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Combining thematic analysis and stimulating close readings, The Collar is a wide-ranging study of the many ways--heroic or comic, shrewd or dastardly--Christian ministers have been represented in literature and film. Since all Christians are expected to be involved in ministry of some type, the assumptions of secular culture about ministers affect more than just clergy. Ranging across several nations (particularly the U. S., Britain, and Canada), denominations, and centuries, The Collar aims to encourage creative and faithful responses to the challenges of Christian leadership and to provoke a Prelude: Why literary ministers? -- Interlude: "The Collar" by George Herbert -- Heroism and suffering: "Romeo," "The Mission," "Becket," "Murder in the Cathedral," "The Power of the Glory," "Gilead" -- Interlude: "Diary of a Country Priest" by Georges Bernanos -- The counselor/confessor: George Eliot, E.M. Forster, A.S. Byatt -- Interlude: Scenes of clerical life by George Eliot -- Fools for Christ: "Tristam Shandry," "The vicar of Wakefield," "Bleak House," "The Warden," "Monsignor Quixote," "Heavens Above!," Rowan Atikinson's vicars -- Interlude: Barbara Pym and Jan Karon -- The Collard detective: Brother Cadfael mysteries, Father Brown stories, "The Name of the Rose" -- Interlude: "Cry, the Beloved Country" by Alan Paton -- Passion, for better and for worse: "The Scarlet Letter," "The Crucible," "Racing Demon," "Priest" -- Interlude: "The Book Against God," a novel by James Wood -- Failure for worse and for better: "Jane Eyre," "Middlemarch," Margaret Oliphant, Jane Austen, John Updike, Clint Eastwood -- Interlude: "Doubt, a Parable" by John Patrick Shanley -- Disaster: "A portrait of the artist as a young man," "Brand," "The Spire," "Light of August," "Rain" -- Interlude: "Pale Rider," directed by Clint Eastwood -- Frustration: The Collar on Screen: "The Thord Birds," "Footloose," "7th Heaven," "Keeping the Faith," "The Vicar of Dibley," "Rev." -- Interlude: The Bing Crosby and Richard Burton movie priests -- Clergy wives and daughters: The concealed collar: "A Clergyman's Daughter," "Bed among the lentils," "The rector's wife," "Candida" -- Interlude: "The Bell" by Iris Murdoch -- The Canadian Collar: "The stone angel," "Such is my beloved," "As for me and my house," "Good to a fault," Robertson Davies, Ralph Connor, Stephen Leacock, Warren Cariou -- Interlude: "Lights and Shadows of Clerical Life" by William Cheetham -- Postlude: "Corpus permixtum."
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