There’s an interesting article in this week’s Listener magazine: NZ Listener | State of the nation by Ranginui Walker which argues that ‘Rather than a dangerous “drift towards racial separatism”, all the evidence points in the other direction.’

(For those of you outside of NZ the “Rip Van Winkle” character in the article is Dr. Brash, the leader of the National Party in NZ (see: Don Brash to spread race message buoyed by poll results))

In a moment of coincidence I read Steve’s posting e~mergent kiwi: whats the internet point at the same time as I found (Pop) Culture: Playground of the Spirit or Diabolical Device? by Stanley Grenz. He writes

For a large and growing segment of the population, pop culture serves as the chief referent for the cultural task. It provides the central tools by means of which they engage in the age-old task of meaning-making as persons within society. It mediates to them the paradigmatic narrative by means of which and in accordance with which they make sense of their otherwise seemingly senseless lives and thereby construct a sense of personal identity. To the extent that it fulfills this purpose well, pop culture becomes the playground of the Spirit.

. Conversely he argues that if it becomes a false god it degenerates into a diabolical device.

Will have to download the article (it’s about 28 pages long) and have a read more fully later.

Finished of watching the remake of Battlestar Galactica last night. On the whole a reasonable job though TV3′s slicing for commercials destroyed pretty much any continuity or tension. I remember going to see the first movie when I was a kid and the old Cinerama theatre in Wellington shook with the “Sensorround” effects.

There were a few retro touches that were nice and you can cope with the switching of genders/ethnicity of some of the characters. What struck me was that it looks like religion may play a more significant part in the new series than the original. It will be interesting to see how they handle it as on the whole sci-fi TV shows don’t handle religion well. (Babylon 5 is an exception that I’ll blog about later on.)

A couple of useful books for looking at the relationship between science fiction and religion/theology are Stephen May’s Stardust and Ashes and Anthony Thacker’s A Closer Look at Science Fiction.

May’s book is the more academic offering a critique of a wide range of science fiction literature and its themes. Thacker’s approach is more useful for discussion material as he takes a theme (e.g. redemption) and then uses science fiction films (e.g. Star Wars) and TV (Star Trek, Babylon 5, Dr. Who) to unpack that theme. Both are written from a UK slant.

Related to this is also Stanley Grenz’s use of Star Trek’s development to trace modern to postmodern shifts in contemporary culture. See Grenz, Stanley J. “Star Trek and the Next Generation: Postmodernism and the Future of Evangelical Theology”, Crux (Vancover), 30(1), March 1994, pp.24-32. (Also part of his A Primer on Postmodernism”).

Came across this today at the Damaris web site while searching for a book on science fiction and faith.

Matrix Revelations: a thinking fan’s guide to the Matrix trilogy.

Seems they have a book which

examines the Matrix phenomenon, with in-depth analysis ranging from the science fiction and comic book influences to the philosophical and religious themes that underpin the films.

I see also they have information about using the Matrix trilogy as a discussion tool for small groups with material you can download (including a sample chapter).

While I think that too many Christians have an uncritical view of the films, seeing all the Judeo-Christian symbolism without the other philosophical and religious themes, there may be something here for them to begin to engage more critcially. It may also open the door to thinking about looking at engaging other films too.

Paul Fromont blogged about the book “Get up off your knees: Preaching the U2 catalog” which had an essay in it by Brian Walsh. (See Reinhabiting the Biblical Story – The Hope of Our Times). I’m going to the same conversation as Paul (meeting a blogger in the flesh – how novel!) so thought I’d add in this link to a review of that book.

Prayer, Prophecy, and Pop Culture – The Hallelujah Mix – from @U2

Plus, I get to see if this trackback thing works.

I’ve been busy getting things moved over to Movable Type this week. The blog content has been imported and categorised but comments will have been lost (sorry).

I’ll blog about the process for doing this later but in the meantime I’ll note that while I’ve looked at this under variety of Mac browsers and IE 5+ for Windows 98 and 2000 it may break in places. CSS just doesn’t work right on every browser. Leave a comment if you can and I’ll work on it.

I’ve updated the Viriditas page and now you can get an RSS feed too.

Now, back to my research.

Interesting article over the ditch at signposts:
signposts: I hate the “emerging” church

Spawned a few thoughts for the (non?)emergentkiwi too

Saw this today and it made me feel sad. Sad for those who want to have children and can’t have them, and sad that someone makes money out of selling these substitutes. It may help some people but it gave me a creepy feeling too.

ic Newcastle – Virtual babies aim to ease parenting pain

In trying to track down some art work by Kenn Brown I found this amazing piece of digital art work from found in New Scientist Magazine. It’s loaded as a FlashVR object so it takes a while but it’s awesome.

Kenn Brown: DNA

I came across this today while trying to find something completely different using Google. After a quick skim it looks like something that I will be coming back to every now and then for a read. Nice to have non-US/non-British opinions. Check out: Social Justice and Faith Magazine in Canada called The Social Edge.com