Last year, I attended Realm Makers for the first time. In fact, I was privileged to teach two electives there. There’s a bit of a story behind our intersection. While my first two novels were published in the CBA (Christian Booksellers Association), I have for years vocally expressed concern about the lack of representation of [...]
I’ve divided the common evangelical arguments against watching sex and nudity in film into these four: “Would you let your mother, spouse, or child do that?” — The Golden Rule argument “But the images on the screen are REAL.” — The Nudity Isn’t Fake argument “Seeing naked people on screen causes people to sin.” — The Seeing [...]
C.S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy is often viewed as one of the earliest and best examples of what “Christian speculative fiction” could look like. It’s only reasonable for Christian authors to want to reclaim their literary heritage. But is this a fair comparison? In one sense, it is. The inclusion of biblical imagery and ideas is the most [...]
As I pointed out in Pt. 1, a healthy prerequisite to a discussion about sex and nudity in cinema requires evangelicals to avoid rhetorical caricatures of “opponents” (as either prudes or pervs) and their motives and intentions (“So you’re championing sex and nudity???”). Having said that, let me engage the actual objections used by Gregory Shane Morris in his [...]
A few months back, Tim Challies posted a piece entitled Sex on the Silver Screen in which he argues that watching simulated sex scenes in films, and the assumed accompanying nudity, is categorically wrong for Christians to partake of. Challies concludes, The reality is, the Bible forbids what those actors are doing. If the Bible forbids [...]
Adult coloring books are a thing. Some have even called it The Hottest Trend in Publishing. Nine of the 20 books on Amazon’s current bestseller list contain few words and belong to a genre that didn’t exist two years ago. Welcome to the biggest publishing craze of the year: coloring books for adults. More than [...]
The problem of consciousnesses has proved vexing for scientists. Where does it comes from? Does it exist outside the body? Has it evolved from material substances? The dilemmas with “mind as matter” are numerous. First there is the logical conundrum of whether or not a mind evolved from matter can be trusted with its own [...]
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Augustine suggested that either there is real evil to fear or the fact that we fear what is not really evil, is evil. Good stories appeal to real evil which, by extension, suggests moral absolutes. You can’t have bad guys without real evil. You can’t have compelling drama without real stakes. Even if a story is [...]
Of all writers, you’d think that Christian ones would have a handle on God. But you’d be wrong. Especially as it relates to writing fiction. Notably of the speculative variety. It starts with the question — What is the defining trait of “Christian fiction”? Ask that question to a dozen evangelicals and you’ll probably get [...]
