The end is near! The end of 2012, that is. Which means the “Best Of” lists will start rolling out. In that spirit, here’s the 10 posts that have received the most Unique Page Views this year at deCOMPOSE, followed by their meta description.
10.) The Gory Details — It is taken for granted that Christian fiction should be clean, family friendly, and minus the gory details. But why? What moral and/or theological principle drives us toward this conclusion?
9.) Stoker’s Dracula as Christian Fiction — Six reasons why the original Dracula could fit nicely within Christian fiction’s strictures. And why it doesn’t.
8.) How “Christian” Was C.S. Lewis, and Why Is He an Evangelical Hero? — C.S. Lewis is considered one of the greatest Christian theologians, thinkers and authors of all time, despite differing with mainstream Evangelicalism in a number of areas.
7.) On Taking the Lord’s Name in Vain — If we reduce taking God’s name in vain to simply a string of words, not only are we missing the larger point of the commandment, we are potentially promoting superstition.
6.) Redeeming Love: A Review — Reviewing my first Historical Romance, and a Christian fiction “classic.”
5.) Let’s Stop Being So Easily Offended — Happy is the man who is not easily offended… and even happier are the people around him.
4.) Destined for Dystopia — The genre of dystopian films and books reinforce one of the Bible’s central themes.
3.) The Anti-Evangelical Hate Machine — Instead of “Jesus Hates Fags” it’s “Jesus Hates Fundies,” in this Progressive version of the Westboro Baptist nutters.
2.) Can Annihilation Be Hell? — If the worse that’s going to happen to a person is that they’re annihilated, why not eat, drink, and be merry? They won’t be around to know the difference.
1.) Why Christian Fiction Writers Love the Nephilim — The reason why the Nephilim have become such a useful tool for Christian fiction writers is that it allows us to speculate and still remain (somewhat) biblical.
Some of these are older posts that have nudged their way into Google keyword prominence and continue to generate traffic. By far, the most surprising to me is #1. Why has this topic generated so much traffic? Anyway, if you’ve missed any of them, you might take this opportunity to check them out.
Mike: to answer your question, because too many people think the entire Bible can somehow be reduced to some nonsense about aliens. I can’t tell you the amount of people I’ve encountered who, upon hearing I appreciate something about the Bible, immediately jump to the Nephilim. It would be like assuming the entire story of Les Miserables is about the stones in Bishop Myriel’s back yard.
Why that absurd fixation? Maybe folks like blaming demons instead of our own sin nature.
Hmm…I really thought #3 was going to be #1, though I’m thinking too recently, probably. Man, that one was quite interesting…I’ll bet I saw at least a dozen new commenters solely to wade into the fray.
Bobby, the “Hate Machine” holds the single day record by far. But it doesn’t appear to have the long-term draw that the others do.
Christians are always trying to convince me that the gospel message is waaayyy more important than pondering eternal torment vs annihilation. Of course it is, but obviously, many people also care about understanding God’s nature as revealed through the nature of hell. Some of the items on the list do surprise me a little, but not that one (Destined for Dystopia, for example).