I’ve started to write about pop culture a couple of times a month at Gathering Voices, a new blog from The Thoughtful Christian. I’m in great company with fellow bloggers like Greg Garrett, Adam Copeland, Lynn Baab and Don McKim. Most of my posts will focus on movies and television, though I may venture out occasionally with posts on popular fiction, music, and other aspects of culture.

My first post explores the movie The King’s Speech to determine what role, if any, religion might play in King George VI’s self-discovery. The film’s take is that religion is merely a prop of class and nation, something to be discarded on the quest for the authentic self.

I loved the movie. (Apparently I’m in good company: it has an unheard-of 96% approval rating at Rotten Tomatoes.) Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush were phenomenal; the script was crisp; the story was inspiring. But its view of religion is far more suggestive of our own era and experiences than it is of the British monarchy in the 1930s.