Julie Dykes

Christians can disagree on the best way to employ immigration policy that is humane, feasible, and maintains public safety. But to claim that we Christians have no neighborly obligations to our immigrant and refugee neighbors is to ignore the teachings of Jesus and the heart of God.

Yes, Jesus says, even “those people,” even your enemies, even the ones you’ve determined *aren’t really part of us*—these are your neighbors.

And sometimes they’re even better at being neighborly than you are.

Before Jesus tells the Parable of the Good Samaritan, the expert in the law asks, “Who is my neighbor?” In doing so, he’s not trying to identify who his neighbors are, but to determine who they *aren’t.*

Instead of acquiescing to his exclusivism, Jesus throws the definition of neighbor wide open.

I love both versions, but the film proves that understanding the differing media and how to utilize their distinct tools can lead to something extraordinary and complementary to what came before. I give my deepest tip of the hat to Dir. Chu and his team for bringing such a brilliant vision to life.

Jon M. Chu turned “No One Mourns the Wicked” into a song of grief and a warning about the dangers of vilifying people, more so than I ever experienced watching the live show (these themes do appear in the show, just much later in the runtime). It is truly a masterclass of stage-to-screen adaptation.

…the Munchkins. We see her grief, both at the loss of her friend and how everyone is rejoicing over her death. The song still goes hard, but you’re no longer sucked into the mob mentality that’s so easy to be drawn into when you’re in the room with the stage performers.

…shows the happy face to the Munchkins/the audience. It’s a stage production; you have to go big for your performance to reach the back of the theater. But on screen, with the ability to contrast sweeping crowd shots with closeups of Glinda, we get to see Glinda’s *struggle* to put on a show for…

Watched Wicked (the movie) again and I’m still completely blown away by what Jon M. Chu did with it. For example, on stage, “No One Mourns the Wicked” goes hard and immediately sucks you in to the crowd’s excitement. Even if you know the story and that Glinda isn’t actually celebrating, she still…

‘Fit check for today #ETS2024 #TellHerStory @nijaykgupta.bsky.social

Not that you needed to sell me on it (it’s already on my list), but this is A+ marketing 🫡

a man in a suit and tie is standing next to another man . Alt: Barney from How I Met Your Mother gives himself a self-five.

I was in talks for my teaching contract for this year when abstracts were coming due, so I made the call not to submit anything. I figured if I got the position, I wouldn’t have much bandwidth to write a paper on top of my first semester of teaching.

I was absolutely right. Way to go, past me.

I’m thrilled to share that I will be presenting *absolutely nothing* at ETS, IBR, and SBL, which means I’ll have lots of time to connect! If you’ll be there too, feel free to reach out! #ets2024 #ibr2024 #sblaar2024

So, are we all leaving Twitter, then? Figured I’d join the club over here in case it’s where all the cool kids decide to hang out.