Steve Rabey
Steve Rabey is an author at Religion News Service.
All Stories by Steve Rabey
Oprah’s unorthodox gospel comes under scrutiny
By Steve Rabey — July 8, 2008
c. 2008 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Oprah Winfrey has become a catalyst for a new journalistic project and increasing news coverage by conservative Christians questioning and criticizing her spiritual beliefs. Some evangelical Christians have voiced alarm that Winfrey is introducing the 46 million viewers who watch her each week to nontraditional spirituality they don’t condone. […]
NEWS FEATURE: Ironic? Yes. Cynical? No. GenX Author Douglas Coupland Clears the Record
By Steve Rabey — January 1, 2000
c. 2000 Religion News Service DENVER _ Douglas Coupland didn’t coin the term “Generation X,” but he may as well have. Soon after the 1991 publication of his debut work of fiction, “Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture,” Coupland became an unofficial international spokesman for the Angst and ambivalence of literate, lonely post-baby boomers. […]
NEWS FEATURE: Frederick Buechner Writes of Life and Death
By Steve Rabey — January 1, 2000
c. 2000 Religion News Service (UNDATED) It was more than half a century ago that a cocksure young Frederick Buechner packed up the typed pages of his first novel and sent them off to a prospective New York publisher. Today, a much older and more mellow Buechner wistfully recalls how the pages in which he […]
NEWS FEATURE: CBS Mini-series Balances Human, Divine Portrait of Jesus
By Steve Rabey — January 1, 2000
c. 2000 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Jesus’s claim that he was both human and divine confounded many early Christian thinkers, and it has also been a recurring challenge for filmmakers struggling to balance these seemingly contradictory concepts in their movies about Christ. People who argued Jesus was wholly divine but not human were charged with […]
REVIEW: Bombastic “Battlefield Earth’’ Bombs
By Steve Rabey — January 1, 2000
c. 2000 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Now that moviegoers can finally see it for themselves, the science-fiction thriller film “Battlefield Earth” will no longer be called “the most controversial movie of the summer”(as magazine Entertainment Weekly put it), but simply the most disappointing. The big, bombastic, overbearing film is based on the 1,000-plus-page 1982 novel […]
NEWS STORY: `Left Behind: The Movie’ Generating Behind-the-Scenes Tensions, Lawsuit
By Steve Rabey — January 1, 2000
c. 2000 Religion News Service (UNDATED) One of the most surprising publishing stories of the last five years has been the phenomenal success of the “Left Behind” books, a series of seven evangelical novels about the biblically prophesied end times that has racked up sales of nearly 20 million copies. But back in 1997, when […]
NEWS FEATURE: ABC’s Claymation Jesus: Old Story, New Technique
By Steve Rabey — January 1, 2000
c. 2000 Religion News Service (UNDATED) The annual pop culture holy days blitz is in full swing, as mass media outlets release articles and TV specials timed to coincide with the celebration of Passover (April 20-27) and Easter (April 23). “Why Jesus Was Killed,” a story promising new insights about the Crucifixion, is on the […]
NEWS FEATURE: Christian History Comes Alive in New TV Series
By Steve Rabey — January 1, 2000
c. 2000 Religion News Service (UNDATED) The complex history of Christianity, which was born as a small and obscure movement but has become the world’s dominant faith, is explored in an upcoming TV series. “Christianity: The Second Millennium” does an admirable job of compressing the last 1,000 years of Christian history into four concise and […]
NEWS FEATURE: Spiritual Travel Books Guide Pilgrim Readers, Travelers to Sacred Spaces
By Steve Rabey — January 1, 2000
c. 2000 Religion News Service (UNDATED) The world’s major faith traditions have long described the religious life as an ongoing journey, but only recently have publishers begun producing numerous spiritually oriented guidebooks exploring both travel and transformation. “Sacred journeys and sacred sites have been at the center of humankind’s spiritual life from the very beginning,”according […]
NEWS FEATURE: `Unbreakable’ Reveals Filmmaker’s Spiritual Sensibilities
By Steve Rabey — January 1, 2000
c. 2000 Religion News Service (UNDATED) When a person is called a “visionary,” it often means one of two things. Artistically, the term describes someone who is unusually gifted and creative, while spiritually, it refers to someone who has been granted extraordinary powers or insights. In the case of movie maker M. Night Shyamalan, whose […]
NEWS FEATURE: A Bibliophile’s Bounty: A Holiday Religion Books Roundup
By Steve Rabey — January 1, 2000
c. 2000 Religion News Service (UNDATED) Whether you’re celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah, the end of Ramadan or some other religious holiday, publishers have been busy producing a bounty of books that make great gifts _ for others or even yourself. One of the biggest and boldest offerings is “Faces of Christianity: A Photographic Journey” (Abrams, $60), […]
NEWS FEATURE: Exploring the Eyes _ and the Soul _ of Tammy Faye
By Steve Rabey — January 1, 2000
c. 2000 Religion News Service (UNDATED) If the eyes are the windows of the soul, what can one deduce about the soul of Tammy Faye Bakker from eyes that are guarded by large, garish lashes attached by copious amounts of glue; and which are surrounded by layers of mascara and makeup, which are transformed into […]
NEWS FEATURE: Lincoln as Thinker
By Steve Rabey — January 1, 2000
c. 2000 Religion News Service (UNDATED) In the 135 years since his death from an assassin’s bullet, Abraham Lincoln has inspired thousands of scholarly books and studies, more than any other American. Still, historian Allen Guelzo believes there’s need for one more. “None of these books have directed themselves to understanding the man as a […]
NEWS FEATURE: New TV show, biography put Pope John Paul II in media spotlight _ again
By Steve Rabey — January 1, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service UNDATED _ Over the past two decades Pope John Paul II has become one of the most visible personalities in human history, thanks in part to the mass communication media. During the next two weeks, this globe-trotting pope will be explored in two major new media projects: an evocative 2 […]
HOLIDAY FEATURE: The good books
By Steve Rabey — January 1, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service UNDATED _”Some books are to be tasted,”wrote Francis Bacon, the English philosopher and statesman,”others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.” Every year at this time, millions of books are bought, wrapped and given as gifts. During 1999, the publishing industry has been busy producing new […]
