A Spark Fires in the Void

I make my morning cup of tea, sit down at the table, and open my laptop—completely mundane acts on an entirely ordinary day.

A document file opened…a blinking cursor waiting for me to push it forward across the page…a keyboard waiting for my fingers to move.

And as they move, a spark fires in the void. A light appears in the distance—faintly, only barely visible at first, but glowing brighter, stronger. Following its rise from the darkness comes a world, solid and strong, with shape and texture and jagged edges. The building light solidifies into a blazing sun that breathes down onto the raw earth and fills it with color, life, growing things.

A fire burns in my chest and spreads, first to my shoulders, then down my arms, into my hands and fingers as they move faster and faster across the keyboard. I close my eyes, and I am there, standing in the midst of my created world, creating by the power of my will and imagination. In this world I am transcendent, unbound by finite size or capabilities. One moment I trace my finger in the sand of the beach and sketch a line across the miles, over mountain ranges and plains, outlining the borders of kingdoms and countries. The next moment I stand, tiny and insignificant, dwarfed by the towering columns, vaulted ceilings, arches, and domes of the palace that rises from the ground around me in response to my slowly lifting hands. At a wave of my arm, frescoes blossom to life across the ceiling and walls and stained glass materializes to glow in window settings. As I step forward, the bare earth beneath my feet turns to a marble floor, spreading outward like ripples in the water to merge with the walls.

Music pounds from all around me, from within me, from the very fibers of the world. I turn, and find that I am not alone. A crowd of people stands staring at me, waiting for me. Although they stand at many different distances from me, one man stands prominently in the foreground, watching me with a listless but expectant stare.

I place one hand lightly against his chest and exhale. His chest expands as he breathes in my breath, and the listlessness vanishes from his eyes, replaced by burning energy as we move in unison to take each other’s hands. We begin to move in time to the music, but tentatively at first, shy and uncertain. Then the music grown deeper, louder, more powerful, and we draw each other closer, moving now with confidence and nearly telepathic synchrony. Though no words are exchanged, I know his thoughts, his heart, his feelings. His desires resonate with me as clearly as my own. I feel his pain in my own being and look up at his face to see the tears that I feel falling from my own eyes.

I reach up to wipe them away, but before my fingers reach his face he takes me by surprise by spinning me away from him, twirling me under his arm and back to face him again, this time to see the tears gone and his eyes blazing with triumph and all-consuming joy. I try to move into a different set of steps, struggling to understand, but he tightens his arm around me and his grasp on my hand, and pulls me in a different direction, into a pattern I wasn’t expecting, and there is nothing I can do to get away.

The dance intensifies, growing faster and faster, and I am left with no choice but to stop fighting and surrender to the movement, and as I do I find myself lost in a pattern more complex than any I imagined before. A mosaic takes shape on the floor beneath me, and with every step of the dance, every twirl and spin, every moment of eye contact, more pieces materialize in the air and fall into place. I stare wide-eyed, struggling to miss nothing as thoughts, memories, emotions, loves, and fears, none of them my own, flicker to life in the air around me and become part of me. I care about them as much as I care about my own, about this man as much as I care about myself.

And then the music fades to a close and he stops in front of me, still holding my hands and looking into my eyes, this time with a wordless request. With my returned gaze I give my promise to grant his plea, and now it is my mission: to tell his story, to show the world the losses he has suffered, the destiny that has called him, the pain and scars of his battles, the joy of his victories, and the dreams of his future.

He walks away, out into the vast world that I have created but not yet explored, and I stare after him with mixed emotions, knowing that for now he will be close by, that there are many more dances to come…but knowing with just as much certainty that someday I will have to say goodbye, to let go of his hand and watch him walk away forever, to then turn my back and step out of his world, when his story is completed. Destiny will call me to create another, different world, just as it will call him to leave me behind and step into someone else’s world—someone who might break his heart, or fail to see the beautiful soul that I have seen in him—or, then again, into the world of someone who might be searching for him even now, someone who needs him even more than I do. It is that thought that gives me the courage to stay here in this world, to dance with the next person to approach me from the crowd, to fall in love with all of them even though I know I will have to let them go one day. This is my sacrifice, my gift to the ones who do not have my gift to create worlds and breathe life into souls.

Is this how it felt to God when He created a world, breathed life into its people, knew from the beginning their faults and fears, foresaw the day that they would turn their backs and walk away, watched His Son fall in love with them, knowing they would break His heart? Am I sharing the feelings of Elohim the Creator in a way that other people can’t? Are the emotions I feel at the keyboard a communion with God that others never experience? Are the loss, the pain, the heartbreak, gifts? Rare, precious windows into a chamber of God’s soul that those who have never created a world and fallen in love with it have never had the chance to look through? Do writers understand their God in a way that others never could?

In writing, creating, directing the lives of our characters and yet being able to watch them make decisions for themselves whether those decisions ultimately bring them joy or pain, always being there even though the characters don’t see us, feeling every bit of their pain with them, weeping as they weep and question destiny or fate, because we see the happy ending that they can’t, but cannot show it to them, only promise them that it is there; silently asking them to trust us with their hearts, their dreams, their lives, knowing that for some that trust will be rewarded with “happily ever after,” while others will not even live to see the end of the story.

It leads me to fear the mind of God, to see it equally as a place of terrible beauty and unfathomable pain, and yet to write only draws me deeper. The pain can be shattering, and the joy every bit as destructive in its intensity. The beauty of my characters’ souls, and the independent life they take upon themselves, show me how completely unworthy I am to be in this place of control. It sends me running to the feet of the One whose control over my life I no longer fear because I have felt His pain. I have tasted the bitterness of allowing suffering in the life of someone I created, and it makes me want to lift my head even through the worst of the pain and tell Him, “It’s okay—I know You feel my pain as much as I do. I don’t hold it against You. I know You have Your reasons, even if I don’t see them now, and I still trust You.”

We talk about the writing life as if it’s all a carousel of coffee, chocolate, rejection letters, writer’s block, and inspired all-nighters, and we joke about having a “socially acceptable form of schizophrenia” like it’s no big deal. And yes, sometimes it’s good to keep it light to keep from going crazy. But the truth is that there’s much more to it than that.

The moment of creation, the dance with a stranger that sparks a bond as deep as a soul, the anguish, the piercing joy…

These are what it’s like to be a writer.

Does Survivor's Gay Christian Couple Represent Christianity Well?

So, if you watched the twenty-ninth season finale of Survivor, you are no doubt well aware that a lot of conflicting feelings and opinions have been set off by two of the contestants featured in the show: the professedly Christian, openly gay couple, Josh and Reed.

Now, my purpose here is not to debate the issue of homosexuality itself. There are a library's worth of videos and blog posts and articles and books that have already been written from every angle of that subject, and I can pretty well guarantee I have nothing original to contribute in that arena. What I am far more interested in discussing are the statements made by a young lady apparently picked at random out of the live audience at the filming of the finale.
Referring to Josh's and Reed's conduct during the filming of the show, and the encouragement and inspiration that they seem to be providing for others of similar persuasion, this young lady in the audience said she believed that these men "represented our faith really well". (Referring, of course, to Christianity.)
The question that I would like to explore is simply: Do Josh and Reed actually represent the Christian faith well?
The simple answer depends on what we take this young lady's statement to mean.
If she means that Josh and Reed are accurate representatives of the condition and mindset of most professing Christians and Christian churches in our modern world, then I believe she is completely correct. I'll explain why in just a minute.
On the other hand, if we take her statement to mean that Josh and Reed accurately embody the essence of what Christianity is supposed to be (and, based on her later statement that "love is love at the end of the day," I do believe that this interpretation is what she intended), then the answer to my question is a resounding "No," and this is the side of the question that I'm going to discuss first.
From Reed's statement, spoken during the finale, that a person "can follow Jesus and still be gay," we can with some measure of confidence deduce that he's not just using the term "Christianity" in the vague generic sense that people sometimes use simply as a way of saying "I'm not a Jew, a Muslim, or a Buddhist." I feel confident in saying that he is referring to actual, Christ-based Christianity, and this is an important fact to establish, as it provides us with a solid foundation from which to critique Reed's professions (words) versus his lifestyle (actions). (And by the way, the reason I seem to be focusing more on Reed is simply that he is the one who made the specific statement that I am critiquing at the moment.)
So let's begin our critique with a quick series of logical deductions:
Reed professes to be a follower of Jesus.
If he lives his life as a follower of Jesus, he obviously must believe and agree with the things that Jesus said.
Jesus claimed to be God (John 10:30, John 14:9-11), therefore if Reed is consistent he believes that Jesus is God.
If Jesus is God, the entire Bible is His word--not just the part printed in red ink. (2 Timothy 3:16)
If Jesus is God and the entire Bible is His word, then the statements made in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, wherein homosexuality is labeled "an abomination", are Jesus' own statements (defeating the common argument that "Jesus didn't actually didn't say anything about homosexuality").
The conclusion we must draw from this is that Jesus opposes homosexuality and intends for sexual intimacy to be confined to one man and one woman within marriage (Matthew 19:4-5).
Therefore, while Josh and Reed may have represented Christianity well in some areas such as their honesty, attitudes, and kindness throughout this season of Survivor, the simple fact is that their lifestyle does not represent what Jesus desires and expects the lives of His followers to look like in the area of sexual behavior.
Does this mean they're horrible people? No. Does it mean they're not truly Christians in the sense of being genuinely born again? Not necessarily, although that is certainly on the table as a worst-case scenario and personally I would be very concerned by such an extreme discrepancy between their professed beliefs and their lifestyle. However, at the other end of the table we have a best-case scenario, which is that they are both true born-again Christians who have merely slipped into a grievous inconsistency and need to turn away from it into a lifestyle and sexuality that are in line with the teachings of Christ.
Now: you can scream, rant, argue, yell at me, call me close-minded, whatever you want. The simple fact is that, like it or not, that is what the Bible says. And as I said, my point isn't to debate the issue of homosexuality itself. I am more interested in discussing the implications of the suggestion that Josh and Reed represent Christianity well, and this brings us back to the question: "Do Josh and Reed accurately represent the state of affairs as a whole in Christianity today?" and my answer to that was "Yes."
Here's why: Granting Josh and Reed the benefit of any and all doubts and assuming that they truly are Christians, they are nevertheless living in a way that is wildly inconsistent with what Christianity actually teaches. And this is a characteristic that has become all too common. If I had to choose two words to describe Christianity in twenty-first century America, the first would be "lukewarm," and the second would be "inconsistent". (I include both and put them in that order because I believe that the first one is what allows the second one, but that is a separate discussion for another time.)
And I'm not just talking about inconsistency as it pertains to homosexuality, although I do see a lot of that as well. Even many heterosexuals are becoming passive about the issue, brushing it off as "not that big of a deal".
But the problem is far more widespread than that. American Christianity is riddled with inconsistencies in many forms.
Gap theory, Day Age theory, Framework Hypothesis, Theistic Evolution, and any other attempt to "merge" or "blend" the Genesis account of creation with the secular concept of evolution is an inconsistency.
Professing the desire to "train up a child in the way he should go" (Proverbs 22:6) and then sending him off to be educated instead by the public school system, an institution built on the tenets of secular humanism, is an inconsistency.
Compromising on the Bible's clearly laid-out principles in order to avoid seeming "close-minded" to the world is an inconsistency.
Claiming to be a Christian while abusing drugs or alcohol, cheating on taxes, telling a "little white lie", taking advantage of others for personal gain...all of these are inconsistencies.
In light of this image, Survivor's gay Christian couple, Josh and Reed, seem fitting poster children, and in this sense that young lady from the audience was exactly right: they do represent our faith well in the sense of encapsulating what Christianity looks like in America today.
But they do not represent what Christianity should be, what Jesus desires and expects it to be. Those two images are still very far apart. And the way to close that gap is not by meeting in the middle--after all, Jesus did not believe in neutral ground (Matthew 12:30).
The way to close the gap is to realize the inconsistencies that we have allowed into our lives, acknowledge them for what they are, seek God's forgiveness, commit before God and our Christian family to annihilate them, and with the help of God set out to bring every single aspect of our lives, no matter how seemingly small or insignificant or mundane, into submission and alignment with what Jesus intends and desires from His followers. Remember, He said "If you love me, keep My commandments." (John 14:15)

Proclaiming the Original "New Feminism"

Mainstream Western culture has been spewing its feminist mantra of gender equality, abortion on demand, cessation of discrimination, and women's liberation from degrading practices such as marriage, motherhood, etc., for generations now. To anyone who's been observing the cultural trends - couples having children only to turn them over to be raised by daycare workers and schoolteachers, rampant teen and/or out-of-wedlock pregnancies, annual abortion rates sustained in the thousands, and the overwhelming pressure on girls to find fulfillment not in being wives and mothers but in being career women - it would appear that the FemiNazi movement (to borrow the words of Rush Limbaugh) has established a pretty solid foothold.
Lately, though, I've been seeing signs that maybe feminism's foothold isn't quite as solid as the feminists have hoped, that maybe their runaway campaign is losing some of its steam. It's got me hopeful that maybe we're not quite finished and down for the count yet. Maybe we still have the juice for another upswing in the cycle.
What's the giveaway?
It's called "New Feminism". Here's a very basic rundown of the idea:
Many professing feminists are beginning to discover that they actually gain a greater sense of emotional, spiritual, and physical fulfillment from being homemakers and even stay-at-home moms than they do from being professional, career women. Some are putting forward the idea that the physical differences between men and women are connected to a difference in the roles in society and family life that they are each best suited to fill.
Wikipedia's article on New Feminism has this to say:

In order for men and women to be truly free, New Feminists assert that they must act in accordance with the way they are psychologically and emotionally structured to be as sexed human persons. Philosophy and Religion, then, are essential components in the search for how men and women should and ought to act for "a higher truth or good", not just how they want or can act. New Feminists assert that people must remember God and purpose to recognize that life, in some way, is a gift and not a mere thing which a person can claim as his or her exclusive property.

And...

New Feminists claim that other feminisms are preoccupied with "power", domination and positions of visible "authority" and claim that those are as masculine and faulty. Dismayed by what they see as the bitterness, hatred, or retribution of many feminists against men or other women for current or past injustices, they argue that men and women should cooperate with one another in interpersonal communion. This means giving of themselves in mutual service and love.

Now, there are some flaws in this secular interpretation of the ideology, naturally. But at its core, its structure is remarkably similar to the way the Bible outlines the separate and distinct roles of men and women.
Initially upon hearing things like the above article, I am sorely tempted to gasp and exclaim, wide-eyed, something dripping with snark and sarcasm such as "What?! No, it can't be! Who would ever have thought this?! Well, I mean, who other than the untold thousands of stay-at-home wives and moms out there who've been saying it for years, right? Other than those kooky fringe people, who would have thought it?"
Sarcasm aside, though, I think there's a different approach that Christians need to be taking to this.
In this particular case, there's really no getting around the "told-you-so" factor, whether we're being sarcastic about it or not. If we're going to engage people in conversation about this at all, we're going to have to, at the very least, acknowledge the fact that conservative Christians have been telling people to live this way all along.
But, rather than be snarky about it, I propose we use it to present and uphold the validity of scripture and God's outline for living. Because the fact is, the Bible has been saying this from the very beginning. It presents a blueprint for meaningful, cooperative, peaceful, and selfless living that sounds remarkably like this seemingly "new" discovery of a more fulfilling way of life.
Let me ask a question: How many of us have heard the argument that "the Bible may have been relevant for a certain time period, or a particular culture, but its ideas don't work in a modern society or with our culture"? Sadly, even many Christians have discounted parts of scripture because they don't believe that those parts are still "relevant".
But, to quote pastor and writer Scott Brown, "God's ways are trans-cultural. They transcend culture." What these "New Feminists" are actually discovering, whether they realize it or not, is that God's ways still work. They're still relevant, even today, even in modern "post-Christian" culture.
This is an incredible opportunity for Christians to present the gospel to people who may have been completely closed off to it before. If the Bible is right about the best way to find fulfillment and contentment in your life, even millenia after being written, might it not be worth listening to in other areas of life as well? Might we not consider giving it a bit more credence, rather than simply writing it off as outdated mythology?
If we can engage people in conversation about this topic, we will have an opportunity to open the scriptures to them, counting on God's promise that His word will not return void. As the culture shifts and we are able to once again discuss an idea like that of women staying at home without automatically being written off as fringe lunatics, those of us who are keeping head up and eyes open will, I believe, find abundant opportunities to give account of the hope that is in us.
Yes, it can be terribly infuriating, like a cliche scenario out of a sitcom - one character offers an idea to the other, who mocks it and declares that it will never work, but a moment later comes back and presents Character 1's idea as his own. Traditional Feminism couldn't offer what women were truly searching for, so when women found their desires answered somewhere else, Feminism had to sweep in and take the credit for it by changing their tune and touting it as a "new discovery". It's far easier than taking their medicine and admitting that they were wrong.
The secular world is still going to have the instinctive desire to reject God's word, because they are lost. The notion of their "new discovery" being borrowed from the Bible is going to be very offensive to them. That's just the way the cookie crumbles.
But that doesn't change the truth of it, or change what we have to do as Christians. We must take advantage of this opportunity to help people understand that every real truth comes from God. The Bible has the answers - and it's had them for a lot longer than the feminist movement has been around. What is considered a "revolutionary idea" in secular culture is old news to those who believe the Bible.
So, should you happen to come upon a discussion on the topic of New Feminism, I hope you'll graciously weigh in with a bit of Biblical truth on what is, essentially, the same subject... the only difference being that ours is the original version. ; )

Race isn't an issue - so stop making it one!

After all we've been through here in the United States, you'd think we could safely consider ourselves past the issue of 'race'. Unfortunately for all involved, however, it seems we just can't manage to let go.
A few weeks ago I saw part of a televised interview featuring a lovely young actress who, though I personally haven't seen any of her performances to know, has apparently met with a good bit of success in Hollywood. The woman hosting the interview asked this young lady to share with the audience what it was like having achieved this kind of success in spite of the challenges presented by her being "black and a woman". The actress responded with a long discourse on other women who have overcome these or similar obstacles before her, and how much their courage inspired her.
I was floored.
Don't get me wrong: I am painfully aware that there are still people who maintain strong racial hostilities. They are out there, and I'm not under any delusions about that. But honestly, can't we admit that an interview question like that is severely outdated? It isn't as if this young lady is the first female to really become successful in the movie industry, and it isn't as if she's the first dark-skinned person to become successful in the movie industry either. I'm not trying to downplay her success, but if pop culture is really so concerned with eliminating the 'race issue', then why in the world don't they let it go?

Of course, as annoying as instances like I just described are, I suppose it can be expected from the secular world. When your cushy western lifestyle takes care of all your needs and wants for you, I guess you have to find something you can still fret about.
What is completely inexcusable, though, is the racial segregation still taking place within Christianity. I'm not talking about the "Whites on one side, blacks on the other!" kind of segregation. I'm talking about Christians behaving as if so-called "white" and "black" are any different at all, period.
As many of you know, I am signed up with several different Christian publishing houses as an Advance Reader. They send me new releases, I read them, and then review them online. Recently I was scanning the Available Books list of a large and well-known Christian publishing house when I came across a book geared towards single mothers, offering advice on how to raise "a successful black man".
And last week, I was in a Christian book store and saw another title offering financial advice "for the African-American family".
The question I just have to ask is this: if we don't want race to be an issue, why are we still treating people of different colors as if they're different in any other way? Why should your skin color have any affect on the way you raise your children or manage your finances any more than your hair color does? God's laws, principles, and instructions are absolute, all-inclusive, and, last I checked, don't come with skin color-specific caveats.
Now, I don't want to be one of those platitudinous people who assume expressions reminiscent of Renaissance martyrs and proclaim that "I don't see color when I look at people!". When I look at you I do see the color of your skin, just like I see the color of your hair and your eyes, whether you're male or female, whether you're tall or short, etc. Your skin color is part of what makes you a unique individual. I just don't happen to believe that it's what makes you like or unlike me, because as a Christian I know that we're all of one race and one blood.
Acts 17:26 says "From one man He (God) created all the nations throughout the whole earth..."
Every human alive on the planet is descended from Adam and Eve - all of the DNA code for every genetic trait there is was present in their bodies when they were created. Jesus Christ didn't have to die on the cross as a black person and then again as a white person and then yet again as an Asian person, He died as a human, and that covered everybody!
The secular culture tries to put everybody in a box of one kind or another, and their packaging system defies the imagination with its boxes-within-boxes and boxes-linked-to-other-boxes. I get so tired of surveys, job applications, and other official forms demanding that I assign myself to one of their many "race" boxes. When "Other" is given as an option, I check it and write in "Human". When that isn't an option, I'm rather stuck. According to their perspective, I'm a mix of two different 'races', but I'm not going to denounce one whole side of my family just to fit into one of their pre-made boxes, so what exactly do they expect me to do? And if they're the ones making such a noise over how much race doesn't matter, why are they so insistent to know what my "race" is, anyway? It's a system that just doesn't work except to keep non-issues alive and festering needlessly.
We as Christians should be leading the fight to make race truly a non-issue. And I don't mean getting all warm-and-fuzzified over someone who 'overcomes' their race to be a success. I mean really, truly, believing and showing others that there is only one physical race. The only race-like distinction that the Bible makes is between the two spiritual races of Believers and Unbelievers - no division according to skin color.
This isn't an issue that Christians talk about very much, at least not in a Biblical context. I've talked to Christians who have never stopped and taken the time to think about what the Bible actually says on the topic. Tragically, I've talked to professing Christians who harbor strong racial prejudices. Both situations sadden me greatly. Living in a culture that's constantly spewing humanist blather on the subject, it can be difficult to step back, take a breath, and prayerfully seek out God's answers. Believe me, I know. I struggle with it too. But we have got to find our feet, step up, and take a stand on this. The Bible offers the only solid answer to the question of why racism is wrong in the first place. All anyone else can come up with is a lot of warm-fuzzy jargon that doesn't even make sense within the context of humanist ideology.
We have the answer to the race question. Let's not waste it.

The Value of Christian Book Reviews

Does your opinion matter?

It's one of the easiest things in the world to do - write a review of a book you've read, and with just a few clicks of the mouse and a bit of Copy and Paste, you can post it to any or all of a dozen consumer or literary websites for all the world to see.
But does your review, all by itself, make a whit of difference amid the buzz and glare of the internet? What if you're the 100th... or even the 1000th person to review a book? Will anyone ever read your review? Will they care? Will your review have any effect at all on their buying or reading decision?
It's a multi-faceted question with a multi-faceted answer. I'm going to share my thoughts and observations on the subject in what I hope will be a helpful fashion.
As a volunteer reviewer for several different publishing houses, and an avid all-around reader, I have a lot of books pass through my hands, I read a lot of reviews, and I post a lot of reviews. On a few occasions I've been the first one (presumably in the world) to post a Barnes&Noble, Amazon, or CBD review of a particular title after its release. In cases like that, it's pretty safe to assume that my review will be read and that it will have a hand in someone's buying or reading decision. But there have been times when I was that 20th or 70th or 100th person to post a review, too, and in those cases the odds aren't as good. So does it still matter?
My personal opinion is 'Yes', and here's why:
Every individual is just that: an individual, with a unique sense of perception - a unique lens through which they view the world and everything in it. So, while the Christian community as a whole may see the same general flaws or virtues in a particular title, the individuals within that community will have unique opinions on the details surrounding those virtues or flaws. And, while each of us is unique, there will always be someone out there who has a perspective similar to ours, and those are the people who will benefit most from an honest, specific, and detailed review of a book.
We've all seen the whooping, giddy, rave reviews that say absolutely nothing specific about the book itself, just about how much they loved it. (I'll be honest and confess that I've written a few - only a few, mind you - of those myself. *cringes* Sorry.) And we've all seen the enraged (usually profanity-laced) reviews that say only how much the reviewer hated the book, and nothing at all about the details of why.
Those reviews are not helpful.
Most of us don't have unlimited book-buying funds, and can't afford to spend precious book money on dreck, so we depend on detailed, specific, and well-thought-out reviews to make our buying and reading decisions. So the first step in making sure your book review matters is to make it a review worth reading.
Be specific. Give details about scenes or characters or concepts that appealed to you - or that turned you off. Explain your reasons. This can be difficult to carry off without including spoilers (something you do not want to do) and might take a little practice to get the hang of, but it can be done. Saying a book was awful doesn't mean a whole lot. Saying that a book contains language, gory violence, or illicit sex is helpful. Saying a book is wonderful doesn't mean much. Saying that a book contained a beautiful message of heroism and sacrifice and exciting action and great character development is helpful.
Be generous with star ratings. And I mean generous in both directions. I've heard many people insist that that magical fifth star should be saved only for the best, the greatest, the book with which you could find absolutely no fault. Or that the one-star review should be reserved only for the vilest, most treasonous, blasphemous filth under Heaven. The trouble with that approach is that, if you avoid the extremes, you're left in the middle. Reviews in the middle generally don't get read. Sites like Amazon provide a list of the five-star reviews, and a list of the one-star reviews. No list of three-star reviews. Readers want to know why other readers loved or hated a book, not why they were rather indifferent. I'm not saying you should give a book a one-star rating just because it failed to thrill you, or that you should give it five stars just because there was nothing obscenely wrong with it. Some books are just mediocre, plain and simple, and deserve a mediocre review. But if a book genuinely delighted you, why not give it five stars? And, since most of us probably try to avoid reading vile, treasonous, blasphemous filth entirely, we need some other landmark for the low end of our opinions. So if a book made you angry, or offended you (even without being vile, etc.), go ahead and give it that one-star rating if you feel that's what it deserves.
Don't be afraid to judge a secular book on a Christian scale. This one is touchy, and I can just see people winding themselves up to pounce on me for saying it. I am not saying that we should expect a secular book or author to conform to Christian standards. Why on Earth would or should they? But remember what I said earlier about viewing the world through your own lens. As a Christian reader, you're writing reviews for the benefit of other Christian readers. If a book contains something that might be offensive to another Christian, say so.
Don't be afraid to stand alone in your opinion. It might be just what someone else needs to hear. Anyone who knows me knows that I relish going against the flow (comes from too much Wallace ancestry, I guess). But even so, when a book's page on the consumer website boasts 70+ reviews averaging four-and-a-half or five stars, and you're sitting at your desk preparing to post your one-star review, it can be a little unnerving. You almost have to wonder "Is it just me? Am I just looking at this in the wrong way? Was I just in a bad mood when I read this book?" and it can be tempting to 'tweak' your review - just a little.
Certainly you don't want to be unkind or rude in your review. But if you have solid, definable reasons for disliking a book, then don't be afraid to stand up and dislike it for all you're worth. I can think of two particular instances in which I vehemently disliked a book, but was starkly alone in my opinion. In one of those instances, I posted a very indignant one-star review on a webpage beside over 70 five-star reviews. It was a 'Christian' book being praised by scores of Christian readers, and needless to say I felt a bit like a duck in a hen house. But I had solid, biblical reasons for disliking it, so I posted the review anyway. 
In the other instance, I was part of a ladies' discussion group and had some very serious issues with the book we were reading through. Again, it was a Christian book by a Christian author, but I strongly disagreed with many of the assertions and ideas it contained, and I said so openly to the group. Most of them brushed me off or tried to explain to me how and why I was wrong. It was only weeks later, after we had finished the book, that one of the ladies thanked me for expressing my opinion so strongly. Come to find out, it had encouraged her to look more critically at the book's content, to rethink and weigh it carefully rather than taking it at face value. It made me realize that many times, we as Christians see a 'Christian' book by a Christian author, so we drop our guard and assume that the content must be biblical and agreeable. 'Speak Friend and enter,' as it were.
So if your review of a book is rational, well-thought-out, and biblically founded, don't be afraid to stand out and voice your opinion.
Reviewing old books is okay, too. The hottest new releases are the ones getting most of the attention, but the old books (whether old means a year old or a hundred years old) still get read, and readers still like being able to hear other people's opinions of them. I've had many people find my book review blog not because they were looking for a Christian book review blog to follow, but because they were looking for a review of a specific book - most of the time an older one. Old books need reviews too.

Book reviews are extremely important to maintaining balance in the literary world. I know that sounds lofty, but in a lot of ways, it is. Your perspective is important, and your opinion does matter.

Your thoughts?

A Call for Christian Writers to be Bold with Their Message

I have a love/hate relationship with the TRON movie series.
I saw the original (1982) TRON and loved it. The thing about it that most impressed me was the scene where a bunch of characters (characters in this case being computer programs) are debating whether the Users (the humans who wrote them) exist or not. Users are viewed as gods of a sort, since they are the ones who created the programs and established the rules programs are supposed to follow. Some programs, however, have decided the Users don't really exist, or that they're just tyrants out to enslave everyone. So it's almost like an allegorical theist versus atheist debate.
At one point one of the programs is asked whether he believes in the Users or not.
"Of course I do," he replies. "If I don't have a User, then who wrote me?"
And at that point I'm ready to jump out of my seat and cheer. Yes! There! It's right there in front of you, people! You've got it!
And, over the course of the movie, it is established that the programs who believe in and obey the Users were right all along. What a message - and in a secular movie, no less!

Then I saw the 2010 sequel, TRON: Legacy. And while I give it very high marks for amazing graphics, great action scenes, wonderful characters, and a killer good soundtrack, I must admit I was disappointed in the moral of the story.
In Legacy, the rebellion against the Users is still going strong and gaining strength and momentum as the programs strive for a perfect computer system. Unfortunately their perception and understanding of perfection is skewed, and their pursuit of it results in violence, chaos, and oppression.
Into this mess walk the Isos, a type or 'race' of programs who are, essentially, perfect. But because the other programs' idea of perfection is inaccurate, they see the Isos as an imperfection and proceed to wipe them out in a digital version of the Holocaust.
When the main character learns about the existence of the Iso programs, he asks his father about them, wanting to know who wrote them.
His father's response is "No one wrote them. The conditions were right, and they just came into being."
Splat! A bucket of cold water, dumped on all my high hopes for more of the same great message as the prequel. We go from the 'creation must have a creator' message to 'things can just pop into existence all on their own, and look! they turn out better than the things that did have a creator!'
As my friend LoriAnn occasionally puts it: *head-desk, head-desk, head-desk*

I know, my hopes were probably a bit too high, but I was still disappointed... or perhaps infuriated would be a better word.
But in a way, that's good. Answers in Genesis founder Ken Ham talks about visiting secular museums that promote the theory of evolution as being bad for him because it makes him furious, but good for him because it makes him even more bold in proclaiming the message of creation and the Gospel.
That's how I feel when I see things like this in movies and fiction. I'm furious at the kind of morals and messages being promoted, but I'm inspired to be that much more bold in delivering a Christian message through my own writing.
And that's what I would love to see more Christian writers doing: standing up and being bold with the message God has given them. Secular Humanist morals, messages, and agendas are woven into every secular piece of fiction or other entertainment out there. Christians, let's be bold, deliberate, and determined in declaring our own message through our writing.

What inspires you to be bold?

Rethinking the Concept of Platform as Christian Writers

Writers, ever feel overwhelmed or confused or just plain lost when it comes to trying to build that mystical 'Platform' the experts are always telling us we need? Me too.

Yesterday I started reading a book called The Narnian: the Life and Imagination of C.S. Lewis, by Alan Jacobs. I'm only on Chapter 2, but so far it's amazing and I suspect you'll be hearing much more about it before I'm finished.
But while I was still reading the Introduction, something jumped out at me and really made me stop and think. The author, Jacobs, was talking about the "mixed bag" of material that C.S. Lewis wrote - science fiction, fantasy, literary history, literary criticism, apologetics, and theology.
For any author today - being hounded from every side by 'experts' to stick with a single theme and build a solid platform on that theme and whatever you do, don't step outside that theme - a repertoire like Lewis' looks like a big no-no.
But, as both Jacobs and Lewis point out, throughout all of Lewis' work "there is a guiding thread" (Lewis' words, quoted by Jacobs). That guiding thread is, at least in part, Lewis' desire to simply do what needs to be done and say what needs to be said. He became a novelist because no one wrote what he wanted to read, so he did it himself. He wrote a defense of John Milton's poetry simply because he cared about Milton's poetry. He defended and argued for and promoted Christianity because he was convinced of its truthfulness. He simply said what he felt God wanted him to say. Every time I read something by C.S. Lewis, whether for the first time or the fiftieth, I find connections to his other works - whether it's finding a connection between Mere Christianity and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, or between The Silver Chair and a deep Biblical truth, that 'guiding thread' is everywhere.

What can we take away from this? Writers, I'm guessing most of you wouldn't want to face the challenge of trying to create a platform, according to today's guidelines, that encompassed all of C.S. Lewis' work to the experts' satisfaction. It would be murder! According to today's guidelines, Lewis didn't really have a platform. All he had was that guiding thread, that need to say what God had given him to say. When his message could be said best through a theological treatise, a theological treatise was what he wrote. When his message could be said best through a children's fantasy story, a children's fantasy story was what he wrote.
Writers, I know what the 'experts' say. I've heard it too. Platform, platform, platform. But what if our concept of platform became less about the genre/sub-genre/story-type we write, and more about just saying what God has given us to say in whatever way is best to say it?
Interestingly enough, literary agent and expert Rachelle Gardner has a post on her blog today that expresses a very similar idea. Click Here to read it. She encourages writers to write what they know - not just about experiences or circumstances they're familiar with, but about truths they know in their hearts. Isn't that what Christian writers are supposed to be doing anyway? Maybe God is trying to tell this generation of writers something.
Man-made rules and molds and cookie cutters were made to be broken (or stabbed by a spiky shoe). Let's not let them scare us into trying to confine our work inside a pre-made box. Instead, let's start looking for that guiding thread.

Do you struggle with the concept of platform as a writer? Do you know what your guiding thread is? How do you approach this issue? Feel free to share in the comments box.

Humanist Themes in Fiction

Lately I've been giving a lot of thought to the way in which the religion of Secular Humanism is pervading our culture - specifically, books and movies. Secular Humanism, you'll recall, is the belief that man is the ultimate authority (God, essentially), and when it comes to books and movies, I've found that it usually manifests itself using one of two themes:
The Believe-in-Yourself theme
or
The Follow-Your-Heart theme
In this post, I'm going to talk a little bit about both of these.

First, the Believe-in-Yourself theme. This theme most often appears in movies geared towards children, no doubt with the intent of filling them with confidence and self-esteem. If you're a secular humanist (and can overlook the fact that the Believe-in-Yourself concept makes absolutely no logical sense), that's just great.
Speaking first from a purely artistic standpoint, who wants to cheer for a hero whose abilities and strength are all the result of a belief in his own epicness? I mean, really? That's hardly inspiring. In fact it seems pretty vain to me.
But furthermore, as Christians, we are called to believe not in ourselves ("...lean not on your own understanding...") but in Someone infinitely greater and higher than we. The Bible repeatedly emphasizes human weakness and fallibility, thereby emphasizing our need for that higher Someone. The Believe-in-Yourself theme stands in clear opposition to this.

Second, the Follow-Your-Heart theme. This one is as rampant in children's literature and movies as the Believe-in-Yourself theme, but it also spills over into adult-oriented entertainment too. And while it's slightly more romantic-sounding than the Believe-in-Yourself theme, it still has problems.
Christians, if there is one thing we know from Scripture about the human heart, it is what? "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked..."
Only humanist doctrine has that kind of faith in the idea of man being basically good. Following your heart is not a Christian concept in any sense. Rather, we are called to follow the One who has redeemed our hearts to His own purposes.

As Christians, we have to be alert, focused, and committed to standing against this kind of humanist doctrine. We have to be vigilant in protecting our children from these cleverly disguised lies. Remember, the enemy is subtle and will exploit any and every weak point he finds.
As Christian writers, we need to be aware of humanist concepts (the ones I've discussed here as well as others) and take careful steps to avoid incorporating them into the stories we craft.
As Christian readers, we need to be staying alert, watching for concepts like these and taking care to see them for the lies they are.

What are your thoughts?

Movie Review: Brave

From the moment my brothers and I first saw the trailer for Brave, we knew we had to see it. We figured any movie that A) is about Scotland and B) contains lines like "We'll expect your declarations of war in the morning" and "No weapons on the table" (which sounds remarkably like our house) was worth our attention.
So one afternoon when we all got off work, we drove into town to see it. It was well worth the trip, and we loved it.
As a nice change of pace from the romance movies flooding the market today, Brave is actually a lovely mother-daughter story. Of course, I was a bit edgy about that too at first, considering Pixar's less-than-glorious track record of botching parent-child stories (case in point: Finding Nemo). However, I was surprised and delighted to discover that in Brave, they actually did a good job handling the development and struggles in Merida's relationship with her mother. The way they executed the final turning point had me ready to stand up and cheer, simply because I was so happy to finally see a Disney movie with a moral of humility and admitting when you're wrong.
The music was wonderful (you can't really go wrong with bagpipes and fiddles), the animation was incredible, and the story itself was delightfully entertaining - a great way to get my Scottish blood flowing.
A few things to be aware of:
One, I wouldn't show this movie to very young children. Mordu, the giant bear Merida faces, would be pretty scary for a little kid.
Two, there is some brief partial nudity at one point, when all the men get stranded on the roof of the castle and tie their kilts together as a rope to get down. I admire their resourcefulness, but still... yeah.
Three, one of the castle maids is rather well endowed by nature, shall we say, and wears a very low-cut dress that makes the issue rather difficult to ignore.
Four, magic plays a key role in the story. Merida sees will o' the wisps, meets a witch, asks for a spell to change her fate, etc. The lessons Merida learns over the course of the story subtly emphasize that magic is what got her into trouble in the first place, which I appreciated seeing, but the presence of magic as such might be a problem for some families.
Aside from that, as I said before, this was a delightful movie that I definitely plan on seeing again. And for anyone of Scottish heritage who plans on seeing this movie in the future, be warned: you might be surprised by how vividly some of your own personality traits show up in various characters. ; )