The Christ and Pop Culture Podcast Network

The guys bid a sad but fond farewell to their South Korean movie marathon this week, closing with Lee Chang-dong's Secret Sunshine. It is the story of a woman who turns to evangelical Christianity after suffering a loss, it's a very appropriate film to add to your Holy Week viewing. Plus: a preview of what's next for the show and a request for feedback! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podc...

We’re a people that loves to manage every scenario and have backup plans for every contingency. So what happens when the whole world screeches to a near halt and all the data we’ve used for decision making is no longer valid? Well, for most of us, this has produced a not so insignificant level of anxiety. As much as we like looking ahead toward the next thing, it’s tough to come to terms with some...

Loss and grief are central to the COVID-19 pandemic. We’ve lost loved ones, jobs, freedoms, and security. Some have lost their wedding dates or vacations. Some have lost sleep or a sense of purpose. Discouragement is common as we all scramble to find meaning in the midst of a crisis. This collective grief weighs upon our society, stretching it thin. For this conversation, Erin and Hannah discuss t...

COVID-19 has taken away so much from us, including our sense of control. Our plans have been cancelled, and our movements are restricted. We can no longer go where we want when we want with whomever we choose. Loss of control may make us angry or fearful or frustrated (or all of those!). In its absence, we begin to play games of If Only or What If in an attempt to regain a bit of what we’ve lost....

Anger is on the rise during the COVID-19 pandemic—and for good reason. Almost every aspect of our lives has been upended. We are now working and learning from home. All of our public gatherings have been cancelled or postponed, from weddings to funerals to sports to graduations. We have been asked to stay home with our family unit—and the lack of variety is enough to get on our last nerve. Anger i...

The world is grappling with a pandemic that is changing life as we know it. We are grieving the loss of loved ones. Those who have recovered are facing uncertain long-term health conditions. The global economy is struggling along with unknown ramifications for millions of employees. As the coronavirus runs its course, the only thing we know for sure is that life as we know it is forever changed. Y...

Unless you’ve been offline or off planet, you are aware of the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. It is the major historical event of our time, affecting everything from work and school to church and community. We are all scrambling to figure out how to live and operate under a new normal—one without a playbook to reference. With all the upheaval, each one of us faces challenges and sorrows; life will n...

With spring approaching full flower, Seeing & Believing reviews a movie that's all about the passage of time and the seasons. Kim Ki-duk's critical favorite Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter ... and Spring is next in the South Korean movie marathon! As the film quietly unspools the story of a Buddhist monk and his young protege over the course of decades, it attempts to capture the human condition...

Seeing & Believing keeps the South Korean movie marathon rolling with one of the fountainheads of South Korean cinematic history this week. Kim Ki-young's The Housemaid is often cited as one of the biggest cinematic influences on a whole generation of the nation's filmmakers. Wade and Kevin investigate a film that is simultaneously so famous in its country of origin but so little-seen in the U...

If the meaning and purpose of home wasn’t top of mind before our Go Home! series began, it certainly is now. Of course, most of that credit belongs to the worldwide spread of COVID-19. Government leaders around the world have recently initiated Shelter in Place and Safer at Home policies to flatten the coronavirus curve. And suddenly, going home—and staying there—has become THE issue of our day, r...

Hot off the heels of Bong Joon Ho's Academy Award run, Wade and Kevin weather quarantine with the beginning of a South Korean cinema marathon. First up is Bong's 2010 film Mother , a story of murder, money, and parental obsession. The guys also offer film/TV recommendations for those who now face much more time at home. Join along with the marathon by tweeting us your thoughts about Mother and Bon...

If home is truly where your story starts, then our family members are the characters that make the story come to life. Every family has its own narrative, its own way of functioning and operating together. Those patterns profoundly affect us, for good and for ill. And sometimes, even long after leaving our childhood home, those family ties can even bind us a bit too tightly, causing us to live in...

The guys explore more family-friendly realms in this week's episode! First up is Pixar's riff on fantasy tropes, Dungeons & Dragons, and fraternal bonding, the colorful Onward . Equally colorful is Autumn de Wilde's take on Jane Austen's airy Emma , starring Anya Taylor-Joy as the matchmaking socialite who faces a romantic reckoning of sorts when a match goes wrong. Do these movies offer quali...

How does our perception of home affect the way we go about our work? One way is by adopting marketplace values and priorities and yielding our home life to achieve those ends—often to the detriment of our home life. The fallout of elevating the market above all else can even be seen in companies founded as an alternative to the traditional workplace, such as multilevel marketing businesses. A few...

Two women filmmakers are highlighted on the show this week! First up is Celine Sciamma, whose critically acclaimed Portrait of a Lady on Fire has finally had its wide release. Do Wade and Kevin fall within the critical consensus on this one? Another acclaimed filmmaker, Dee Rees of Mudbound fame, offers her follow-up to that film with another Netflix release, an adaptation of Joan Didion's politic...

When John MacArthur told Beth Moore to “go home,” it revealed much about his framework for how the church and home should operate and who is responsible for each sphere. This perspective seems to see the spheres as quite separate. The church has a purpose and a mission, and the home has a purpose and a mission, but those only overlap because the biological family is the building block for both. Bu...

After weeks of agonizingly paring their favorite films of the past decade down to a list of ten, Wade and Kevin are finally ready to share what they think are the finest examples of cinematic art to come out since 2010. Which films most closely captured the zeitgeist from this eventful decade? How did the guys weigh them against personal favorites? All those questions, and more, are answered in th...

In this episode of Persuasion, Erin Straza and Hannah Anderson dissect the notion that families are under attack. Many a Christian leader has presented evidence of this war, pointing to everything from Hollywood films to dual income families to divorce rates. They discuss the possibility that these issues are not causing the breakdown of the family but are instead a response to something that has...

The guys are back on the comic-book beat this week! Harley Quinn isn't exactly a superhero or a super-villain in Cathy Yan's Birds of Prey , but the Margot Robbie-starring film still looks to have some anarchic fun. On the more serious side of things is Horse Girl , the Sundance-featured film (written by and starring Alison Brie) about a disturbed young woman trying to find solid footing in a life...

The 25 is back for 2020 with a different format (and possibly a different title?). Host Jonathan Clauson returns with guests Kaitlyn Schiess and Tyler Burns. Starting the show with a brief recap of the biggest events in January 2020, we go deep on the death of Kobe Bryant and how that impacts the conversation around #metoo, the black community, and the "white gaze" around the death of Kobe and oth...

You can’t think about home without thinking about the people in it. Our most formative and important relationships are rooted here, an inextricable part of what we conceive of when we think about home. In our modern society, home is most often associated with the nuclear family: parents and children. This modern conception isn’t the only framework available to us, however, nor does it provide home...

It's an episode of dynamic duos this week! Director Os Perkins follows up his horror flick The Blackcoat's Daughter with Gretel and Hansel , a dark reimagining of the Grimm brothers' (already pretty dark) fairy tale about two intrepid youngsters and an evil witch. The guys also take some time to hang out with two of St. Peter's successors with their review of The Two Popes , the acting showcase th...

Our understanding of home affects everything about us, both individually and collectively. Home is vital to us all, but determining its value in a market-based society is fraught with troubles. Salary.com has attempted to help by giving stay-at-home-moms (or dads) a $160K valuation. The intent is to elevate the status of the home maker by giving it a professional-level salary. Our need for the mar...

It's a new episode of Seeing & Believing, innit? The guys review The Gentlemen , Guy Ritchie's return to the "verbose Cockney gangsters" genre. Is it a triumphant return? Also on the docket: Makoto Shinkai's animated follow-up to his trans-Pacific hit Your Name . Weathering with You is another teen romance, this time centering around a runaway and his relationship with a young woman who posses...

Disagreements within the church are often and many, and in today’s digital age, that drama often spills out to the interwebs. Last fall, one in particular dominated Christian social feeds for several weeks that included Pastor John MacArthur and Bible teacher Beth Moore. It all started when MacArthur, as part of a panel discussion, was asked to play word association and was given Beth’s name. His...