Toby Lucas

I'm writing from Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer, one of the Normandy coastal towns liberated by the Allies on D-Day, 6th June 1944. Here by Omaha Beach, the legacy of the Second World War is quite inescapable. Almost every signpost points to a battleground, memorial or museum, and the landscape looks just like those images ingrained in our minds by Saving Private Ryan (1998) , Band of Brothers (2001) and, filmed on these same beaches, The Longest Day (1962). The War, however, is inescapable everywhere , perhaps especially in the British mindset. The 'Blitz spirit' was invoked during the Covid-19 lockdowns, and Vera Lynn's 1939 song 'We'll Meet Again' was once again on the air; and, during the BLM protests in London, Winston Churchill's statue became the locus of public grievances. The War has permeated beyond our films and museums, and beyond our national pride and politics. The memory of the War has become intrinsic to our sense of morality. It is, in short, the

My PhD considers Napoleon Bonaparte, one of the most charismatic figures in history, and the problems he poses to the poets of his day. The core question these poets ask is what to make of this man? Is he a hero, or a villain? This is a question we keep asking ourselves. Our culture is inundated with heroes – perhaps to the point of oversaturation – from the next big Marvel film, the next TV show or video game from DC, and the non-stop speculation about which characters will appear in the next blockbuster. Our generation has grown up with superheroes, so perhaps it is no wonder that our current obsession seems to be to critique and deconstruct the hero, giving rise to films and shows like Invincible or Injustice that ask the questions: What if superheroes were evil and corrupt? What if the villains or antiheroes were the main characters? The question behind these questions, at the heart of our cultural moment, is what is it that makes a hero? The answer, I think, regardless of w

On the north-western coast of Turkey lies the port of Çanakkale. Positioned at the narrowest point of the Dardanelles, Çanakkale has great strategic importance and, perhaps unsurprisingly, has played host to decisive battles and power struggles. Two of these conflicts in particular have taken on a unique pedestal in the popular imagination; climactic events that have come to define national and cultural identities. These are the Trojan War (the Bronze Age) and the Battle of Gallipoli (1915). Both became foundation myths of the ancient and modern world. By using the term 'myth' here, I do not mean 'fiction'; the reality of the First World War is not in dispute (unlike the Trojan War), but the moral and cultural force surrounding these conflicts has elevated these from mere historical events to foundational stories integral to societies' understandings of themselves. Troy Guarding the Çanakkale waterfront is a 46-foot-high wooden mock-up of the Trojan Horse from Wolfg

Few people dominate their field quite as much as J. R. R. Tolkien dominates the fantasy genre. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings have captured countless imaginations with their vivid worldbuilding, their gentle balance of grand themes and familiar feelings, the rich stories and characters, and the timeless struggle between good and evil. All these years after their initial publication, we keep returning to Tolkien's Middle Earth, in books, films, games, and recently Amazon's The Rings of Power TV series, reportedly the most expensive ever financed ($58 million per episode). Tolkien's stories seem timeless, always relevant and fresh. To have created such a rich world (with its own languages and histories) that has sparked so manyother people's creativity is a fantastic legacy, and in my opinion, cements Tolkien as one of the most brilliant artists of the last century.  With all this in mind, I was fascinated to come across an interview with Tolkien that briefly touche

In the final part of my series Culture in the Christian Worldview , I outlined four principles for how Christians might engage with our culture. I would like to consider the last of these, the call to ‘create culture’, in more detail. I wrote: Christians can also participate in this conversation by creating art of their own. We are creative by nature and should think critically and purposefully about what we create, and perhaps, even gently, we can help steer the conversation, and lift our collective gaze in a heavenward direction. So, as people who are creative by nature and determined to direct our efforts for God’s glory, how should the Christian faith impact our creative expressions? What makes art ‘Christian’? Immediately we encounter an issue of definition. The most obvious Christian distinctive is the gospel, but this has so permeated our culture that concepts of sacrifice, for instance, are part of everyone's vocabulary. S ome of the most affecting films and books directly

If you asked me what recent film or programme deserves to be considered a classic (dare I say masterpiece?), I would nominate HBO’s Chernobyl (2019). Watch it! This five-episode miniseries tells the story of Soviet physicists containing the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. The tragedy revealed the lies and façade of the Soviet Union and, according to Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev, catalysed its eventual collapse. Director Johan Renck conveys the stakes of Chernobyl masterfully, unravelling two main tensions throughout the series. The first is the race against time to stop nuclear meltdown, and the second is the search for what caused the disaster. The USSR is adamant that Soviet reactors do not explode, that it must be human error, but the scientists are determined to find the truth and stop something like this from happening again. In a regime where information is tightly controlled, the hunt for the truth is a dangerous one. Renck recreates a KGB-controlled Soviet world with ha

This is the first in a three-part series on Culture in the Christian Worldview, outlining the framework for what I hope this blog will do; connecting faith and art, and engaging critically with what we read and watch. Part I: The Creation of Culture  turns to Genesis, looking at where culture has come from. Part II: The Current State of Culture   considers the place of culture after the Fall, in our own day. Part III: The Christian and Culture   unpacks why and how Christians might engage with culture.

  Part II: The Current State of Culture This is Part II in a three-part series on Culture in the Christian Worldview. Click here to read Part I . Cast out of Eden The Christian worldview would be incomplete if it didn’t incorporate the Fall. After all, we are not still living in Eden. To understand the current state of culture, then, we must consider Adam and Eve’s rebellion in Genesis 3. Adam and Eve reject God’s order in favour of their own constructions of good and evil. They sin and introduce shame and barriers in their relationship between each other and with God. This is symbolized in the first thing man makes apart from God: ‘Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.’ (Gen. 3:7) This is a paltry and feeble construction, but it demonstrates how we may turn to culture (the things we’ve made) to put distance between each other and God. This separation caused by sin is consolida