Steve Rabey
Steve Rabey is an author at Religion News Service.
All Stories by Steve Rabey
NEWS SIDEBAR: Ted Baehr’s list of the year’s best, worst movies
By Steve Rabey — January 1, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service UNDATED _ Movieguide awards: 10 best for families, 10 best for adults, and 20 worst. The 10 best 1998 films for families receiving”TEDDY `The Good News’ BEAR”family-friendly awards of excellence: THE PRINCE OF EGYPT: Quality: ****. Acceptability: +4 A BUG’S LIFE: Quality: ****. Acceptability: +3 THE PARENT TRAP: Quality: ****. […]
NEWS FEATURE: Best-selling author Cahill takes a bold look at Christianity’s origins
By Steve Rabey — January 1, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service UNDATED _ Few authors ever sell hundreds of thousands of copies of their works, and fewer still are able to achieve such popularity while having critics praise their writing as poetic, captivating and compelling. Thomas Cahill has sold a million-plus books to the masses while earning the adulation of literary […]
NEWS FEATURE: God’s man in Hollywood: Ted Baehr watches movies for moral content
By Steve Rabey — January 1, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service UNDATED _ Hollywood has its Oscars, the golden statuettes that will be handed out during Sunday’s nationally televised broadcast of the 71st annual Academy Awards. Less well-known are the”Teddy Bear”Awards. Named for Ted Baehr, publisher of the biweekly magazine Movieguide, this year’s awards praised inspiring, morally uplifting, and family-friendly films […]
NEWS FEATURE: The shifting shapes of belief: New books survey the religious landscape
By Steve Rabey — January 1, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service UNDATED _ In his 1965 book,”The Secular City,”theologian Harvey Cox predicted the imminent collapse of traditional religion.”One year later, a provocative Time magazine cover story asked,”Is God Dead?” But by now it has become crystal clear that a secular city is about as likely as shorter work weeks or paperless […]
NEWS FEATURE: Heavenly rewards: Christian retailing celebrates 50 years of growth
By Steve Rabey — January 1, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service UNDATED _ In the 1940s, Christian retailing was in”a sorry state,”says Ken Taylor, who played a crucial role in transforming the industry into the $3 billion powerhouse it is today.”Christian bookstores were quite small and dilapidated,”says Taylor, who produced the best-selling Living Bible and formed Tyndale House Publishers to distribute […]
NEWS FEATURE:“Dogma”offers controversial, comedic look at Christianity
By Steve Rabey — January 1, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service UNDATED _ Is Christianity often comical? Can doubt coexist with devotion? And can profound questions about life, the cosmos and Catholic theology be commingled with sex jokes, profanity, violence and potty humor? These are just some of the questions raised by”Dogma,”a sly and silly offering from award-winning Generation-X filmmaker Kevin […]
NEWS FEATURE: Two conservatives call on religious right to reflect, repent and regroup
By Steve Rabey — January 1, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service UNDATED _ It was 20 years ago that fundamentalist pastor Jerry Falwell _ a man who had preached against the evils of politics _ founded the Moral Majority, an organization that helped give the religious right political might. Soon, government leaders were courting Falwell as two of his top lieutenants […]
NEWS FEATURE: Star Wars and the cosmic conflict of good and evil
By Steve Rabey — January 1, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service UNDATED _ It was a long time ago when film maker George Lucas first took moviegoers to his mythical galaxy far, far away. Since the first Star Wars film appeared in 1977, residents of our galaxy have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on tickets and video rentals, and billions […]
NEWS FEATURE: Secular music exploring the spiritual, transcendent
By Steve Rabey — January 1, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service UNDATED _ As the millennium is winding down, a number of popular recording artists are getting serious about the meaning of life, and this fall there’s been a bumper crop of bestselling albums brimming with spiritual and philosophical themes. In late September, Nine Inch Nails released”The Fragile,”an angst-filled sonic wail […]
NEWS FEATURE: Christian companies make beeline for online
By Steve Rabey — January 1, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service UNDATED _ Christian companies big and small, old and new are flocking to cyberspace to sell books, Bibles, music and videos. Within the last few years established religious publishers, distributors and retailers as well as newer Internet commerce ventures have launched hundreds of sites specializing in online retailing.”Christians are turning […]
NEWS STORY: Elizabeth Dole speaks about faith, values to evangelical leaders
By Steve Rabey — January 1, 1999
c. 1999 Religion News Service COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. _ Possible Republican presidential contender Elizabeth Dole Wednesday (Feb. 17) delivered a speech about faith and values that was short on specifics but filled with energy to some 1,000 evangelical leaders. Dole received a warm standing ovation following her introduction as”the kind of person of whom presidents […]
NEWS FEATURE: Reel Jews: 50 major films on Jewish life and culture
By Steve Rabey — September 10, 1998
c. 1998 religion News Service UNDATED _ The Jewish people were”the inventors of Western civilization,”giving the world their scriptures and the concept of monotheism, writes Thomas Cahill in his latest historical bestseller,”The Gifts of the Jews.” But it is perhaps through their contributions to the world of film that Jews have exercised their greatest cultural […]
NEWS SIDEBAR: Some films about preachers as con artists, hypocrites
By Steve Rabey — January 1, 1998
c. 1998 Religion News Service UNDATED _”The Apostle”may be Hollywood’s first warm, positive portrayal of a Pentecostal evangelist in decades. Meanwhile, in the past five years Tinsel Town has produced three moving portrayals of the beauty of Buddhism (“Kundun,””Seven Years in Tibet,”and”Little Buddha”). What gives? Veteran actor Robert Duvall says simply,”Hollywood doesn’t understand the subject […]
NEWS FEATURE: Lights, camera, afterlife: a new film explores life _ and love _ beyond death
By Steve Rabey — January 1, 1998
c. 1998 Religion News Service UNDATED _ Popular films like”City of Angels”and”Ghost”filled their stories of earthly romance with angels and other ambassadors of the afterlife.”What Dreams May Come,”one of the most anticipated films in a season ripe with movies exploring spiritual themes, turns the tables on traditional portrayals of the nature of life _ and […]
NEWS FEATURE: Lights, camera, afterlife: a new film explores life _ and love _ beyond death
By Steve Rabey — January 1, 1998
c. 1998 Religion News Service UNDATED _ Popular films like”City of Angels”and”Ghost”filled their stories of earthly romance with angels and other ambassadors of the afterlife.”What Dreams May Come,”one of the most anticipated films in a season ripe with movies exploring spiritual themes, turns the tables on traditional portrayals of the nature of life _ and […]
