broadcast everywhere.”

Here’s what Rob is saying now … and it’s, quite frankly, a lot …

HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR INTERVIEW
WITH ROB BELL ON LEAPING FROM
BOOKS AND NOOMAS TO NETWORK-CLASS TV

ROB: It’s been way too long since we’ve talked! You’ve been covering this story since way back at Mars Hill in Michigan and the first NOOMAs and Velvet Elvis. And now we’ve come—well, a long way.

DAVID: Thanks for agreeing to talk about your big news! We will talk again in September. But, first and foremost: It sounds like you’re expanding your reach in media over the coming year, right?

ROB: Oh, I think when people eventually see what’s coming, they’ll realize that this is moving along a trajectory I’ve been on for some years now.

DAVID: I’d say you’re moving at light speed. This all has arisen in less than a decade—just seven years. Velvet Elvis came out in 2005. The NOOMA films had their big, public distribution by Zondervan that same year. I was writing for newspapers back then and I remember my initial reporting on your work was carried by newspapers nationwide. You had grabbed hold of something powerful in American culture and faith. Now, flash forward: I’ve been the Editor of ReadTheSpirit for five years.
Now, over this past year, your career has been exploding. Love Wins was a sensation—partly because of the controversy from hard-core evangelical critics. You were named in TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World. That’s a long way in seven years! Just how old are you now?

ROB: I’m 41.

DAVID: So, OK, you’re not a hot young 30-something sensation anymore.

ROB: (Laughs) I’m not that old! And I feel younger than ever!

DAVID: And you moved to southern California with …

ROB: With my wife Kristin and our three kids—boys 14 and 12 and a girl 3. We are having the time of our lives, but I’d rather not say exactly where we’ve settled. I enjoy living under the radar with my family.

DAVID: In new photos, you look healthy and relaxed and flat-out happy.

ROB: I am happy! I feel younger than ever—that’s for sure. The surfing is great out here. I try to get into the ocean every day, if I can. I’ve never had more fun. This has been incredible.

ROB BELL: ‘I AM STILL A PASTOR.’

DAVID: But, as you approach this mysterious television launch, I notice you’re often referring to yourself as a pastor in the past tense. References online seem to say: “Rob Bell was a pastor.” You’ve left Mars Hill, the huge church you co-founded up near Grand Rapids, Michigan. You haven’t joined the staff of any church out there in California. Are you still a pastor?

ROB: Yes, I am still a pastor. I get all sorts of extraordinary opportunities to be a pastor in all sorts of settings, now—sometimes in settings that would blow your mind.

DAVID: That may be confusing to some readers who think of “pastor” as a title for someone running a church. You remain an ordained clergyman, of course, but explain more about how you use the term “pastor” these days.

ROB: Well, first and foremost, I am a pastor because I announce the Good News of grace and peace found in Jesus. That’s the standard, straightforward Christian message. But what I really do as a pastor is help people understand what they are already experiencing. My work centers on giving people language for things they’ve already experienced. I try to help people put words—to find language and metaphors and ways of describing—what people already are experiencing in their lives. They’re already having these feelings and messages and experiences and sights and sounds in their lives. God is there already. I just help them to see how many of these experiences are part of the Good News.

ROB BELL ON ACCEPTING GAY CHRISTIANS: ‘I AM SMILING.’

DAVID: I’ve got to say that—after watching the Viper Room video—one of the refreshing new messages you now apparently feel free to express in a straight-foward way is this: Let’s quit beating up on gay people in the church. You put it very simply: “Some people are gay and they’re our brothers and sisters and we love them.” Then, you go on to  affirm that there are good, solid gay Christians in our churches and you say that we all ought to just get over this issue, accept our gay brothers and sisters—and move on with the work of the church.

What’s most remarkable about that segment of the video is: You seem so relaxed in saying that simple yet important thing. You’re smiling. You’ve got to be breathing a sigh of relief that you’re able to say this now without a panel of church elders to whom you’ve got to answer—or other critics in the church. So, what I want to know is: Does it feel good to get that off your chest?

ROB: I am smiling right now at that question. I am smiling.

It was a joy and honor and privilege to be part of a local church. It was absolutely amazing through all those years, but believe me—I know what you are describing here on a cellular level. Yeah. That’s all there is to say—yeah. I am smiling.

DAVID: You never addressed this particular issue in your book Sex God. I’m a big supporter of that book, which addresses human sexuality in a startlingly new way. But, in terms of an important issue for a lot of Americans—you didn’t address it directly in that book. Are you planning to revise that book? Or write another one on sexuality?

ROB: No, I don’t have any concrete plans like that. I would hope that what I said in the Viper Room video permeates everything I do. That’s it. Nothing more to say.

ROB BELL’s latest book: ‘It’s a monster of a book’

DAVID: You have announced, as of this new video, that a new book is coming out in March.

ROB: Yes! And, I’ve been writing that book for a year. I’ve just finished draft number three. It’s supposed to come out next year. It’s a monster of a book that’s called What We Talk About When We Talk About God. You know the cliché, “I’m not religious but I’m spiritual”? That’s actually not a cliché for a lot of people. There are real reasons people say that. I hope this book speaks to all of the people who have expressed a sentiment like that at one time or another.

DAVID: A “monster”?

ROB: I mean, this book has taken more out of me than any project I have ever done before.

ROB BELL: PICKING A “FIRST” ROB BELL

DAVID: OK, so millions know you already. But millions also don’t know you—or  don’t know your work. So, let’s help newcomers pick a “first” Rob Bell book. Out of these five books HarperOne has just redesigned, which one would you pick as a “first” Rob Bell.

ROB: Drops Like Stars. It’s short and people like short books to start. That book probably has the simplest explanation of what I’m trying to say. HarperOne actually made that book smaller than the others—physically smaller when you look at it—hoping that it would serve as a kind of short intro.

DAVID: So, I’ve agreed not to release any more details on this autumn TV project with Carlton Cuse, but I know readers will be very curious about this. Should we be envisioning Oprah stylings? Or a Christian Jon Stewart? Or LOST-style mysterious stories? Or … Obviously, our minds will be churning on the possibilities until more emerges about your plans.

ROB: I don’t want to spoil what will happen later this year by talking too much about it now. But, I can tell you: We’re not talking about what passes for religion on Sunday-morning TV—you know, this isn’t 1-800-Big-Hair. This is going to be a different kind of space we’ll be creating. We’ll talk again this fall.

DAVID: OK, we’ll stay tuned!

WANT THE NEW MATCHED SET OF BOOKS?

They’re cool. You can see how the spines line up like a rainbow, above. If you look closely, above, you can see that Drops Like Stars actually is smaller than the other paperbacks. These books are perfect for a back-to-school gift, for a Christmas gift … or for your own reading. Here are the Amazon links:

Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith

Jesus Wants to Save Christians: Learning to Read a Dangerous Book

Sex God: Exploring the Endless Connections Between Sexuality and Spirituality

Drops Like Stars: A Few Thoughts on Creativity and Suffering

Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived

ROB BELL’S PUBLISHERS ARE REALIGNING THEMSELVES

Rob isn’t the only one making a big move within religious publishing—by leaping from Zondervan to HarperOne (different divisions within Rupert Murdoch’s media holdings). Zondervan itself is changing dramatically and is merging with Thomas Nelson (Murdoch now owns both publishing houses). Here is our ReadTheSpirit story, analyzing what this news means for people who love inspirational reading.

WANT TO WATCH ROB BELL TALKING IN LOS ANGELES?

We’ve got the Viper Room video live, online and free to view. It’s very entertaining and packed with news about Rob’s life and work.

Please help us to reach a wider audience

We welcome your Emails at [email protected]
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Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.

Rob Bell’s newest streaming online video from LA

August 5, 2012 by

THIS IS A PHOTO OF ROB BELL. The streaming video is below.Yes, you’ve found it!
HERE IS THE LATEST ROB BELL VIDEO—the nearly two-hour talk from the famous Viper Room on the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood. This is Rob’s first public video, streamed in summer 2012, after a half-year absence from the spotlight as he worked with HarperOne to complete his upcoming March 2013 book, What We Talk About When We Talk About God.

Read our August 2012 interview with Rob about the big changes in his life. He has left his position as senior pastor at the Mars Hill megachurch in Michigan. He has left his original publisher, Zondervan, and has jumped to HarperOne. (Both publishers are owned by Rupert Murdoch’s giant News Corporation.)

Rob’s latest book, Love Wins, has just been released in paperback—along with a rainbow-array of matching paperback editions of all five of Rob’s books. You can see the spines of the books in the photo above. And, we’ve got links to Amazon, below, if you care to order the new set.

In this talk, Rob describes his life, his ministry and his hopes for the future. He tells a series of stories—some hilarious and some deeply moving. Then, toward the end, he fields questions from the crowd at the Viper Room (and a few online questions, too). The entire video runs close to two hours—so pour a cup of your favorite beverage, settle back, crank up the online volume and enjoy this video.

WORD OF WARNING: Rob’s producers have set up this video to loop continuously as it streams. That means you will join the video in progress—somehwere in the middle of this long talk from the Viper Room—and it will loop through the end and the begining. On and on. But, hey: That’s OK, isn’t it? Most of Rob’s stories in this video are self contained so you can enjoy them in almost any order.

NOTE: If you don’t see a video screen to click in your version of this story, please click here and your web browser will reload our ReadTheSpirit story. The video screen should appear. Enjoy!

 

WANT THE NEW MATCHED SET OF BOOKS?

They’re cool. You can see how the spines line up like a rainbow, above. They’re perfect for a back-to-school gift, for a Christmas gift … or just to enjoy them yourself. Here’s where to get them via Amazon:

Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith

Jesus Wants to Save Christians: Learning to Read a Dangerous Book

Sex God: Exploring the Endless Connections Between Sexuality and Spirituality

Drops Like Stars: A Few Thoughts on Creativity and Suffering

Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived

Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.

 

‘Handicapped’ Parking? Scamming the Disabled

July 30, 2012 by

Here’s a news story we all can cheer! “Handicapped” or Disabled Parking is recognized around the world. The photo at right shows a disabled-reserved space in the infamously impossible-to-park-in Old City of Jerusalem. Similar spaces with similar logos can be found across Europe and Asia.

What makes us really see red!?!
Seeing an obviously able person cruising into a disabled space. Now, we may sometimes mistake what we think is an able person. So, watch your fury! But, generally, the lack of compassion in scamming a special parking space is an injustice that makes all of us fume, right? Those of us with disabled friends and relatives get really steamed!

So, it’s no surprise that a Detroit Free Press video by Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Jim Schaefer may be going viral this week. ReadTheSpirit first saw this video, Monday morning, when an alert reader emailed us a link from the Deadline Detroit website. We are now sharing Jim’s report with you.

Click the video screen below to watch Jim’s report. Some of his reporting may surprise you!
(NOTE: In sharing this video today, ReadTheSpirit is experimenting with a new kind of video-sharing link. If you don’t see a video in your version of this story, click here to reload the story in your web browser. If you still can’t see a video, please email us at [email protected] )

 

‘Up Heartbreak Hill’ takes us inside Navajo Nation

July 20, 2012 by

Thomas Martinez runs down Asaayi Road. Image courtesy of Thosh Collins (Pima/Osage/Seneca-Cayuga).WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TO SEE “UP HEARTBREAK HILL”
“Up Heartbreak Hill” is scheduled to air on PBS’s highly praised POV series, Thursday July 26—the eve of the 2012 Olympics. Check showtimes and learn more about the documentary at this POV website.
NOTE FOR iPAD and iPHONE USERS: This film has been selected as one of PBS’s free-to-mobile opportunities, starting now. Read more on this page at POV.

Review: ‘Up Heartbreak Hill’
Rare Journey Inside Indian Families

Reviewed by ReadTheSpirit Editor David Crumm

ReadTheSpirit encourages all of us to learn more about the lives of Native Amerians.
We published a profile of a traditional Indian healer in our American Journey series. We are promoting the remembrance of Jim Thorpe during this year’s centennial of the decathlon at the Olympics. We’ve covered the Twilight-related tribe, the Quilete, in their quest for greater recognition. Earlier this month, we reported from Ocmulgee in Georgia. And we are covering the progress of Bl. Kateri toward canonization as the first Native American saint in the Catholic church. (We also publish the book-length memoir of Odawa teacher Warren Petoskey, Dancing My Dream.)

As Editor of ReadTheSpirit, I come from decades as a senior religion news writer for major newspapers and know how difficult it is to report honestly and intimately from Indian communities. From the Native American perspective, almost no good can come from outsiders wanting to invade their lives—and a host of bad things can result. It’s not paranoia—it’s the Indian wisdom from centuries of tragedy.

That’s the important context behind this week’s delightful video postcard sent to us from the heart of the Navajo Nation in New Mexico—courtesy of several high-school students who dared to spend a year with fillmmaker Erica Scharf. Our appreciation also should extend to these students’ teachers, athletic coaches, families and friends. This level of access to dinner tables, classrooms and private moments with the kids is stunning for anyone who understands the huge barriers that normally prevent such projects.

This is perfect timing for PBS’s POV series. Both of the prominently featured teen-agers are athletes—so, as the 2012 Olympics also are roaring into prime time we can switch to PBS for this hour-long documentary and see what athletic competition really means to teenagers running against steep odds. We are hoping that the Olympics also will include a salute to Native American athlete Jim Thorpe, the first gold medalist in the decathlon 100 years ago. It’s wonderful to see Scharf’s scenes of young Indian track stars in the centennial year of Thorpe’s global success.

There are enough unguarded moments here with the teens that we are able to hear their voices loud and clear. Tamara Hardy is both an athlete and a top student in her high school. Listen for her graduation speech at the very end of the program for a memorable reflection on her life. Thomas Martinez is a distinctively mohawk-groomed kid who may look a bit odd, but is loveable in a sort of Jimmy Stewart way. Early in the film, he tries to describe his tangled feelings about being Indian, life on the reservation and his hope for a future outside the restraints of his troubled family.

Thomas says: “I hear it from people: What’s wrong with our Navajo Nation? But this is where I live. I just love the mountains and the trees. I love the idea of being free here.”

IMPORTANT NEWS LOOKING AHEAD: My one complaint about the PBS broadcast is that POV’s 60-minute time slot requires the original 84-minute documentary to shrink. Few Americans will have seen the original film in its brief 2011 tour of the country, so most won’t recognize what happened: Scharf cut the film to broadcast length by eliminating a third teen-ager in the original production. We’ve lost “Gabby,” an aspiring photographer and a very thoughtful addition to this film. Here’s the good news: Scharf plans to release the full version later this year on DVD and ReadTheSpirit will tell you how to order that film. So, stay tuned. Think of the PBS broadcast as a first taste of this story—with more coming later.

What’s best about this movie as it will air on PBS? Tamara and Thomas are ideal poster kids for the best in Indian communities. Despite all their hard luck in life, they are proud of their heritage, they love their families and they both seem destined for success by anyone’s standards.

Please help us to reach a wider audience

We welcome your Emails at [email protected]
We’re also reachable on Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, Huffington Post, YouTube and other social-networking sites. You also can Subscribe to our articles via Email or RSS feed.
Plus, there’s a free Monday morning Planner newsletter you may enjoy.

Originally published at readthespirit.com, an online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity.