Now Read This

Here are two new publications worth reading:

BYU Studies special issue on Mormons and Film. Mine arrived today. It includes a 100+ page History of Mormon Cinema and an article by Terryl Givens titled "'There is Room for Both': Mormon Cinema and the Paradoxes of Mormon Culture." In this article, Givens argues that Mormon film has come into its own to a large degree because of its engagement with certain paradoxes in Mormon culture. The article is about how artistic culture is the exploration of “tensions, rather than the glib assertion or imposition of a fragile harmony.” It looks like this article explores themes similar to those in Givens' latest book People of Paradox: A History of Mormon Culture.

A Secular Age by Charles Taylor. In a world where blow-hard atheists (and antitheists) like Christopher Hitchins dominate the New York Times' Best Seller List, Charles Tayor is a breath or fresh air. I've put his latest offering, A Secular Age, at the top of my "To Read" list. In this book Taylor "takes up the question of what these changes mean--of what, precisely, happens when a society in which it is virtually impossible not to believe in God becomes one in which faith, even for the staunchest believer, is only one human possibility among others."