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Roy M. Anker

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Eden’s Other Tree

There's really nothing else like it, at least in a very long time, if ever. The audaciousness, even presumption, is already there quite plainly in the title. After all, Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life leaps and stretches, always gorgeously, to show and tell (with too much telling, according to some) the ungraspable, quite illogical prospect that this ever-so-mangled world was formed and persists in Love, no matter how dire or pervasive its woundedness. Think Hopkins the Jesuit: "The world…
Roy M. Anker
November 1, 2011
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Vile Things

No vile thing? Well, that pretty much kills off anything that's not animated, though we're not terribly sure about the soundness of Buzz Lightyear or Shrek or, for that matter, even St. WALL-E. One's interpretation of the biblical tone here depends, of course, on translation and the vagaries of denotation/ connotation strategies. The NIV uses "vile," the KJV says "wicked," the Amplified Bible "base," and the NAS fudges with "worthless thing," a term that could possibly cover one's car or…
Roy M. Anker
October 1, 2010
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Preachers and the Humble Thing: Part II

Editor's Note: The first part of this article appeared in the May 2009 edition of Perspectives. In this second part Roy Anker picks up where he left off in reflecting on the character of the revivalist preacher Sonny Dewey from Robert Duvall's film The Apostle. A revivalist since age twelve, Sonny's besetting error is, simply put, old rank ego, the idea of being God's fair-haired boy, which status he pursues with conviction and fervor. The conviction breeds a good deal…
Roy M. Anker
June 1, 2009
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Preachers and the Humble Thing: Part I

Hollywood movies seldom show us preachers--an odd fact, given that the United States has, seemingly forever, been beset by the breed before and behind and on every side. On every other street corner, every third cable channel, and in uncounted best-sellers you can see them, hawking Jesus and positive-thinking and who knows what else besides. If one listens to fancy British neo-atheists like Hitchens and Dawkins, the United States has been infested by preachers, and the infestation has led to…
Roy M. Anker
May 16, 2009
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Wilderness Exile: Last Year at the Movies

After limping along most of the year, the films of 2005 ended with a rare body of work fierce in moral and even spiritual inspection. For a long time in 2005, movie studios and theater owners were fearing the worst box office year ever. By early fall, studio heads were confessing that there was something, well, defective with their product, or at least with the timing of the product being put out there. Audiences simply seemed less credulous than usual,…
Roy M. Anker
February 15, 2006
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Beyond the Bridge: Life and Grace in It’s a Wonderful Life

It really is a wonder that It's a Wonderful Life has become the preeminent American Christmas movie, eclipsing even the 1947 Miracle on 34th Street. When Life appeared in December 1946, costing the then-sizeable sum of three million dollars, box office barely covered production cost. Not even the fabled talent of director Frank Capra, weaver of pre-war populist magic in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939), and Meet John Doe (1941), seemed to help.…
Roy M. Anker
December 16, 2004
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Rachel’s Children

The baby Jesus is no sooner breathing than he has to go on the lam, hounded by rankest evil, his parents stealthing the child out of Bethlehem under the cover of darkness. No sooner does the least flicker of light happen, which is all this obscure infant Jesus amounts to so far, than evil comes hunting, doing its darkest to swallow even that slight glimmer. And then, miffed at being played the fool by the three kings he thought were…
Roy M. Anker
January 1, 2004
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For Mary’s Sake

There are no earthquakes, no glowing angels (Matthew), no big stone doors magically rolled away (Mark), or dazzling heavenly pronouncements (Luke). And certainly no five-piece rock bands to make sure the resurrection is hip enough. John's account differs starkly from the others--empty tomb, the leavings of the burial tidily stowed therein, and nobody there, human or otherwise, to cushion the shock and announce an answer or two. There are only the questions. Peter the Impetuous inspects the tomb, guesses that…
Roy M. Anker
May 16, 2003