CINEMA PARADISO: So there's an atheist film festival. Reading about it, I found myself wondering how a movie could really represent one worldview over another. I think what a lot of atheism-vs-theism debates miss (more on this soon) is that you can work with the exact same evidence and come to radically different conclusions about the meaning of that evidence. And since film is such a visual medium, I'm fascinated by the difference between films which present a basically godless world and films which present a basically Christian world. (Only going with Christianity here because it's what I'm most familiar with, both because I believe it and because I've seen more movies which believe it.)

So I'm opening the floor to you guys: Which movies would you screen in an atheist film festival? What about a Christian film festival? Or other religions?

For me, Cube and the Orson Welles adaptation of The Trial would absolutely be a part of the atheist festival. Nobody Knows would also be there, I think. For movies which portray or make real a Christian world--movies in which, while the evidence is still open to interpretation, the obvious interpretation is Christian--I'd say Cavalier's Therese of course, and Of Gods and Men, and maybe even Donnie Darko. Looking at these lists, I think the distinguishing characteristic is how the movie presents our intense longing for suffering to have meaning: Is this longing simply the most heartbreaking kind of wishful thinking, or does it reflect something real about the world for which we were made, in the same way that thirst implies the existence of water?

I think that's my most common criterion. What are yours?

POKER FACE: So various recent events, including but not limited to the bizarre Elena Kagan media mishegoss*, have led me to think about coming out/being out, and why my experiences cause me to think it's usually the best policy. Insert all the obvious disclaimers (I realize that I'm not you, I don't believe in advice columns, my family is supportive and my career would've been bizarre anyway, I have no religious superiors to answer to other than God, etc), but here are, at least, some things to think about.

[*ETA: Argh, just so no one can misread me: Nothing in this post is a defense of others' interest in Kagan's boudoir. Nor do I have--nor do I want!--any information about said boudoir. It's more that the kerfuffle about her, in conjunction with several other events which would take even more time and disclaimers to cover, prompted various thoughts. And now back to our show.]

I read somewhere a really intense description, which is echoed to a certain extent in Same-Sex Desire in Victorian Religious Culture, of one way being gay may affect your perceptions: Because you're forced into extreme vigilance over your responses to sensuality, you become hyperaware of sensual realities. I don't know that this is true for everyone, obviously, but it does resonate with me. And this hyperawareness, while often unpleasant or humiliating, can also conduce to both artistic accomplishment and Catholic faith.

But there's a different kind of hyperawareness which is provoked by the closet: strict and deliberate control of one's speech. And this kind of control and self-consciousness destroys sprezzatura in conversation and prompts instead a really fearful, "only say what you're certain won't be understood," blandly conformist way of talking and writing.

The closet also offers a lot of temptations to sin; I'd say for many people it just is a near occasion of sin. There's the obvious temptation to lie. There's the temptation to throw other people under the bus to make yourself look more hetero, or butcher or whatever. There's the temptation to deny or speak uncharitably to openly gay friends (or, for that matter, enemies). There's the temptation to cut yourself off from other people so they don't get too close--to avoid friendship, and avoid help. Being in the closet makes it harder to act rightly. To the extent that being out involves humiliation and lost opportunities (although it is also extraordinarily freeing and opens a lot of doors you may not have realized existed) I would say that sometimes you have to journey through what Spenser called "the Gracious Valley of Humiliation."

Many of these same beneficial effects of being openly gay come with being "out" as celibate-for-religious-reasons also. You also avoid giving scandal. I personally find celibacy a more embarrassing confession than lovely old lesbianism, but obviously that is just all the more reason to be open about it!

So again, in any individual case I can't tell you what to do, but I think it's worth defending choices which may make your life harder, or close off some opportunities you really want, but which also make your speech and life vastly more interesting and more likely to be virtuous.

(Also! I resent Lady Gaga as much as any right-thinking child of the '80s, but you really, really should click that link in the post title. It's not as amazing as this, but then, what is?)

"THE ONLY ENTERPRISES THAT REALLY FOCUS ON THE FUTURE": Just ran across a several-years-old email in which I recalled a conversation between two friends--an evangelical Christian, and an ex-evangelical financier--in which the financier praised "religion and the stock market" for being, in fact, the only enterprises etc. An earlier moment in that same conversation involved the evangelical noting that all the worldly glory of the nations would pass away, and the financier replying, "Yeah, I'm really struck by the way the dollar hasn't recovered despite the strong U.S. economy!"