But, of course, you know all of this unless you are more removed from civilization than, say, the Starks of Winterfell or the White Walkers who roam beyond the wall.

If you are clueless about all of this, devotees of Game of Thrones — and they are legion—might consider you as uncouth as a drunken Dothraki warrior.

But take heart because, if you are a faithful Christian, you are already engaged in a historical struggle ever so much the grander than any clash of dynasties.

Game of Thrones, the HBO adaptation of George R. R. Martin's medieval fantasy series, is an epic dramatic struggle between the forces of good and evil.

To the credit of the show's eight seasons, it has often been difficult to know who was winning and who was not.

Sometimes it was a struggle to settle upon who was good and who was bad. At times you could only see who was bad and who was even worse. Circumstances shifted, and people changed.

The only constant was that the powerful oppressed the weak.

That remained true even when the weak became the powerful.

If this explains the television series to the culturally clueless, it also explains the Christian faith to the spiritually impoverished.

Game of Thrones is a terrific drama, played out in fictional history.

Christianity's core claim is that history itself is a great drama, an epic struggle between light and darkness.

You might not immediately learn this by asking the average believer to explain the Christian faith.

Instead, you are likely to listen to a list of teachings, called doctrines, which are to be believed without evidence, and moral precepts, which are to be observed solely on the authority of those who promulgate them.

Yet the core of the Christian faith is that good and evil are at war and have been for as far back as memory goes.

Scholars call this "salvation history," but ordinary people know it as the ongoing, daily struggle between right and wrong, one that surges around and within every human being.

Moreover, just as in Game of Thrones, in the real world it is hard to know who is what and which side is winning.

Good and evil are entwined in a violent vortex.

The sole constant is that the powerful continue to oppress the weak. Continue reading

It's beneficial on many levels to recognize what's popular, and to honestly discern: How is a particular cultural phenomenon affecting the life of Christian believers?

How can this phenomenon be "baptized" and used to help people of faith?

Believers know that everything in our world expresses some positive reflection of divine truth. This conviction is born from the belief that creation is good and was made from the overflowing of God's love.

Since all things are vestiges of God, therefore, they participate in a great analogy of being.

This means that created things share in God's wisdom, power, and beauty, and they manifest these divine realities in our world today.

Our task as we look at our culture is to discern these heavenly truths, name them, and draw them out of things.

This exercise has been called by several names, the most popular being the sacramental principle.

This principle holds that created things can be visible signs of invisible grace, namely, that they are indications to us of divine favor in the hustle and bustle of our lives.

And so, whether it's Roman myths, Pokeman Go, fidget spinners, or the recent eclipse, everything is a breathing word of God, who is the Author of all things, and so can be a source of transcendence, faith, and goodness.

This interplay between heaven and earth is a powerful and uplifting assertion. But is it true? Can all things really reflect heavenly realities?

Let's go ahead and step back and peruse Western culture today. What do we see? One predominant and surprising trend is the television show, Game of Thrones.

The show has an unprecedented fan base, has received extensive awards, and has become a topic of conversation across our society's spectrum.

The show is violent, sexually explicit, crude, despairing, full of plots that are manipulative and coercive, praises vicious and merciless characters, mocks virtue and shows how to use it against people, and screams utilitarian barbarism. Continue reading

• Fr Jeffrey F Kirby is a Catholic priest of the Diocese of Charleston, South Carolina.

The character Queen Cersei, played by Lena Headley, is to feature in a "nude walk" in season five of the show.

But series producers have had to find a new location for this after they were banned from filming the scene in Croatia's capital Dubrovnik.

The crew's request to film the scenes was rejected due to pressure from Dubrovnik's Catholic Church of St Nicholas, which takes a hard line stance against public nudity, acts of sexuality and "immorality".

According to the website TMZ, the programme-makers have agreed to find an alternative location for the scenes.

Continue reading