Eyes Wide Open: Looking for God in Popular Culture - Softcover

Romanowski, William D.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1587430096 ISBN 13: 9781587430091

Publisher: Brazos Press, Div of Baker Publishing Group, 2001

Synopsis

In Eyes Wide Open, William Romanowski offers a fascinating, easy-to-read guide for interpreting and evaluating popular culture as a Christian. His practical, analytical approaches to movies, music, and television programs provide tools for imaginatively and faithfully engaging the media that now saturate our lives. His illuminating examples range from Titanic to Casablanca, from ER to The Simpsons, and from Bruce Springsteen to Amy Grant. Eyes Wide Open is the road map to popular culture for parents, teenagers, teachers, and pastors.

About this title

From the Back Cover

"This revised and expanded edition of Eyes Wide Open, already a standard on the topic, widens and deepens the discourse on the popular entertainment arts. Readers will find in William Romanowski's imaginative and down-to-earth approach to popular art as art a manifesto of Christian involvement and a matrix assessment of the sights and sounds that inescapably shape our everyday life."
--Scott Young, University of Southern California

Praise for the first edition:

"This is a lively and much needed Christian perspective on the popular arts--helping the reader to move beyond a mindless acquiescence to popular culture, on the one hand, and blanket condemnation, on the other. The style is direct and accessible, giving it a natural appeal to a wide audience."
--Jeremy Begbie, Duke Divinity School

"William Romanowski confronts the culture with his eyes wide open to the negative effects it can have upon us. He also informs us of ways we can increase our understanding of the world in which we live and thus be aided in the task of addressing our culture in a relevant way. His commentary on contemporary music and films will get the Christian reader to discern things that otherwise would go unnoticed in the world around us."
--Tony Campolo, Eastern University

"In the tradition of C. S. Lewis and Francis Schaeffer, William Romanowski has articulated a deep theological perspective on culture and the popular arts. He urges Christians to love music and the movies as God would have us love them--not as passive consumers but as thoughtful critics who are wide awake and enthusiastically enjoying the whole of God's creation."
--Scott Derrickson, screenwriter and director, The Exorcism of Emily Rose

"Provides a unique, evangelical perspective on the relationship between religion and popular culture that is meant to serve as a practical theological framework for laypeople. . . . Romanowski provides a change of pace from the academic perspectives dominating this field of study and offers a unique point of view that merits attention."
--Christopher Daryl Healea, Religious Studies Review

About the Author

William D. Romanowski (Ph.D., Bowling Green State University) is professor of communication arts and sciences at Calvin College and is a widely respected speaker on subjects dealing with American culture and the entertainment industry. He is the author of Pop Culture Wars: Religion and the Role of Entertainment in American Life, coauthor of Risky Business: Rock in Film, and contributor to Dancing in the Dark: Youth, Popular Culture, and the Electronic Media.

About this edition

• Publisher: Brazos Press, Div of Baker Publishing Group
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1587430096
• ISBN 13: 9781587430091
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 171