I am so excited, I just received word that my paper proposal for the International Conference on Media, Religion, and Culture has been accepted! I'm going to be heading to Sweden this summer. Here's a section of the abstract of the paper I am going to present.

Seeking Serenity
The television series Firefly and subsequent feature film Serenity are an excellent resource for churches wishing to create spaces of dialogue and theological interaction with young adults in the United States. Regular attendance at Christian worship services in the United States has been on the decline since the 1960s with young adults being the least likely to attend. Churches are experimenting and developing new methods of engaging young adults in an effort to make their symbolic, narrative and sacramental resources more accessible to young adults in the U.S. context. One such effort includes engaging with and creating spaces for dialogue around popular forms of media.

Not only do Firefly and Serenity ask difficult questions about what it means to be human, they also pose a challenging set of questions back to communities of faith, prompting engagement with issues of sin, belief, symbol, ritual, and existentialism. This paper explores the universe created through Firefly and Serenity, and reflects upon the challenges of, and opportunities for, engaging in theological reflection within such a universe.

If you want to read more, well I guess you'll have to come to the conference. Hope to see you there.