Movie Review: With the End of Days Near, a Sect Is Torn

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Jeanette Catsoulis

Chris Nelson, as a prophet's hand-picked successor to a small religious sect. Credit Cinema Purgatorio

HOLLYWOOD---“As It Is in Heaven” opens quietly yet with unmistakable joy as the camera tracks a white-robed young woman through gracious rooms and lush gardens to the banks of a sparkling river. Joining the other members of her small religious sect, she watches their prophet (John Lina) baptize a new recruit (Chris Nelson) and give him the name David. Shot in just 17 days with the help of students and equipment at Asbury University, a Christian school in Kentucky, this low-budget debut by Joshua Overbay cooks a surprising amount of tension from the barest minimum of ingredients. Examining the rewards and consequences of faith with empathy and without judgment, Mr. Overbay (who wrote the story with his wife, Ginny Lee Overbay) maintains tight control of the sect’s darkening mood and waning strength. [link]

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Federal judge in Kentucky Strikes Down Marriage Ban for #23 in 1 Year

FREEDOM TO MARRY
By Adam Polaski

KENTUCKY---Today, July 1, 2014, U.S. District Judge John G. Heyburn II ruled in favor of the freedom to marry, striking down a constitutional amendment in the state that restricts marriage to different-sex couples. The Kentucky cases were filed last summer (with the intervening couples granted permission in February) by private lawyers from Clay Daniel Walton & Adams and Fauver Law Office in Louisville, KY. Bourke v. Beshear will be considered by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit this summer, with oral arguments scheduled for August 6, 2014, the same day that oral arguments will be heard in marriage cases from Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee. For more information about the 6th Circuit marriage cases, click here. [link]

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