You sometimes hear experts and authors discussing issues on Nuclearity.  I would enjoy creating more programs like the one that was released today.  No big issues.  No authors.  Just a dad and his kids telling a story about plains and mountains, skunks and Great Danes, churches and bars, and the people of America.  Listen to "The Bike Ride of '76" available now.

And after thinking about it, I can't really call the guests "just" a dad and his kids.  They are extraordinary people.  And they are also expert at quite a few things, as you'll hear when you download.

William Paul Young's novel, The Shack has electrified people.  You've probably read it or know several people who rave about it.  Hear from the author on the latest episode of the podcast Ear Reverent.  Host Bob Lepine also talks to blogger Tim Challies, no fan of The Shack.  And he talks with broadcaster Steve Brown, a critic turned fan.

You've had a long break between episodes in the series "Narnia from A to Z."  The gap may have you wondering if the whole alphabet will ever be covered.  It will, evidenced by the latest installment.   Even though a friend begged me to call the episode, "Y is for Yo Momma," it ended up being about tall, leafy, sappy creatures.  It's available now.

 “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”  The words of “Big Yellow Taxi” by Joni Mitchell (I think it was the Counting Crows version) drifted through the store my family visited the other night.  I didn’t think a whole lot about it until later that evening.  I visited another store and heard Amy Grant's version.  I’ve also heard the songs in other stores at other times, and I started wondering why this song is so popular with merchants, despite their responsibility for constructing so many parking lots. 

This second store was in an area west of town that has many pockets of woods  being aggressively developed.  When a new store goes in, the process of clearing the land is very dramatic.  Bulldozers attack big swaths of trees and workers burn them in huge bonfires.  It’s like a scene from The Two Towers. 

The choice of music in stores like these can be quite ironic.  It wouldn’t surprise me if the song has been played at the Hawaiian hotel that inspired Joni Mitchell to write the song in the first place.  And the album has been sold in many, many stores that sit on many, many parking lots.

I wonder how many times I sing the opposite of what I live.

Yesterday, I played bass at church.  Choosing what to wear made me think of a blog entry at "Stuff Christians Like."

"Can I wear jeans" is one of the first questions I ask about new churches and I know there are some staff out there that think, "Why does this community not find us relevant? We're wearing jeans up on stage. Jeans!"

Read the rest here.  It made me think about how often I describe churches in relation to denim and how strange that is.  This blogger, Prodigal John, manages to write about things I've experienced many times in church.  He's funny without being overly cynical.

When I was five years old, my family moved to a new house. One of the first things I checked was my closet—because I wanted to see if I could find the land of Narnia. You see, my parents had given up their valuable time, put down their work, turned off the television, and read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to me. This book by C.S. Lewis describes the adventures of four children who entered a magical land through a wardrobe. It awakened my imagination like few other stories.

My parents probably had no idea how much the writing of Lewis would affect my thoughts, work, and spiritual life, but those moments reading together were invested well. Parents who read The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and other books from The Chronicles of Narnia invite their children to explore a faith that is joyful, intellectually satisfying, and worth passing on to others.

This article originally appeared in FamilyLife's emagazine, The Family Room.  Read the rest here.

A friend who had heard the Nuclearity princess series emailed about the movie Enchanted.  She said she hated the ending and wondered what my wife and I thought about it.  Here were my thoughts.

 We enjoyed seeing Enchanted, especially since we were on vacation on an unexpected, fun stop.  The movie referenced many  of the Disney Princess movies, including Snow White’s apple, Cinderella’s shoe, and Sleeping Beauty’s sleepiness.  It was able to critique these movies and enjoy them at the same time.  It was  like the type of movies I used to watch that supposedly made statements against violence by being very violent.  At some point you have to ask whether the filmmaker just likes violence and is using an anti – violence message as an excuse for excesses.

In the same way,  Enchanted is a parody of princess movies made by and for people who like princess movies.  They try to get away with a little bit of everything.  They give us a helpless princess in need of rescue, just like animators in the 1940 – 50’s did.  And they give us a princess who can rescue a man, like the later princess movies do. 

I liked the beginning, where the positives and negatives of these stories were held in tension.  The real world was critiquing the unrealistic princess world and the princess world was critiquing present day attitudes toward femininity and relationships.  I agree that the ending was less fulfilling than the first half. 

Few people should become teachers, says the apostle James. Those who do will “be judged with greater strictness.” The same could be said of those who make movies based on The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. Fans of these books have high expectations, expecting solid filmmaking and faithfulness to Lewis’s important themes.

You might think longtime C.S. Lewis fans would be happy that the film Prince Caspian has been made with a decent budget, generous marketing and distribution and the latest in computer technology. But when “greater strictness” is applied, the film is lacking in several ways.

This article originally appeared on the FamilyLife Culture Watch Blog. Read the rest here.