Michael S. Poteet is a teaching elder (ordained minister) in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and a freelance writer-researcher and wordsmith. His most recent publication is the youth study guide for Half Truths (Abingdon Press). Follow him on Twitter (@WriterMPoteet).
I was going to avoid any teasers, trailers, or other assorted goodies the BBC might throw our way before Doctor Who’s big fiftieth birthday on November 23. But today, as my Facebook feed filled with…
Sleepy Hollow’s characters sell the show. The series’ command of historical facts is erratic, and “far-fetched” doesn’t begin to describe its rapidly mushrooming mythology. With lesser personalities portrayed by lesser actors, this show would be…
Seventy-five years ago tonight, Orson Welles unleashed what would become one of the most famous and influential productions of mass media science fiction on an unsuspecting public. The Mercury Theatre on the Air’s presentation of…
No new Sleepy Hollow episode in the week of Halloween? That’s so wrong! Oh, well. We can still visit our favorite “haunt.” Washington Irving, America’s first true “man of letters,” immortalized it in his short story,…
Have you seen Verizon’s current “Star Wars meets Halloween” commercial yet? I’m not here to shill for Verizon, but I do want to tell you to add The Sci-Fi Christian to your virtual trick-or-treating route…
As this week’s arcane lore and secret history swirl around her, Abbie asks, “Are we all having the same conversation here?” She and we can be forgiven the question. Sleepy Hollow’s burgeoning mythology is now…
Today, many Christians—especially in the Roman Catholic, Anglo-Episcopalian, and Lutheran traditions, but also others—will remember the Italian friar Francis of Assisi (1181/82-1226). An itinerant preacher and the founder of monastic orders for men and (with…
“The last thing we need,” Captain Irving tells Abbie and Ichabod as they begin this week’s investigation, “is another episode of The Twilight Zone.” Fortunately, the Sleepy Hollow creative team disagreed. Like a lot of…
I’m still enjoying Sleepy Hollow, but wouldn’t recommend it as a Bible study (of course, it’s not claiming to be one). For starters, consider the name of this week’s wicked witch, Sarilda of Abbadon. Ichabod…
Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (1820) is often characterized as a classic ghost story, but there’s actually nothing supernatural about it. It’s the tale of how scrawny, self-important, socially inept and superstitious schoolmaster…
