Shining Glory: Theological Reflections on Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life

by Peter Leithart

Publisher:

Cascade

, 2013

Overview

Terrence Malick’s stunning film The Tree of Life is a modern Job story, an exploration of suffering and glory, an honest look at strife within a Texas family in the 1950s. In Shining Glory, Peter J. Leithart examines the biblical and theological motifs of the film and illuminates how Malick exploited the visual poetry of film to produce one of the most spiritually challenging and theologically sophisticated films ever made.

Key Features

• Discusses the film The Tree of Life from a theological standpoint
• Examines biblical concepts and implications of the movie

Contents

• Visual Lyricism
• Job
• Water
• Flame
• Music
• Nature and Grace, Father and Mother
• Windows and Doors
• Trees, Birds, Everything
• Hands
• Memory
• Family Table
• Death and Sin
• The Promised End

Top Highlights

“God’s speech is a reminder that he cares for his creation, forgets nothing, leaves nothing to chance.” (Page 11)

Praise for the Print Edition

A very helpful, meditative guide and exploration of the complexity, wonders, and depths of Malick’s remarkable Tree of Life.

—Roy Anker, professor of English, Calvin College

Peter Leithart has provided a great service by approaching this film of Terrence Malick—America’s greatest filmmaker, and perhaps the greatest of his time—with the seriousness it merits, and by considering it in light of the religious and metaphysical themes it so beautifully and so mysteriously explores. I hope this book is the first of many such treatments.

—David Bentley Hart, author, The Experience of God

Product Details

• Title: Shining Glory: Theological Reflections on Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life
• Author: Peter Leithart
• Publisher: Cascade
• Print Publication Date: 2013
• Logos Release Date: 2016
• Pages: 92
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subjects: Malick, Terrence, 1945 › Criticism and interpretation; Motion pictures › Religious aspects
• ISBNs: 9781620324134, 9781498215787, 9781621897859, 162032413X, 1498215785, 1621897850
• Resource ID: LLS:SHININGGLORY
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2024-04-22T19:21:05Z

About Peter Leithart

Peter Leithart is President of Theopolis Institute and serves as Teacher at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Birmingham. He is the author of many books, including a two-volume commentary on Revelation (T&T Clark, 2018), God of Hope (Athanasius, 2022), On Earth As In Heaven (Lexham, 2022), and a forthcoming book on God the Creator (IVP). He writes a fortnightly column at FirstThings.com, and has published articles in many periodicals, both popular and academic.

Leithart has served in two pastorates: He was pastor of Reformed Heritage Presbyterian Church (now Trinity Presbyterian Church), Birmingham, Alabama from 1989 to 1995, and was pastor of Trinity Reformed Church, Moscow, Idaho, from 2003-2013. From 1998 and 2013 he taught theology and literature fulltime at New St. Andrews College, Moscow, Idaho. He received an A.B. in English and History from Hillsdale College in 1981, and a Master of Arts in Religion and a Master of Theology from Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia in 1986 and 1987. In 1998 he received his Ph.D. at the University of Cambridge in England.

He and his wife, Noel, have ten children and fifteen grandchildren.