Both Taylor’s loss of “higher times” and Rushkoff’s burden of the “infinite present” help us understand why we’re so compelled by things like the Rapture””or anything apocalyptic. Living in a flattened timescape, we long for moments to take us out of the profane and everyday. In the absence of “higher times,” global disasters and narratives of apocalypse stand in as sacred moments that rupture the monotony of secular time. “Where were you when . . . ?” is a question of almost spiritual gravitas for anyone alive on 9/11 or the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Especially since the advent of mass broadcasts of breaking news, we mark time by shared moments of global calamity and terror, existential pauses that give us transcendent perspective.

These are real if perverted expressions of our longing for the “higher” time we’ve lost, for pivot points in history, for an escape from the present. In a world where there’s “nothing new under the sun,” where generations come and go “but the earth remains forever” (Ecc. 1:4), we long to be part of an unexpected story, to witness something significant. But must that “something significant” be the earth’s fiery end?

Christians of all people need not buy into the prevailing culture’s preoccupation with doomsday. Let the world have its apocalyptic versions of the Rapture””Christians have something better. Surely there are movies to be made about not destruction, but resurrection.

Read it all.

His deliverance, although he did not know it at the time, was the opening of the Comedy Store above a Soho strip club in May 1979. He is amusing on the strange acts who thrived in this hospitable habitat, none weirder than the expressionist clown Andrew Bailey, aka Podomovski, who held a large pane of magnifying glass in front of his head and made guttural noises with the mic fully in his mouth. At a stroke, Merton points out, this venue loosened the hold of Oxbridge and the TV and radio commissioners and introduced something new to the comedy scene: democracy. He does not mention that this new ecological niche was also especially welcoming to his own style of comedy: deadpan, off”‘the”‘cuff, reactive, full of jarring interruptions and synaptic leaps. It is one of the paradoxes of Merton’s career that he is such an earnest scholar of the mechanics of carefully crafted visual and written comedy ”“ as a boy he collected Super 8 silent films of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton and projected them on to a bedsheet hung on his bedroom wall ”“ yet his own extraordinary talents are best deployed as a virtuoso of winging it.

The book’s central episode feels less fresh because Merton has already mined it for material in his act and in interviews: the breakdown he suffered in 1990, the first symptom of which was his inability to stay in his chair for the opening shot of Whose Line is it Anyway?

Merton is clear that this period, which culminated in a six-week stay at the Maudsley Psychiatric Hospital, was a one-off, caused by a reaction to the anti-malarial tablets he took before a trip to Kenya. There is no reason to doubt this, but the preceding account of his erratic journey through the 1980s does give the impression of someone driven almost mad by not having a vehicle for his peculiar talents ”“ and then made manic by suddenly being on the verge of fulfilling them.

Read it all.

The Rev Kate Bottley, star of Gogglebox, Channel 4’s fly-on-the-wall show, has criticised BBC1 show Songs Of Praise for being ”depressing” and ”like a piece of soggy quiche”.

The vicar, who has become an unlikely TV favourite since appearing on the cult show, praised presenters Aled Jones and Diane Louise Jordan, and said that the Sunday teatime show was ”great for those who can’t get out to church.”

But she hit out at the ”over-exaggerated mouth movements, as if the singers are trying to chew a toffee at the same time”, and the congregations, adding: ”I’ve never seen an Anglican church so full on a Sunday evening ….and with such a huge variety of ages.”

Read it all.

Bishop T.D. Jakes, the founding pastor of the 30,000-member The Potter’s House megachurch in Dallas, Texas, is making a weekly program based on his latest book as well as a daily talk show for national syndication in 2015 or 2016.

Jakes’ weekly program will be based on his book, Instinct: The Power to Unleash Your Inborn Drive, and his daily talk show is also being developed, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Both shows will be produced through his TDJ Enterprises, a for-profit company, and its partners 44 Blue Productions and Enlight Entertainment. The shows will be targeted for national syndication in 2015 or 2016.

Read it all.

Take a look at them all.

Robin Williams died this morning, his publicist confirms. You can read a statement from his wife Susan Schneider there.

Jeff Bridges has been working on childhood hunger for longer than the children he champions today have been alive. In fact, it’s been a 30-year crusade. In the early 1980s, the Academy Award-winning actor founded the End Hunger Network, an organization focused on feeding children around the world. More recently, he’s focused on feeding kids here in the United States. Motivating the shift in Bridges’ attention is the reality that more than 16 million American kids live in households that are labelled “food insecure” ”“ those that don’t know with certainty where their next meal will come from, or if it will come at all.

Watch the whole video.

Commemorations of the First World War have been years in the planning. No one could have foreseen when they began that this solemn anniversary would coincide with so many new wars. The Archbishop of Canterbury noted the grim paradox in his Radio 4 Thought for the Day on Monday morning, “We watch and feel for those suffering,” he said, “fear for those not born.” His final plea, to end war by making friends with our enemies, was heartfelt but, alas, unlikely to be widely translated into action.

Read it all.

It may have seemed like the makings of a perfect opening night: perhaps popcorn, soda, great seats, the whispering of an excited crowd as the lights went down for a midnight first peek at “Guardians of the Galaxy.”

The previews rolled, and then … whaaaat?

“omg,” one moviegoer tweeted. “they started playing rise of the guardians instead of guardians of the galaxy.”

How in the galaxy did that happen?

“EVERYONE IN THE THEATRE IS CRYING,” the tweeter added.

Read it all.

James Garner, the US star of hit TV series The Rockford Files and Maverick and films including The Great Escape, has died aged 86.

Garner had suffered ill health since a severe stroke in 2008.

“Mr Garner died of natural causes,” the West LA Division of the Los Angeles Police Department told the BBC, adding he died on Saturday and his body has been released to his family.

His publicist confirmed to the BBC that he died at home.

Read it all.

“Sometimes I’m asked to do both [magic and funerals] at once,” said Lee, 76, a licensed funeral director from White Plains, New York. “People have come to know both sides of me, so they ask. And I say, why not?”

Lee, who long ago claimed the moniker “mortgician” in his AOL email address, wouldn’t call himself a pioneer or part of any special movement in after-death care. But he’s among many who are turning the idea of the solemn, sedate funeral on its head.

Call it the rise of the personalized “fun funeral.”

The wide range of what’s considered “creative” or “unusual” when burying a loved one means there are little to no statistics on such practices, but industry experts say redesigning the standard funeral is increasingly popular.

Read it all.

If you lost everything tomorrow, what would you do?

Roll up my sleeves and see it as an opportunity.

Do you believe in assisted suicide?

Very strongly. I have joined Dignity in Dying.

Do you believe in an afterlife?

No. I wish I did but I can’t.

If you had to rate your satisfaction with your life so far, out of 10, what would you score?

Around eight.

Read it all.

Watch it all–LOL.

Even we Christians seem to have sidelined joy in entertainment to explore the bleaker side of reality. We find ourselves praising sad standups for what they can teach us about our faith. We binge-watch shows like Breaking Bad, House of Cards, and Mad Men for the way their broken characters and their brutal worlds will reveal the dark side of human nature. Yes, we’ve seen how recent heavy dramas can show us the real weight of sin and the moral consequences of our decisions, but these kinds of programs can’t become our only tv obsessions.

Just as we proclaim a God of grace and justice, of love and law, Christians need balance in our pop culture engagement. So do our neighbors. We need the light of the funny, silly, and joyful to glow in the dark. Shiny-happy shows don’t tell the full truth, but neither do shows that punch us in the face. We’ve spent enough time embracing suffering and being skeptical of joy and happiness. All the more so if, as C.S. Lewis said, “Joy is the serious business of heaven.”

Fallon’s spirit is no shtick. His joy has been there all along. As a cast member on Saturday Night Live from 1998 to 2004, he notoriously broke character, holding back laughter in the background of a sketch or cracking a smile in the middle of a punch line. His critics cite these incidents as weaknesses. I think they prove how much he likes his job.

Read it all.

[NEDA] ULABY: Shows [like many at present] where nearly everyone on the planet sickens and dies appeal to scholar Nancy Tomes.

NANCY TOMES: Oh, I couldn’t be happier.

ULABY: Tomes studies the history of epidemics. She wrote a book called “The Gospel Of Germs.” She says science-fiction and horror often reflect contemporary fears. So during the Cold War, for example, we saw movies about big, scary, nuclear-related monsters. Now she says we worry about our bodies turning against us. In an age of gluten allergies, genetically modified food and mad cow disease.

TOMES: From what you buy in the grocery store, to what you may be breathing when you walk down the street.

ULABY: Not to mention the viral spread of terror cells in viruses attacking our computers.

Read or listen to it all.

Here are five facts about World Cup viewership in the United States and around the world:

1About 3.2 billion people around the world (roughly 46% of the global population) watched at least a minute of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa on TV in their homes, according to a report produced for FIFA by the British firm KantarSport. This is slightly lower than the number of people who reportedly saw at least a minute of the 2012 London Olympics (3.6 billion), according to a report produced for the International Olympic Committee. Nearly 1 billion people (909.6 million) tuned in for at least a minute of the 2010 World Cup final, in which Spain defeated the Netherlands, a similar viewership number to the London Olympics’ opening ceremonies.

2In the United States, 94.5 million people (about 31% of the population) watched at least 20 consecutive minutes of the last World Cup, an increase of 19% over the 2006 World Cup in Germany. Compared to the U.S., World Cup host Brazil is far more interested in soccer, with 80% of the population watching at least 20 minutes of the matches in 2010.

Read it all.

I thought this was fun to look through–see what you make of it.

Like a trailer for a summer blockbuster, the video begins with loud music and the words “Coming Soon.”

But instead of superheroes or comedians on screen, there are images of a burning American flag and a jetliner hitting the World Trade Center, and the words: “Join the Caravan of Jihad and Martyrdom.”

As the music fades away, the blurred face of a man appears. He makes a direct appeal to Americans to join the fight.

The video ends with footage of a United States passport being burned. Men are heard laughing and shouting an Arabic phrase about God’s greatness.

Although the recruitment video has circulated among extremist groups for some days, intelligence analysts now believe the man with the blurred face is a 22-year-old from Florida who blew himself up last month in a suicide attack on Syrian government forces that killed 37, according to senior American government officials….

Read it all.

Her spunky personality and Hollywood success laced eulogies at her private funeral Friday morning at her home parish, St. Helena’s Episcopal Church in Boerne, Texas.

Yet, the gathering focused memories on what the speakers called Davis’ exemplary devotion to her faith, especially her decision in mid-career to leave Tinseltown and join an Episcopal community in Denver….

“The media had a field day” recalling her acting career, said William Frey, 84, a close friend and retired Episcopal bishop, during the homily. “But most of them have missed out on the one thing that has driven her for the last 40 years, and that is her faith.”

Read it all from the San Antonio Express-News.

”˜D-Day 360”² Brings a New Perspective and Technology recreates the epic D-day invasion on WGBH. Read both pieces and catch them both when you can–KSH.

Consumers’ willingness to pay for digital content is in danger of being held back by their rising spending on internet access, according to a new forecast that raises questions about the media industry’s hopes for streaming music and video subscriptions.

The report from consultancy PwC, to be released on Wednesday, estimates the total size of the industry will grow to $2.15tn by 2018. But the fortunes of the market’s three segments will vary, with internet access revenues growing faster than both consumer spending and advertising.

That suggests internet providers such as Time Warner Cable and AT&T will be poised to capture a growing share of industry revenue. Streaming services such as Netflix and Spotify , the latter of which had Macklemore & Ryan Lewis as its most popular music artists last year, will also be well-positioned to lead growth in consumer spending, as they capture subscribers willing to pay for round-the-clock access to movies, television shows and music.

Read it all.

From the most recent Time Magazine:

There’s a lot of discussion in the film about what happens to people after they die. Do you believe in an afterlife?

I believe in energy, and I believe that we all come from the earth and we all come back to the earth. And then what happens spiritually or mentally or emotionally”“I have no idea. It’s like what Peter Pan says: “To die would be a very great adventure.”

Members of this household community ”” think small commune ”” shared most finances, cleaning duties, cooking, etc., etc. This kind of idealistic arrangement was actually not that unusual in the era in which charismatic renewal swept through many mainline Protestant bodies, and Catholicism as well. There were many wonderful households of this kind and a few with dark sides (See the amazing Julia Duin book ”” “Days of Fire and Glory: The Rise and Fall of a Charismatic Community” ”” about one terrible fall in Houston).

One member of the Denver community kept her Emmy Awards in the household’s television room, where they served as bookends high up on some shelves. She wasn’t very good at cooking (tacos were her norm) and she admitted that she struggled a bit with childcare. Her name, of course, was Ann B. Davis and over the years she became a friend, too.

The woman millions thought of as “Alice” was far more than her character on The Brady Bunch, or her trailblazing “Schultzy” character on “The Bob Cummings Show.” She was the kind of person that, after the conversion experience that turned her life upside down, would spend her days hidden in the back of that homeless center quietly doing laundry or sorting through donated clothes. You should have heard her cackle when she finally managed to make stray socks match.

Read it all.

The takeaway message is this: no one needs churches to be nice or tasteful. If churches have a future, it’s in addressing our existential darkness: sin and death. Progressive politics is important, but it doesn’t do any deep religious work. And liberals in the church will have to rediscover this after we have won our culture wars. What other religion has such a dark image at its centre? And yet my own brand of liberal Christianity too often seeks salvation through a few gentle verses of All Things Bright and Beautiful or lots of self-important dressing up and wandering around in fancy churches. Devoted atheists are never going to be persuaded by a theology of the cross. But no one whatsoever is going to be persuaded by a theology of nice.

Read it all.

On average, women (3.4 hours, median) watch more TV than men (3.0 hours). And, as a rule, TV watching increases with age. Elders, adults who are 69 and older, watch an average of 4.4 hours per day, while Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964) watch an average of 3.8. Gen-Xers (born between 1965 and 1983) and Millennials (born 1984 to 2002) watch fewer hours: 2.5 and 2.7 hours, respectively.

Practicing Christians tend to watch more television than non-Christians. Practicing Catholics watch an average of 3.5 hours per day and practicing Protestants watch an average of 3.1 hours. By contrast, adherents to faiths other than Christianity watch 2.6 hours of TV per day and those of no faith, which includes self-identified atheists and agnostics, watch 2.7 hours. Interestingly, church attendance seems to make little difference in the number of viewing hours. Those who attended church within the past week, those who attended within the past month and those who have not attended at all within the past six months all watch an average of 3.2 hours per day.

Read it all.

Watch it all–KSH.

Heaven Is for Real, the story of a young boy who reportedly had a real-life experience of heaven during emergency surgery, is currently playing in movie theaters. The film is not doing as comparatively well as the eponymous, bestselling book that inspired it ”” more than one million e-book copies alone of which have been sold ”” but it will likely inspire other Christian films, given that its gross receipts have exceeded its relatively modest budget more than sixfold thus far.

The book and the movie’s success have reminded me that people can also come to believe that God and heaven exist by realizing that the devil and, thus, hell are real, and sometimes through a shocking personal experience.

In his short pontificate, Pope Francis has spoken often of the reality of the devil, (read here too) and the accompanying existence of hell, which is definitely a place to be avoided.

Read it all and follow all the links.

Morgan travels to Nashville, TN ”“ the buckle of the Bible Belt ”“ to become a guest preacher at an atheist church, a controversial and growing movement in the U.S. Along the way, he visits evangelical mega-churches, Baptist gospel churches, mosques, Mormon gatherings, and more to try and figure out exactly why people need religion in their lives, why it creates so much conflict in this world, and what his own message is for his Sunday sermon.

(You can also find a brief Tennessean article there).

Read the program transcipt here.

Watch it all. The Wash. Post wrote up the background:

Sorry, if the pivotal episode of your favorite TV show is on and a tornado warning is issued, TV stations can, should, and will cut in and cut off programming to provide potentially life-saving storm coverage.

Typically, the shows are streamed online, either in real-time or after the fact for your viewing pleasure.

But that never stops some angry viewers from bombarding stations with nasty complaints over missing such indispensable shows as Grey’s Anatomy and Big Bang. They sometimes take the form of obscenity-laden tirades. Gawker reproduces some of these selfish missives, too profane to share here.

Monday morning, something beautiful happened. KSFY anchor Nancy Naeve ”“ out of Sioux Falls, South Dakota ”“ spoke her mind on this disgusting practice…