A grisly death occurs near the end of my first novel The Resurrection which leaves a bad guy a bubbling heap of intestinal lard. During the final edits, feeling relatively self-conscious about this over-the-top retribution, I suggested to my editor that I tone that scene down, make it less gruesome. She replied, “I’d leave it [...]

I’m an ex-pastor. Ugh. I hate that term. No, I didn’t have an affair with the church secretary or get caught pilfering funds from the ice cream social. I was a young, untrained, inexperienced Christian who was launched, probably prematurely, into the ministry. As a five year-old Christian, father of four, with zero trade skills, [...]

“All fiction is largely autobiographical…”                                             — P.D. James I suppose the question facing a lot of novelists is not IF your story should be autobiographical, but HOW autobiographical your story should be? It’s no secret that novelists assemble their stories from the stuff of experience, drawing from the places they’ve lived, the people they’ve [...]

I spoke with a writer friend who recently returned from a book festival. He had his own booth to sell his books and commented on the different ways people decide if a book is for them. There are five types of book buyers from his observation. The “back of the book” readers who consider the [...]

I found Pew Research Center’s most recent study Political Polarization in the American Public quite fascinating. It’s a lengthy, graphic-laden piece about “How Increasing Ideological Uniformity and Partisan Antipathy Affect Politics, Compromise and Everyday Life.” There’s much to think about regarding the findings. The overall gist is that, politically speaking, America has grown even more [...]

I have been leaning towards “Annihilationism” for a while now. (As if I needed one more thing to tweak my Evangelical friends.) This is the belief that souls do not suffer eternally in hell but are extinguished or destroyed. Annihalationism is not so much counter to the traditional evangelical view of everlasting torment (that would [...]

I am biased towards Christian artists. Especially those working in the secular marketplace. I want them to succeed. Which is one reason I’ve been following Scott Derrickson’s career with interest. Derrickson is a director with some significant films to his credit. I first took interest after watching The Exorcism of Emily Rose, a well-crafted, truly [...]

Supporters of Christian fiction often rebut the charge of having an “agenda” on the grounds that “all fiction has an agenda.” It’s a point I pretty much agree with. Most stories have a moral, a message, a point, or a theme, and those that don’t are little more than abstractions. (However, it can be argued [...]

While watching the recent NBA Finals between the San Antonio Spurs and the Miami Heat, one broadcaster openly questioned how good of a coach Erik Spoelstra (of the Heat) was. Noting the professional caliber of his players, the announcer suggested that LeBron James and Co. are easy to coach. Which leads to an interesting question [...]