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Actor Chad Allen and I have two things in common: (1) We share the same birthday, and (2) we both like boys. That's right, the man chosen to play the dual role of evangelical missionary Nate Saint and his son Steve Saint in the film "End of the Spear," is gay.

Based on Steve Saint's book of the same name, "End of the Spear" follows five Christian missionaries who make first contact with the Waodani tribe of Ecuador, a society that is thought to be the "most violent that ever existed." The missionaries are slain by the tribesmen, but some of their widows and children, including young Steve, go to live in the Waodani village and befriend the tribe, including the men who killed the missionaries. Steve later becomes a successful businessman in the U.S., only to return with his wife and son to live, again, with the Waodani. He and the man who killed his father, Mincayani, become close friends--an inspiring story of acceptance and forgiveness.

As for Chad Allen's association with the film, Christianity Today reports:

Allen told Christianity Today Movies that he didn't tell "End of the Spear"'s filmmakers about his sexuality until after they had offered him the job in late 2003. The filmmakers also say they didn't know about Allen's lifestyle until after they offered him a contract, but they felt obliged to honor it even though it had not yet been signed.

The explanation is hard to accept; in Hollywood, even a signed contract isn't a guarantee that you will end up on screen. Actors get replaced all the time. Just ask Stuart Townsend ("Nightstalker"), who was replaced by Viggo Mortensen in "The Lord of the Rings" after just four days of filming. But perhaps, being Christians, the producers felt they answer to a power higher than Hollywood legalese and that the right thing to do was honor the contract.

But I'd say that Every Tribe Entertainment, producers of the movie, need to hire new casting directors or at least find a production assistant to do a search of Chad Allen's name on IMDB.com. If they would have done that, they'd have learned that the actor has been featured in The Out Traveler magazine and runs a production company with actor Robert Gant from "Queer as Folk." Just to be clear here, the "out" in Out Traveler doesn't mean Outward Bound, and "Queer as Folk" is all about folks who are, well... you get the point. In fact, Steve Saint himself said in an email to Christianity Today Movies, "I could not imagine how something like this could slip through a professional screening process."

Indeed, Allen is probably the least-closeted celebrity this side of Elton John. Very publically outed in 1996 by "The Globe" tabloid while he was still on "Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman," he has since gone on to pose on the cover of publications such as "The Advocate" and works with charities such as the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, which helps elect gay candidates to political office, and a suicide hotline for gay, lesbian, and bisexual teens. In fact, when I first heard that Allen would be starring in an evangelical Christian film my confusion meter went off the scale. But at the same time, would there be a brouhaha if Allen--who was clearly chosen because he was right for the role--was not gay but also not Christian?

Perhaps Allen, who attends All Saints Church in Pasadena, Calif., should have been more upfront about his homosexuality before he was offered the role. But, again according to Christianity Today, he did offer to “walk away from this—contract or no contract, even if that means I'm liable for breaking the contract."

But then, God does work in mysterious ways, according to Steve Saint himself:

[In a dream I was] being chased by a mob of Christians who were angry with me for having desecrated "their story." The answer to their hostility was easy: Just ask Chad to remove himself. But as quickly as this thought came to me, I found myself standing before God. His look was not as compassionate as I had expected. God said, "Steve, you of all people should know that I love all of my children. With regard to Chad Allen, I went to great lengths to orchestrate an opportunity for him to see what it would be like for him to walk the trail that I marked for him. Why did you mess with my plans for him?"

Saint continues:

Mart [Mart Green, Founder and CEO of Every Tribe Entertainment] has told me that he feels responsible for putting me in a difficult position by hiring Chad.... I don't think this is Mart's doing. God planned the death of his own Son. I believe he planned the death of my dad and his four dear friends. Now, I believe God is at work again. I don't pretend to know what God is going to do with this controversy, but I am confident that he is behind this.

Perhaps God knows that one good story of forgiveness and acceptance should beget another. Or maybe He just knows there's no such thing as bad publicity.

John Lennon declared the Beatles to be bigger than Jesus Christ, but at least they didn’t try to be Jesus Christ.

Kanye West, the multi-platinum selling rap artist and outspoken celebrity who criticized President Bush's Katrina relief efforts last year, will grace the upcoming cover of Rolling Stone as Jesus Christ, complete with a crown of thorns atop his head--ensuring that he'll be drumming up plenty of controversy in 2006.

To be fair to West, he's not the first rapper to play God, in the person of his Son, Jesus. In 1999, Nas stirred up quite a bit of controversy playing a "Christ-like" figure who is crucified and stoned in his video for "Hate Me Now." Mentor, producer, and collaborator Sean "Puffy/P. Diddy/Diddy" Combs is also shown being crucified. Apparently, Combs had second thoughts about his inclusion, the video was re-edited to remove the image--but the wrong version aired on MTV's Total Request Live. Within minutes of the broadcast, Combs reportedly barged into the offices of Nas's manager and beat him about the head with a champagne bottle. So much for turning the other cheek.

And on the cover of his posthumous release "Makaveli," 2Pac (Tupac) Shakur is seen crucified like Jesus Christ, adding to conspiracy theorist speculation that the rapper isn't actually dead.

But Kanye West's Mel Gibson-like devotion doesn’t stop with his coverboy imitatio Christi. West, whose hit single “Jesus Walks” was prominently played in the “Jarhead” trailer, has a reproduction of the Sistine Chapel ceiling in his dining room, and has--with the help of Jacob the Jeweler, jeweler to the stars--designed a line of jewelry featuring diamond encrusted Jesus heads.

Still, West does his bit for ecumenicism, also posing for Rolling Stone as boxer Muhammad Ali, the world-famous convert to Islam.

Just past the two-hour mark in Terrence Malick's "The New World," a character named Opechancanough--one of the "naturals," as the film calls Native Americans--tells Rebecca, known as Pocahontas before her baptism, that he is being sent to England to "meet this God they talk about so much."

The irony of this statement is twofold: (1) There is very little actual dialogue in the first two hours of the movie, and (2) a small fraction of that dialogue is given over to talking about God. Which left me scratching my head over Opechancanough's rather humorous comment.

At this point, I must disclose that I am not a real fan of Malick's style. A philosophy student at both Harvard and Oxford, who later taught philosophy and translated Martin Heidegger's works, Malick's films are slower than expected, more sensitive to the voices within and without, and tend to dote on questions about nature and the place that humans make for themselves in it. Some find this liberating, others find it laborious. In this case, I felt like I was watching a Nature Channel special on the ecosystem of the Chesapeake Bay, blended with a continuous loop of Calvin Klein "Obsession" commercials--lots of shots of people strolling through tall grass, asking esoteric questions.

Using the star-crossed relationship of John Smith (Colin Farrell) and Pocahontas (Q'orianka Kilcher) to illuminate the conflicts between the "civilized" white settlers of Jamestown and the "natural" people whom they believed they found in a new Eden, the movie is typical Terrence Malick--deliberate pacing, some might say plodding, with an intense focus on the natural world.

Apart from that reference to Eden, which was made by Governer Christopher Newport (Christopher Plummer), along with a scene where Smith wonders aloud if he has gone against God's wishes in loving Pochantas, the most obvious reference in "The New World" to the Christian God is the giant cross looming above the English fort, the same cross the "naturals" seemed to be trying to knock down earlier in the film. However, only a few times in the film do we get a glimpse at the role religion might have actually played in the Jamestown colony, such as when Captain Edward Wingfield (David Thewlis) strips Smith of his command based on a chapter from Leviticus and when Pocahontas is baptized and given the name Rebecca.

We see a bit more of the Native Americans' spiritual lives--dances, sun salutations, prayer, and other rituals--but they are never explained in any detail. I understand that Malick intends for the audience to experience things just as Smith did, confused, scared, awed, and not clued in to what is happening, but it would have added to my experience and enjoyment of the movie if Malick had offered a few more clues to orient us.

And yet, a few days removed from seeing the film, I realize "The New World" is imbued with spiritul and religious notes that never quite took form for me while actually watching it. I can appreciate, if not completely agree with, Malick's somewhat over-simplified sentiments about the purity and superiority of the Algonquin's spiritual lives as compared to that of the English settlers; perhaps I was just expecting more spirituality and faith from a movie set in the 17th century, an era in which settlements came to be known "as plantations of religion." Perhaps, though, it just takes a few days back in the real world to really appreciate "The New World."

It seems that Britney Spears is still following in the spiritual footsteps of her mentor Madonna. Having been introduced to Kabbalah by the Material Mom, the former Baptist was soon seen wearing a red string around her wrist and toting a 900-year-old copy of the Zohar, gifted to her by Mrs. Ritchie. Now it seems that Britney is taking another page out of Madonna's spiritual play book by taking her four-month-old son Sean to a Hindu Temple in Malibu to be blessed. Britney even emerged from the temple sporting a bindi, the traditional red dot Hindu women wear on their foreheads. (For those of you not in the know, or who have better things to do with your time, Madonna dabbled with Hinduism around the time she made her "Ray of Light" album, dressing a la Shiva at the 1998 MTV Video Awards.)

It seems that Britney must be reading more than just fairytales to little Sean, seeing as just a few years ago she wasn't quite sure what Hinduism was. Speaking to Newsweek about South Asian musical influences on her 2003 release "In the Zone," Spears said that she had “been into a lot of Indian spiritual religions.” Asked if one of the religions was Hinduism, she answered, “What’s that? Is it like Kabbalah?”

Queen Latifah made me cry. I wouldn't normally admit that I teared up during a heartwarming, inspirational romantic comedy, but I'm willing to go on the record so that others might not pass up "Last Holiday, "a remake of the 1950 movie of the same name. In it, Queen Latifah plays Georgia Byrd, a demure, church-going New Orleans department store worker, who decides to travel to Europe and pursue her dreams of staying in a grand hotel and eating foods prepared by a world famous chef after being told she has only three weeks to live. Once in Europe, Georgia's new-found passion for life leads to a comical case of mistaken identity and some truly hysterical scenes in the hotel spa.

While not exactly ground-breaking storytelling--and there's a somewhat distracting political subplot--the laughs are plentiful, the scenery fantastic, and it's great to see Timothy Hutton and Gerard Depardieu back on the big screen. As a general rule, I try to avoid anything that could be labeled "inspirational," but Queen Latifah's energy embodied the reinvigorated Georgia Byrd so perfectly that I couldn't help but get caught up in the tale and get a bit verklempt at the appropriate moments. Georgia's story speaks to everyone who has ever postponed chasing their dreams, and that's probably a good 99% of the population.

When interviewing Queen Latifah about the film and her own spiritual journey, I admitted that, although my usually-stony media-maven self shies away from movies that are heartwarming, she replied,"Get your 'heartwarm' on, girl!" (You can read the interview here.) So to all of you looking for an enjoyable--and, yes, inspirational--film to watch this weekend, go and get your "heartwarm" on with "Last Holiday."

MSNBC.com's Scoop breaks the news States-side that Gwyneth Paltrow is demanding "proof" that her newly-renovated London home is haunted. According to London's Daily Mail, Ms. Paltrow feels that her current pregnancy is not going as easily as her last one...