Empire of God How the Byzantines Saved Civilization by Robert Spencer Book Review

 

 

Empire of God: How the Byzantines Saved Civilization
Robert Spencer invites the reader to a fascinating, forgotten world

Empire of God was published by Bombardier Books in November, 2023. The book is 400 pages and includes twenty-one pages of black-and-white illustrations. There are extensive footnotes but unfortunately no index.

Spencer is fully deserving of a Presidential Medal of Freedom. Those who tell the truth about Islam risk their lives. Witness the fates of Theo Van Gogh, Salman Rushdie, Samuel Paty, Molly Norris, Hitoshi Igarashi, and a former teacher at Batley Grammar School. We are not allowed to know this teacher's name. Muslims forced him to run for his life and disappear. His erasure, we shall learn, has happened not just to individuals, but to entire civilizations.

Even Pope Benedict XVI felt it necessary to back-pedal after, in a university lecture, merely quoting Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos. In 1391 this emperor observed, "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." After the papal lecture, Muslims attacked churches in Israel, Gaza, and Iraq. In Somalia, Muslims murdered Sister Leonella Sgorbati, who worked at a children's hospital. In Iraq, they beheaded Father Ameer Iskander, a priest.

In spite of Islam's suppression of free speech, free inquiry, and the human conscience, Spencer goes where others dare not go. If I were queen, I would offer a tax benefit to any citizen who mastered three essential Spencer books: The Critical Qur'an, The History of Jihad, and Did Muhammad Exist? I'm not queen, but everyone – Muslims most of all – should read these books.

Nowadays, unsupported claims of "genocide" are tossed around as propaganda tools and exchange goods. Empire of God, draws attention to an actual biological and cultural genocide: the religiously-mandated Islamic erasure of the Byzantine Empire, its faith, its language, its awe-inspiring monuments, and its people.

Spencer was baptized as a Melkite Greek Catholic. "Melkite Greek Catholics," he explains, "are an Eastern church very similar to the orthodox churches but in communion with Rome …  my family is from what is now Turkey … My grandparents shortly after World War I were offered the choice of conversion to Islam or exile from the land where they had lived for many hundreds of years … they came to the United States … Their experiences involved some violence and some killings of some of the family members … [But] they spoke in a uniformly positive fashion about life over there and made me become quite fascinated with it such that I took the first opportunity I could when I went to college to read the Koran and to begin studying Islamic theology and history."

Is God Real? By Lee Strobel. Book Review.

 Is God Real? Exploring the Ultimate Question of Life by Lee Strobel

A bestselling author's new book offers a tantalizing taste of reasonable support for belief in the divine.

Is God Real? Exploring the Ultimate Question of Life was published by Zondervan in October, 2023. The book has 256 pages, inclusive of twenty-seven pages of notes, fourteen pages of study questions, and an eight-page bibliography. Author Lee Strobel holds a BA from the University of Missouri and a Master of Studies in Law from Yale. Strobel was an investigative journalist for fourteen years. He won a public service award for his coverage of the Ford Pinto crash trial.

About forty years ago, Strobel's life dramatically changed direction. His wife converted to Christianity. Strobel was an atheist and he did not approve of his wife's new path. He determined to use his investigative skills to prove Christianity wrong. Instead, he discovered that there is evidence to support Christianity. At age 29 he converted, left journalism, and became an apologetics author. Several of Strobel's forty-plus books are best-sellers. In total, his publications have sold fourteen million copies.

It's easy to see why Strobel's books sell so well. His writing is smooth and easy to read. Though Strobel's work could be understood by the average reader, he tackles life's big questions. In a typical Strobel book, he provides a brief sketch of his own reasons for wanting to explore a given spiritual quandary. He then travels to a university campus to present his confusion and curiosity to a world-class expert. Strobel interrogates these men who have devoted their lives to the material he is researching. Strobel, ever the investigative journalist, asks the kind of questions we would ask if we were in those elite settings. Strobel records these conversations in question-and-answer format.

In books like The Case for Christ, The Case for a Creator, The Case for Faith, and The Case for Heaven, Strobel includes extensive bibliographies that direct the reader to further resources. For example, in Is God Real? Strobel's bibliography directs the reader not just to popular publications of Christian presses like Zondervan, but also to hefty tomes published by scholarly and secular houses like Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Cornell University Press, Michigan State University Press, and HarperOne.

Anyone But You 2023 Movie Review

"Anyone but You" has gotten bad reviews. I hesitated to see it, but see it I did, and I'm glad I did. I loved it. I laughed out loud throughout the film. I was touched by the central relationship. I enjoyed the Australian scenery and the light and breezy tone of the film. The leads are gorgeous and they scamper about in minimal, or no, clothing.
 
Even so, there's very little sex and you could watch this movie with a mother or a daughter. Glen Powell radiates bemused charm. Subtle quotes and a few comic bits scattered throughout the film allude to Shakespeare's "Much Ado about Nothing."
 

The whole cast seems to be having a good time. Dermot Mulroney, as the father of the bride, is very funny in his intense commitment. GaTa and Bryan Brown are adorable as heavy handed and all too obvious plotters.

 

"Anyone but You" begins with a very believable dilemma. Bea (Sydney Sweeney) needs to use a bathroom in a coffee shop. Ben (Glen Powell) rescues her by pretending that they are together, so she can occupy his place at the front of the line, and gain quick access to the bathroom key. They click and spend the night together, but it's purely platonic. A misunderstanding ensues, and they end up hating each other. They are invited to a destination wedding in Australia, and the other guests, just like in "Much Ado about Nothing," conspire to get them together.

 

I cared about their relationship from that opening scene. I laughed at the physical comedy and the hijinks. I was touched by their easily bruised egos and fear of intimacy. There's a highly unlikely scene where they fall into water and are rescued, and Bea soothes Ben by singing a song she knows he likes. Bea's tender care for Ben touched me.

 

Romantic comedy / travelogue films like this are not supposed to be realistic except in the broadest sense. We all fear intimacy when we sense that we are vulnerable to someone who is not as taken with us as we are with them. We all have to feel our way and take risks to find the right person.

 

Is the movie realistic in that we have perfect bodies like this movie's stars? Or live in super slick apartments and do morning ab crunches on spotless Australian beaches? No. That part is pure escapist entertainment, and I loved it.

 

What could have been better? Ben is a great guy, and the plot gives Bea ample reasons to fall in love with him. Bea is a bit more complicated. She comes across, in Sydney Sweeney's performance, as depressed and lost. Sweeney, as Bea, doesn't smile much and she doesn't have a north star. She doesn't know what she wants to do with her life. If these two get together, this viewer worried that Ben would have to devote his life to cheering Bea up.

 

Bea's mother was a meddling PITA and I wished the  movie had delivered a pie in her face, or something. Claudia and Halley, the couple whose destination wedding Bea and Ben attend, are undeveloped and uninteresting. The movie's ending is forced and overdone.

 

Maybe this film deserves more of a seven out of ten stars than eight out of ten stars, but it was just what I needed on a dark winter's day, so I'm giving it eight, and also to make up for the totally mean-spirted negative reviews from Grinches who can't appreciate the light hearted fun, charm, and physical beauty "Anyone but You" serves up in ample supply.

American Fiction 2023 Movie Review

 

American Fiction 2023
 
A new film indicts white powerbrokers' exploitation of black literature

 

American Fiction is a comedy-drama film. It premiered in September, 2023, at the Toronto International Film Festival where it won the People's Choice Award. American Fiction opened wide on December 22, 2023. It stars Jeffrey Wright, Tracee Ellis Ross, Issa Rae, Sterling K. Brown, and Leslie Uggams. Wright is Thelonious "Monk" Ellison, a novelist and college professor; the other characters are his family and colleagues.

 

American Fiction is directed by Cord Jefferson. Jefferson is a former journalist. He moved on to writing for TV, including for The Good Place. He is the recipient of an Emmy for writing, and an NAACP Image Award. American Fiction is his directorial debut. Cord Jefferson also wrote the screenplay for American Fiction.

 

Professor Thelonious "Monk" Ellison's novels are literary works that aspire to universal themes – that is, Monk intends his books to be appreciated by any reader, of any ethnicity. Monk reworks ancient Greek mythology into modern tales. Monk's novels are not selling well, so he pens what he thinks the market wants from a black author, that is a book titled My Pafology, a fake memoir that depicts the criminal career of Stagg R. Leigh, a killer and fugitive from justice. Comically stupid and venal white publishers, literary judges, and filmmakers embrace My Pafology. This is because, as one black character says, "White people think they want the truth, but they don't. They just want to feel absolved."

 

Paula Baderman (Miriam Shor), a shallow, flaky, but shrewdly acquisitive white publishing executive at a prestigious publishing house, offers Monk a $700,000 advance for My Pafology. Her colleague, John Bosco (Michael Cyril Creighton), also white, is a stereotypical effeminate gay man. He quivers with childish delight over My Pafology.

 

White judges determining the next winner of a prestigious literary award tap My Pafology. White author Jon Daniel Sigmarsen (Bates Wilder) is a rough-hewn, blue-collar, salt-of-the-earth type and he appreciates the "realness" of My Pafology. Wiley (Adam Brody), a young white filmmaker, is busy with his latest project, Plantation Annihilation. In this film, a white couple (the male will be played by Ryan Reynolds) moves to a Southern Plantation, where they are murdered by the vengeful ghosts of slaves. Wiley meets with Monk. He embraces Monk – whom he believes to be the criminal Stagg R. Leigh – in a mock black-hoodlum-style hug. Wiley salivates over what he imagines to be the details of Monk's criminal career. Wiley assumes that Monk is on the run for committing a murder. An ambulance stops outside the restaurant where they are meeting and Monk, worried about the health of a family member, runs out of the restaurant. Wiley is delighted, because he assumes that Stagg R. Leigh, the hoodlum on the run, left the restaurant because he heard what he thought was a police siren. My Pafology's success proves that white powerbrokers in publishing and entertainment are all racists who oppress black people by choosing to promote novels and films that depict black people as urban criminals who speak non-Standard English and have non-traditional names.

 

American Fiction is based on Erasure, a 2001 novel by Percival Everett. Everett is an award-winning writer and Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California. Like Monk, the main character of American Fiction, Everett has reworked ancient Greek myths into his novels. Everett's novels focus on race. For example, I Am Not Sidney Poitier depicts the race-related misfortunes of a character who is literally named "Not Sidney Poitier."

 

Prof. Everett has accumulated some interesting online reviews on his teaching from his former students including the following. "We did not have any assignments other than a journal which was turned in at the end of the year. Every class consisted of him saying hello and then turning on a western movie … ordered pizza for us for quite a few times during class … Take this class if you want an easy A (very close to zero responsibilities all semester.) Really, he wants to be friends with you …  He took all of us to brunch once instead of having class. I mean, movies during class, no homework, no paper, no exams."

 

American Fiction has received rhapsodic reviews from professional reviewers and fans alike. On January 1, 2024, American Fiction has a 92% professional reviewer score and a 96% audience score at Rotten Tomatoes. Salon's D. Watkins writes, "This brilliant film not only destroys the single Black narrative, it obliterates it – and puts pressure on every single film dealing with race that will come after." Jonathan W. Gray at The New Republic says "An unflinching and seriously funny examination of how the alchemy of race operates throughout the USA's culture industry." Peter Travers at ABC News insists, "Cord Jefferson’s slashingly funny satire of Black literary stereotyping is one of the best and boldest American comedies in years with a dynamite performance by an Oscar-ready Jeffrey Wright. You won't look at race on screen in the same way again." The Washington Post's Ann Hornaday named American Fiction the year's best film.

 

Fan reviews at the Internet Movie Database are similarly enthusiastic, but even fans who award American Fiction high scores introduce a note of disappointment. One review that awards the film 8 out of 10 stars says, "American Fiction has a great premise … But it somehow didn't completely land for me … it was the domestic drama part of the film that didn't completely work for me. The movie spends a lot of time on all the ways that Jeffrey Wright feels overwhelmed by his life's responsibilities, and it sags in some of these parts, and makes the movie feel a little bit like a slog. And I don't know that I ever completely believed the character played by Sterling K. Brown."

 

I saw the trailer for American Fiction about a month ago and I immediately knew I had to see the film. In the trailer, Jeffrey Wright, in suit and tie, enters an elegant meeting room. Onstage the beautiful Issa Rae, playing novelist Sintara Golden, is being interviewed by a worshipful white woman. The white interviewer asks Golden how she came to write her bestseller, We's Lives In Da Ghetto. Golden replies in perfect Standard English. "Too few books were about my people. Where are our stories? Where's our representation?" As Golden speaks, audience members nod heavily. The worshipful white interviewer begs, "Would you give us the pleasure of reading an excerpt?"

 

Golden reads, switching from Standard English to Ebonics. "'Yo, Sheronda. Girl you be pregnant again?' 'If I is, Ray Ray is gonna be a real father this time.'"

 

The awe-struck audience rises for a standing ovation.

 

Given this trailer, I thought that American Fiction would be a fearless satire of the marketing of urban underclass lifestyles and values. I thought it would be funny. I thought it would take risks. I thought it would be a challenge for both black and white audiences to watch. I thought it would be something really new. I was disappointed on all counts. American Fiction is one of those movies about which one can truly say that if you've seen the trailer, you've seen the best parts of the movie. Had I not intended to write a review, I would have walked out of American Fiction. American Fiction is, to this viewer, inept, cowardly, and shallow. It committed the cardinal sin of any artwork. It bored me.