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I'm Christa Tippett and this is Speaking of Faith conversation about belief, meaning ethics,

and ideas. Today, a return to the mystery, religion, fantasy, and entertainment.

Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ was only the tip of the iceberg. There are religious

images and ideas at the heart of many popular television programs and movies from the Lord of

the Rings to Harry Potter. And as new generations of Americans work out their spiritual and religious

questions, they are increasingly turning to fantasy. I can teach you how to bewitch the mind and

snare the senses. I can tell you how to bottle, fame, brew, glory, and even put a stopper in death.

Mr Potter, our new celebrity.

Later, we'll hear more from Hogwarts, Harry Potter's School of Wizardry and Witchcraft.

We'll also hear from Linsco Field Clark, who studied the ways that media images of angels and

aliens are reflecting and shaping the spiritual lives of American teenagers. First, Phyllis Tickel,

a grand dom of the interpretation of religion in popular culture. A longtime religion editor

publishers Weekly, she's published 12 books of her own on prayer and spiritual journey.

In 1996, Phyllis Tickel wrote an acclaimed analysis, God Talk in America. Today, we'll invite

her observations about God Talk in America now. In the American search for meaning, she says,

nonfiction has steadily been giving way to fiction and fantasy, and books have ceded

ground to television and movies. Phyllis Tickel dates this trend from the 1995 premiere on American

television, of touched by an angel. Delarice starred as the wise leader of a troop of angels

...