"We Were Soldiers" goes much farther than "Braveheart" in telling the story of a man of faith who lived a martyrs life in the name of duty and honor. In terms of cultural impact, this character is very cool, very smart, with integrity to burn, and very Catholic. We havent seen the best we can be like this up on the screen since "A Man for All Seasons".
Constantine's new capital, built on the remains of the ancient Greek city-state called Byzantium, is important to understanding Byzantine architecture.
The earliest Christian houses of God not only established themselves as permanent sacred places, they reflected in many ways the divinely inspired design and construction of Solomons Temple and its transient precursor, the Tabernacle in the Wilderness.
The big worry was that this would be some kind of Hollywood parody of 'The Lord of the Rings.' I have no idea if any of the artists involved in this project are Christians. I have no idea what their point of view is, in terms of faith. But it must have made sense, just from an artistic point of view, to leave much of the spiritual element intact. After all, that is what gives the book its depth and power.
There can be no more fitting tribute to Peter Jackson's The Fellowship of the Ring than to apply to it the words with which C. S. Lewis acclaimed the original book when Tolkien first wrote it: Here are beauties that pierce like swords or burn like cold iron; here is a [film] that will break your heart.
Stories help us make sense out of our lives. They can show us that our struggles and sufferings have meaning and help us make sense of morality. What kind of stories are we recommending then? Any and all kinds as long as they are animated by a sense of moral order.
The moveable tent-like sanctuary of the Hebrews is the earliest known structure in Judeo culture to establish a sacred place, one that was specifically meant to be a house of God. Whereas the tabernacles of the Christian churches are designed to hold the presence of God in His Sacrament of the Eucharist, Israels tabernacle in the wilderness housed the presence of God in a different way.
Committed Christians should take a step back before going with the flow of summer movies. Even though this pop-culture carnival is designed primarily to entertain, the values propagated by many of its products can be toxic. If youre willing to look beyond the Hollywood hype machine, you can find smaller, lower-budget films that are equally involving but dont depend on celebrity superstars, state-of-the-art special effects or the exploitation of sex and violence to hold your attention.
Hollywoods dabbling in religion again, and this time, they aint ringing The Bells of Saint Marys. In the box office hit The Matrix, theyre preaching that old-time religion . . . and we do mean old. The sets and costumes have changed, but the plot, characters and themes are all the same, borrowed from the first century A.D. Gnosticism, that ancient heresy, has come back to a theater near you!
Here is a list of recommended picture books (that build character).
