Mere musings on culture, life, and theology by Samuel James
Samuel James on September 19, 2017 Stakeholders in the NFL cannot lose—at least not under the league’s current structure. Owners split money from the league’s massive TV deals and other media revenue streams. That stream is so dependable, so huge, and so guaranteed that it’s done what large, intractable pools of cash have done since the invention of markets. It has…
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Samuel James on September 18, 2017 I didn't watch the Emmys last night (in fact, I didn't know they were on). But the morning after Hollywood award shows is always an interesting time on Christian social media. One of the most reliable tropes in evangelical "cultural engagement" is the blog or Facebook post about how godless showbiz is, and how the…
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Samuel James on August 21, 2017 The NAACP’s boycott of the NFL over Colin Kaepernick’s lack of a contract exemplifies in vivid focus the many ways that the American conversation about race and culture is dysfunctional. Admittedly, the stakes in this particular drama are low; whether a professional athlete is paid tens of millions of dollars to play a game or…
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Samuel James on August 11, 2017 The suicide of a public figure almost invariably triggers a cringe-worthy season in the evangelical blogosphere. Time after time, Christian writers succumb to the temptation to wring a tragedy for its newsworthiness, then smash out a 700-word blog about it. At that point it almost doesn't matter what the blog says. Meaning is irrelevant. The…
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Samuel James on July 20, 2017 When a friend sent me the link to this essay by a progressive bookstore employee, whose aching moral dilemma is whether to sell a book he disagrees with politically, my response was simple. I said, "American progressive culture has become mid-1990s homeschool chain email culture." Here's what I mean by that. Growing up in a…
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Samuel James on May 9, 2017 I'm headed to the mountains for vacation tomorrow, and will be signing out of all social media for the duration of my holiday. Unplugging from social media and taking vacation seem to go hand in hand, for a lot of us. But have you wondered why this is? I have a feeling James K.A. Smith…
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Samuel James on May 6, 2017 I have a quick word on this take on movies and culture from Freddie deBoer. I agree with 99% of what he says, and have tried at various times to make the point he makes. But I do have one issue with his thinking, and that is his notion that a film without sex is…
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Samuel James on May 3, 2017 Since registering my deep concerns with the Netflix series "13 Reasons Why," I've been pleased to see more thoughts from others, like Russell Moore and Trevin Wax. Non-Christian therapy and counseling professionals are likewise alarmed, and apparently there's been enough of a backlash that Netflix has pledged to put more "trigger warnings" into the show.…
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Samuel James on April 20, 2017 Remember that famous scene in Peter Weir’s “Dead Poets Society,” in which professor Keating (played by Robin Williams) orders his English literature students to tear out the introductory pages of their poetry textbook? Those pages, Keating explains, are the soulless pontifications of a scholar trying to explain verse. Nonsense, says Keating. Poetry isn’t what some…
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Samuel James on April 11, 2017 Netflix's newest original miniseries, 13 Reasons Why, is compelling TV. It's well-acted and hauntingly written. But while watching it, something bothered me, and it took me a while to figure out what it was. I fear that 13 Reasons Why might be the latest example of how Hollywood hitmakers tend, even unwittingly, to romanticize suicide.…
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