3.16.2004
What you could be reading
Here are some of my favorite "Christian" authors because they use fiction to ask questions that most Christian authors are afraid to touch.
John Grisham
The Testament - one man's spiritual journey to find meaning in life
The Chamber - a question of what makes for justice and why we might want to rethink the death penalty because sometimes even when it's done right it's done wrong.
Mary Doria Russell (Catholic Science Fiction)
The Sparrow - A question of what happens when you live by faith and are abandoned by God? How do you react.
The Children of God - Who are Christians? What is Redemption? What excesses are we capable of under the guise of righteous indignation?
Orson Scott Card (Mormon Science Fiction)
The Homecoming Series - A retelling of the book of Nephi from the Book of Mormon with some hard questions on the nature of our free will and God's sovereignty
Maps in a Mirror and other Short Stories - an anthology of some interesting questions about living out our faith in a consistent way
Ender's Game, and all the other books in the series (Xenocide, The Children of the Mind, Ender's Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets) which are about a lot of morality issues. Very good set of books.
Arthur C. Clarke & Gentry Lee (Buddhist Science Fiction)
The Rama Series - you can skip Rama and pick up Rama II, Rama Revealed, Bright Messengers and all the other books in the series. Read them in order and ask yourself the question, is it any wonder people have God all around them and still fail to notice him?
Stephen R. Donaldson (Agnostic fantasy)
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever - this is two sets of trilogies with an anti-hero in the central role and explores the notion of agnosticism in the face of contrary facts.
Reave the Just and other stories - is one of the finest anthologies of Christian themes written by a non-Christian I have ever read. I would recommend as one of the most significant stories in the entire list so far "Penance" in this volume as one of the most significant. It is about a vampire in search of redemption and has more to say about God's grace than anything I have ever read. The last time I read the story, I literally wept at the message it conveyed.
Happy reading.
Here are some of my favorite "Christian" authors because they use fiction to ask questions that most Christian authors are afraid to touch.
John Grisham
The Testament - one man's spiritual journey to find meaning in life
The Chamber - a question of what makes for justice and why we might want to rethink the death penalty because sometimes even when it's done right it's done wrong.
Mary Doria Russell (Catholic Science Fiction)
The Sparrow - A question of what happens when you live by faith and are abandoned by God? How do you react.
The Children of God - Who are Christians? What is Redemption? What excesses are we capable of under the guise of righteous indignation?
Orson Scott Card (Mormon Science Fiction)
The Homecoming Series - A retelling of the book of Nephi from the Book of Mormon with some hard questions on the nature of our free will and God's sovereignty
Maps in a Mirror and other Short Stories - an anthology of some interesting questions about living out our faith in a consistent way
Ender's Game, and all the other books in the series (Xenocide, The Children of the Mind, Ender's Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets) which are about a lot of morality issues. Very good set of books.
Arthur C. Clarke & Gentry Lee (Buddhist Science Fiction)
The Rama Series - you can skip Rama and pick up Rama II, Rama Revealed, Bright Messengers and all the other books in the series. Read them in order and ask yourself the question, is it any wonder people have God all around them and still fail to notice him?
Stephen R. Donaldson (Agnostic fantasy)
The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever - this is two sets of trilogies with an anti-hero in the central role and explores the notion of agnosticism in the face of contrary facts.
Reave the Just and other stories - is one of the finest anthologies of Christian themes written by a non-Christian I have ever read. I would recommend as one of the most significant stories in the entire list so far "Penance" in this volume as one of the most significant. It is about a vampire in search of redemption and has more to say about God's grace than anything I have ever read. The last time I read the story, I literally wept at the message it conveyed.
Happy reading.
