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Nowadays references to the afterlife-angels strumming harps, demons brandishing pitchforks, God enthroned on heavenly clouds-are more often encountered in New Yorker cartoons than in serious Christian theological reflection. Speculation about death and its sequel seems to embarrass many theologians however, as Greg Garrett shows in Entertaining Judgment, popular culture in the U.S. has found rich ground for creative expression in the search for answers to the question What lies in store for us after we die?The lyrics of Madonna, Los Lonely Boys, and Sean Combs the plotlines of TVs Lost, South Park, and The Walking Dead the implied theology in films such as The Dark Knight, Ghost, and Field of Dreams the heavenly half-light of Thomas Kinkades popular paintings the ghosts, shades, and after-life way-stations in Harry Potter and the characters, situations, and locations in the Hunger Games saga all speak to our hopes and fears about what comes next.



About the Author

Greg Garrett

Greg Garrett is the Austin, Texas author of two dozen books of fiction, nonfiction, memoir, and translation. Like his literary heroes James Baldwin and Marilynne Robinson, Greg moves fluidly from fiction to nonfiction exploring the big human questions, and in his books, hoping to help his readers discover some answers of their own. Among his latest books are a lead trade title for Oxford University Press on race, film, and reconciliation (A Long Long Way: Hollywood's Unfinished Journey from Racism to Reconciliation) , a book of conversation with his friend Rowan Williams, the past Archbishop of Canterbury (In Conversation) , a lead trade title from Oxford exploring our post-9/11 obsession with the zombie apocalypse (Living with the Living Dead, Starred Review in Library Journal) , the tenth-anniversary edition of his searing yet hopeful memoir of depression and faith (Crossing Myself, featured on FOX News) , and a novel retelling one of our great archetypal stories in the modern world of 24/7 news and social media (The Prodigal, Starred Review in Publishers Weekly) . Greg's debut novel, Free Bird, was chosen by Publishers Weekly as a First Fiction feature, and the Denver Rocky Mountain News named it one of the best first novels of 2002. His other novels are Cycling and Shame. All have been critically acclaimed. Greg is perhaps best known for his writing on faith, culture, race, politics, and story. BBC Radio has called Greg "one of America's leading voices on religion and culture," and he has written on topics ranging from spirituality and suffering to film and pop culture, on U2, Harry Potter, American politics, and contemporary faith and spirituality. Greg's nonfiction work has been covered by The New Yorker, USA Today, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Globe and Mail, FOX News Radio, The Christian Science Monitor, BBC Radio, National Public Radio, CBS Radio, msnbc.com, DublinTalk Radio, The New Statesman, The National Review, Commonweal, Christianity Today, Vice, Playboy, Mens Health, and many other broadcast, print, and web media sources. Greg has written for Salon.com, The Washington Post, The Daily Mirror, Patheos, FOX News, The Huffington Post, The Spectator, Reform, The Tablet, Baptist News Global, and other print and web publications in the US and UK, and has spoken across the US and Europe, including appearances at the Edinburgh Festival of Books, the American Library in Paris, Blackwell's Books in Oxford, Cambridge University, Kings College London, Villanova University, Amerika Haus in Munich, the Greenbelt Festival, Google London, Trinity Church Wall Street, South by Southwest, the Austin Film Festival, and the Washington National Cathedral. Greg's current projects are a novel set in Paris against the backdrop of international terrorism and a book on white mythologies of race.Greg is an award-winning Professor of English at Baylor University, Theologian in Residence at the American Cathed



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