Tag Archives: Christianity
Werner Herzog’s ‘Into the Abyss’
Conversations with death row inmate Michael Perry and those affected by his crime serve as an examination of why people – and the state – kill (IMDB).
In class we talked about Werner Herzog’s Into the Abyss. The discussion questions are below if you click on the image.
For your review it would be great if you engage with the big questions the film poses rather than just critique the methods/techniques used in its production. In your answer you might like to include:
- Your opinion(s) about the legitimacy of capital punishment
- Your reasons for it
- Some arguments and points made by different philosophers (especially Bentham and Kant)
- Some mention of the case of Carla Faye that Captain Allan mentions
- Some religious view points
- A detailed and reasoned explanation as to which opinions you agree/disagree with and exactly why
The following might help:
Penetecost and ‘tying it all together’.
1. What was the message?
2. How might this fit with what you know of Desmond Tutu and what Jesus said about the Kingdom of Heaven?
3. Have a look at the songs below by Ellie Goulding and Phillip Phillips. People have claimed these are songs about Christianity. What evidence can you find in each one for this?
Kingdom of Heaven (and now Love and Pentecost) Part 2
Today we’re going to look at what some people understand by the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ today. If you look at the cooments on the above song on YouTube, you will see that there are a lot of people claiming that is what this song is about. By the end of the lesson you will need to write an answer on which of these two songs you think is most like the ‘Kingdom of God’. Remember Understanding beats remembering, applying beats understanding, and building and analysing beat everything else!! Good luck.
Tutu on Christianity Research Task
Today’s challenge is to find out as much as you can about Desmond Tutu’s understanding of Christianity. Tutu, though not as famous as his close friend Nelson Mandela, is in the words of Ron Burgundy ‘quite a big deal’! He is, however, quite controversial in some Christian Communities. Mandela claimed Tutu had made an “immeasurable contribution to [his] nation” and that “Desmond Tutu’s voice will always be the voice of the voiceless”, but in other places has been called “evil” by Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe and even racist, idolatrous and a bastion of the New World Order by Dean Ministries.
Your job today is to find out exactly what he thinks Christianity is all about. Obviously that’s a pretty big question and it’s going to be hard!
The following are just ideas and you might want to spend a bit of time reading as well as watching… The laptops are booked for you and there are some questions at the bottom that might help….
Some questions to think about:
- Why is Tutu so involved in human rights?
- Tutu has been a key player in a number of big disagreements, take notes on as many as you can.
- In South Africa, DT got into a lot of problems for claiming that “God is not a Christian”. What could that mean?
- Find out about the Truth & Reconciliation in South Africa. What does it have to do with his Christianity?
- Find about the fears about a ‘reversed’ apartheid that South Africans shared in 1994. What was Tutu’s understanding of it?
Kingdom of Heaven Challenge Year 3

Jesus had this massive idea to try and explain to people. To help them get it he gave lots of pictures. Try and work out what you think the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ really is…
To post your paragraph click on ‘leave a reply’ below. Just put your initials in the name box, your school email (it won’t come up) and leave the web page blank, then paste your answer from word or pages… Try and make your answer the very best you can, it will be a major part of your final S2 report…
Thank You
Kingdom of Heaven Challenge Year 2
Jesus had this massive idea to try and explain to people. To help them get it he gave lots of pictures. Try and work out what you think the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ really is…
To post your paragraph click on ‘leave a reply’ below. Just put your initials in the name box, any email (it won’t come up) and leave the web page blank, then paste your answer from word or pages… Try and make your answer the very best you can…
Thank You 🙂
Plan B on The Fall
Who’d’ve thought that you’d hear an insightful interpretation of the Doctrine of the Fall on Radio 1? Well anybody that knows anything about Ben Drew – the recent winner of the Q Award for ‘Best Track’…
Kingdom of Heaven Challenge
Jesus had this massive idea to try and explain to people. To help them get it he gave lots of pictures. Try and work out what you think the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ really is…
To post your paragraph click on ‘comments’ below. Just put your initials in the name box, any email (it won’t come up) and leave the web page blank, then paste your answer from word or pages… Try and make your answer the very best you can…
Thank You 🙂