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By Observer Staff
Touchstone Journal
EDITED BY PETER WYATT (Heritage and Theology in a New Age Inc.) “Making disciples — enabling ourselves and others to be followers of Jesus — is the core business and vocation of the United Church,” wrote John Hogman, the founding chair of
Touchstone’s editorial board, in an article before his recent death. This 30-year-old scholarly journal, published three times a year, features United Church thinkers digging deep into theological themes. May’s focus is Christian practices, including pieces on holy manners and the transformative power of hymns.
May 1The Revisionaries
DIRECTED BY SCOTT THURMAN (Silver Lining Film Group)The Texas Board of Education chair, Don McLeroy, is determined to get his creationist ideas of science and history into the textbooks of nearly five million schoolchildren. Aided by attorneys but opposed by many locals, McLeroy pushes his headstrong vision to the brink in this documentary about political wrangling within a fragile school system still debating theories of evolution.
May 1, 3 and 4 at the Hot Docs festival in Toronto
Intolerable: A Memoir of Extremes
BY KAMAL AL-SOLAYLEE (HarperCollins Canada)Playwright, journalist, academic and theatre critic Kamal Al-Solaylee grew up in southern Yemen, the son of a wealthy property owner in Aden. Since immigrating to Canada as an adult, he has watched his siblings become strict Islamists despite their secular upbringing. Part memoir, part coming-out narrative,
Intolerable chronicles the Middle East’s shift toward fundamentalism and the author’s escape to the West.
May 4Home
BY TONI MORRISON (Random House)Frank Money returns from the Korean War a traumatized veteran. When he takes his medically abused sister back to their hometown in Georgia, both characters confront the racial complexities of small-town America. Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison adds to her haunting body of work with this novel about finding your place in a country riddled with hate.
May 8
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