by Dr. Jessica Ann Hughes | May 16, 2019 | Audio, Reading Well, Serving the Church, The Bible
What happens when two trained theologians—one a pastor and one a literary scholar—work together to preach a text? Calls for cross-disciplinary and cross-vocational projects like this one have recently been issued by thinkers like N.T. Wright and Miraslov Volf...
by Dr. Jessica Ann Hughes | Aug 18, 2017 | Reading Well, The Bible
I recently got to be the keynote speaker for Saints and Scholars on the importance of literature for the church. As part of that, I found myself contemplating the story of the Good Samaritan…or rather what comes just before the Good Samaritan. The brief exchange...
by Dr. Jessica Ann Hughes | Apr 11, 2017 | Reading Well, The Christian Imagination
The dripping blood our only drink, The bloody flesh our only food: In spite of which we like to think That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood— Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good. In 1922 T.S. Eliot published The Waste Land, a lengthy, complex...
by Dr. Jessica Ann Hughes | Jul 21, 2016 | Reading Well, The Christian Imagination
One of my favorite pass-times is watching TV shows on DVD (or it once was, as now we binge-watch Netflix instead). The series can be so engaging that sometimes I see myself enmeshed in the storyline to such an extent that the boundary between real life and the show...
by Dr. Jessica Ann Hughes | Feb 1, 2016 | Raising Christian Kids, Reading Well, The Bible, Uncategorized
A few nights ago, I was reading a popular children’s Bible with my kids. We read through the creation story describing how God made the light, separated the waters, formed the land, made the plants, animals, and finally made people. As we read, something troubled me...
by Dr. Jessica Ann Hughes | Jan 28, 2016 | College Classes, Reading Well, The Christian Imagination
Over the past ten years, I have really enjoyed watching movies and TV shows in my “down time.” But, increasingly, it is impossible to watch (or, more correctly, binge-watch) the quality “complex TV” (as Jason Mittell calls it) without including these texts in my work...
by Dr. Jessica Ann Hughes | Nov 10, 2015 | Reading Well, Victorian Studies, Video
For some people, thinking of Adam Bede as Jesus presents problems because Adam isn’t always nice. In this video I look at George Eliot’s Adam Bede, discussing the advantages of thinking about Adam as a version of Jesus. While Adam is often thought of as...
by Dr. Jessica Ann Hughes | Oct 26, 2015 | Reading Well, The Christian Imagination
Last week, my husband and I started watching The Blacklist. For those of you who are not familiar with this highly addictive show, it is part spy-flick and part love story as the notorious criminal Raymond “Red” Reddington works with the FBI to bring the world’s most...
by Dr. Jessica Ann Hughes | Oct 1, 2015 | Reading Well, The Christian Imagination, Victorian Studies
Readers of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited often remark on the novel’s many profound, evocative reflections on Christian faith. And, to be fair, there are many memorable quotes to be found in its pages. But, what makes the novel great are not its many quotable...
by Dr. Jessica Ann Hughes | May 7, 2015 | Reading Well, The Bible
I have often wanted to ask my theologian-friends if narratives can exist apart from sin. I use the word sin because of its suggestion of brokenness, of problems, of doubt, disillusionment, and despair. Another way to ask the question is this: can we have stories in a...
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