In the lately-renewed controversy surrounding The Shack, two defenses of the book, and now movie, stand out to me. Both are meant to silence theological critiques. “It’s just a story,” runs the first. The second is more varied and a bit harder to sum up, but it turns on how the book makes people feel,…
Category: Religion
Good Friday
A Good Friday Excerpt of Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton The grinding power of the plain words of the Gospel story is like the power of mill-stones; and those who can read them simply enough will feel as if rocks had been rolled upon them. Criticism is only words about words; and of what use…
Tannenbaum
Tannenbaum The lights are laced through the branches of the Christmas tree – the same lights that have adorned our tree for twenty Christmases past. The bulbs are old, thick; they do not sparkle so much as glow deep colors over the evergreen needles. A plastic crown tilts on the reaching topmost branch, a token…
Three Rules for Biblical Novels
It is natural – perhaps even inevitable – that the Bible inspire its own small genre of literature: biblical fiction, novels based on the people and events of the Bible. This idea has always appealed to me, but in reality, such novels have usually left me disappointed. I have read only two biblical novels that…
CSFF Blog Tour: Keep the Salt, Shine the Light
The most outstanding element of Jill Williamson’s Safe Lands Trilogy is its world-building. From the opening pages of Captives, she created two worlds, orbiting no more than a rising mountain apart and yet utterly distinct. In the Safe Lands, all is pleasure and comfort and convenience, greased by the omnipresent wonders of technology. In little…
CSFF Blog Tour: Sabres, Cherubs, and Guardian Angels
During the blog tour of Angel Eyes, I wrote a post considering different aspects of the angels’ portrayals and their foundation in Scripture. Now that Shannon Dittemore has continued her series, I will continue mine. The portrayal of angels may be classified one of three ways: biblical (taught in Scripture), anti-biblical (contradicted by Scripture), and…
Review: A Matter of Basic Principles
I wondered whether posting a review of this book would be a good idea. As much as I appreciated it, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to burden my blog with so heavy and disagreeable a topic as Bill Gothard. A Matter of Basic Principles is worth it, however. When I began to research Gothard’s…
God is Dead
“God is dead.” Who hasn’t heard that? Nietzsche proclaimed it, one of those godless Germans of the nineteenth century who had such impact on the twentieth. I always thought it was triumphalist; they’d crow if they didn’t sneer. So I was surprised when I read Don Veinot quote it in context: God is dead! God…
Violence in the Bible and other Christian books
A little while ago, the discussion on the CSFF blog tour turned to the violence, or lack of it, in Donita Paul’s Dragons of the Valley. Becky LuElla Miller wrote a couple posts about violence in Christian fiction, and particularly fantasy. I’ve decided to throw in a couple thoughts of my own. It can be…
The Pardon of Christmas
Here is a Christmas poem by G. K. Chesterton. Comments at the end. The Pardon of Christmas Roofed in with the snows of December It returns, it is left to us yet —A day: with one day to remember. —A day: with long days to forget. Undeterred, recurring, soft-footed It comes down o’er the world,…