LISTEN TO THE PLUGGED IN SHOW, EPISODE 281
I’m an English lit geek, and one of my all-time favorite authors is Charles Dickens. The Stephen King of his day, Dickens was the Victorian age’s most popular writer, cranking out bestsellers with alarming rapidity. And more than 150 years after his death, he’s still selling books. Most of his works have never been out of print.
But one of his books, The Life of Our Lord, was never meant to be published at all. Dickens wrote the unabashedly Christian story for his own children, and he read it out loud every Christmas.
Well, that book eventually did hit the printing press in 1934, and now it’s the basis for the new animated film The King of Kings.
Kennedy Unthank reviewed The King of Kings for Plugged In. And he talks about it with us on this week’s episode of The Plugged In Show, unpacking this surprisingly moving story.
Speaking of surprises, we’ll then turn our attention to a new, somewhat unexpected trend: Teens and their suspicions about technology. A new study tells us that young people are pretty cynical about what they read on social media as well as the value of AI. But that doesn’t keep them from watching TikTok. What gives? Kennedy, Emily Tsiao and Jonathan McKee discuss this phenomenon.
And as always, we’d love for you to join in the conversation, too. Are you planning on seeing The King of Kings? Have you noticed a healthy suspicion of technology among the teens in your life? And if you’re a teen, tell us about your own relationship to technology. We’d love to hear about it. Check in with us on Instagram, YouTube or Facebook. Send us an email at [email protected]. Or leave us a voicemail on our homepage.
And we will reconvene next week at about this same time for The Plugged In Show, when we talk about the grand finale of our Christian Movie Madness Bracket!
One Response
Off-topic but on Adam Holz’ review of Blake Shelton’s new song:
“OK, for all that, you’re probably thinking, “Man, aren’t you going really hard on a great song about prayer, salvation and forgiveness? C’mon, man!” I get that, and yes, I probably am.”
That’s a good thing. Never apologize for that. I go over lyrics to “Christian” or “Christian-themed” songs with a fine-toothed comb—I’ve seen and heard too many theologically problematic songs and messages from a wide number of churches. It also benefits us to question what it means to “know Jesus,” because that’s more proved by a life of holiness than by an altar call or a census checkbox. One of my uncles was in life a Methodist minister; he was fond of often saying that he could tell a lot about someone, not by way of their stated religious affiliation (which too many evangelistic approaches I’ve seen tend to overemphasize, instead of living a life that produces good works) but by how they spend their time and how they spend their money.