The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
One of the most moving films of 2008, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas is a powerful, haunting story about the horrors of the Holocaust.…
Truth, Faith and Hope in Life of Pi – A Philosophical Review
Philosopher Peter S. Williams reviews the Christian, Hindu and Secular Humanist perspectives on themes of Truth, Faith and Hope in the…
Exploring The Shack
This resource provides extracts from Dr Paul Coulter's extensive study of The Shack.
How does Christianity Relate to Literature?
The act of reading is an act of decoding. Until our everyday habits are disrupted, we don’t realize how complex a process it is. How…
J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter
The Harry Potter publishing phenomenon has divided many Christians, unsure how they should respond. Jerram Barrs considers some of the…
Margaret Atwood - Life Without Certainty
Margaret Atwood is one of the most important and influential writers alive today. Her fiction explores and reflects the current cultural…
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
The dwarves have all the best songs. Whether they are singing raucous ditties about smashing Bilbo’s best crockery or low, mournful…
The Hunger Games
According to the Romans, ‘bread and circuses’ were the key to keeping a population content. As long as their immediate physical…
The Great Gatsby
A review of the film The Great Gatsby.
Western Literature and the Death of God
This essay attempts to do two things. Firstly, it seeks to offer a brief tour of some of the developments in western literature,…
The Bourne Ultimatum - "Know Thyself"
A review of the film The Bourne Ultimatum.
'The Da Vinci Code': a novel
A New Testament scholar reviews Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code.
Eat, Pray, Love
Having suffered a drawn-out divorce, a failed rebound relationship and a debilitating bout of depression, Elizabeth Gilbert decides to go…
Lark Rise to Candleford
It doesn’t take usually take too much persuasion to get me to try a new box set of DVDs, but I have to say that I was a little…
Jane Austen - Great Christian Novelist
Why the growing popularity of Jane Austen? Is it accidental, a typical postmodern temporary fad, or is there some deeper reason for the…
Dan Brown: Looking Behind the Code
Get to the truth behind Dan Brown's best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code.
The Quest for Goodness in the Writings of J.R.R. Tolkien
In one poll, J.R.R. Tolkien's book The Lord of the Rings was voted the British public's best loved book. Jerram Barrs delves into Tolkien's…
Les Misérables
A review of the film Les Misérables.
Brontes' "Eternal Powers"
The most recent strain of Brontemania, at large throughout 2011, included major film versions of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights and the…
Do Christians Underestimate the Power of Stories?
At a recent Alpha group, frustrated by the complexity of the Bible, someone sighed, "I wish God had written an executive summary." But God…
Twilight
Vampires are currently one of the biggest phenomena in popular culture. They are central to hit television series like True Blood, Being…
Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives
Mark Meynell is disoriented by the reality-probing of Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives. There are three deaths. The first is when…
'The Narnia Code' - an interview with Michael Ward
The Rev. Dr. Michael Ward is an Anglican minister and the author of Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis. It…
'Angels and Demons'
A review of the film of Dan Brown's Angels and Demons.
Fictional Absence
In Fictional Absence, Pete Lowman considers the presence and absence of God in English literature. It has been slightly revised for…
Philip Pullman’s 'His Dark Materials'
To my mind, one of the main interests of Philip Pullman’s controversial trilogy is not specifically related to the books. It lies in…
Jodi Picoult's 'Keeping Faith'
Jodi Picoult is not an author to shy away from controversial topics. Her novels cover issues such as rape, suicide pacts and genetically…
Senses, Superstitions and Spirituality
Reviews of some of Joanne Harris' novels, including Chocolat.
Having Some Faith in the Grey Matter
A review of Ian McEwan's Saturday.
Breaking 'The Da Vinci Code'
In this workshop, we will discuss the specific problems with the novel The Da Vinci Code from the standpoint of its handling of Christian…
Chronicles of Heaven Unshackled
Chronicles of Heaven Unshackled examines the presence (and absence) of God in the English novel, with particular reference to Tolkien and…
My Booky Wook
A review of Russell Brand's My Booky Wook.
C.S. Lewis's Approach to Art and Literature
Please note that the content of this talk partially overlaps that of Jerry Root’s other talk entitled 'C.S. Lewis’s Approach to…
Shakespeare – A Christian Worldview?
William Shakespeare is regarded as the greatest writer in the English language - yet we know little about his personal life. Jerram Barrs…
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: a discussion guide
The second of the two films adapted from J.K. Rowling’s final Harry Potter novel begins at the place where the first left us hanging:…
Alice in Wonderland
Yet another film foray into Wonderland demonstrates the abiding charm of Lewis Carroll’s Alice stories. But Tim Burton’s…
Killing God
Dawn Bundy is a fifteen-year-old English girl. She is not especially attractive, and she doesn’t really fit in. Her best friends are…
The Kite Runner
Khaled Hosseini’s best-selling novel The Kite Runner, set in the author’s homeland Afghanistan, became a Hollywood blockbuster…
The Golden Compass
A review of the film of Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass.
God Explained in a Taxi Ride
A review of the book God Explained in a Taxi Ride.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
A review of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
The Loss of God in the Novel
English literary history is a curious thing. And one especially curious thing about it is that it contains very little of importance which…
Never Let Me Go
Perhaps a society truly becomes lost when it doesn't know how lost it is. This is the eerie suggestion put forward by Never Let Me Go,…
Wicked
The title and witch-themed publicity made me a little unsure about whether a Christian should be joining the crowds flocking to this…