WWJD - and the "J" is Jack

I've been a subscriber of Fast Company magazine for almost a decade, and enjoy the publication, but I wasn't quite prepared for the article in a recent issue entitled "What Would Jack Do." The article lauded how churches, and influential churches, have been embracing business speakers and business philosophy.

I know where that goes. I've been there. See my new post at The Christian Manifesto.

Flannery O'Connor and the Avoidance

"Flannery O'Connor and the Avoidance," my article on how the writer took issue with the idea of "author as celebrity," is now posted at Christian Manifesto. Take a look and tell me what you think.

Scott Cairns: The Poet of Pilgrimage

When I attended the High Calling editorial team meeting and writers conference at Laity Lodge last month, I participated in the poetry workshop led by Scott Cairns, professor of English at the University of Missouri. I posted three articles on the workshop: the first day, the results of the overnight assignment, and a kind of summary and thank you to the participants.


Today, Christian Manifesto has posted my article on Scott – “The Poet of Pilgrimage,” in which I consider four of his works – two books of poetry, a memoir and a long essay. Take a look and let me know what you think.

The Writings of Dale Cramer

Author Dale Cramer has written four extraordinary novels and has a fifith one due to be published in January. They are novels written from life and personal experience. To see my post on "Dale Cramer: Writing from Life," please visit the Christian Manifesto.

James Rubart's "Rooms"

You’re a successful software entrepreneur in Seattle. You live in the penthouse of a condominium. You have a romantic relationship with your firm’s co-founder. You drive a fast sports car. You’ve got everything. And then you learn that a long-dead great uncle has left you a house on the Oregon coast. In fact, it’s a brand-new house, and it’s huge, with every conceivable luxury and fabulous ocean views.

Imperceptibly at first, your life begins to change. And it’s not a change from one lifestyle to another, but from one reality to another. And it’s because of those rooms that keep appearing, and what you find in them, rooms that are doorways into your life.

That’s what happens to Micah Taylor in James Rubart’s novel Rooms. It’s a novel of suspense, a love story, and a morality tale, with slightly more than a dash of the supernatural with a little science fiction on the side (whatever else you want to call it, living in parallel universes is science fiction).

Most of all, Rooms is a portrayal of sanctification. As Taylor discovers what’s behind each new door as it appears, he learns more and more about himself and his life, and all the things in his life he has to come to terms with. And he learns more about God. Ultimately, he will have to choose which life he really wants.

Rubart keeps the reader guessing right to the riveting end. The story is fast-paced, well structured, with believable and even familiar characters. His descriptions and scenes in Taylor’s software company ring true for business.

Rooms has been compared to William Young’s The Shack, although its genealogy may owe far less to The Shack than it does to the novels of Frank Peretti. Regardless of its genes, it is an original. James Rubart has written a terrific story.

Related:

For Christian Manifesto, I’ve written a post about novels and the theology they represent, using Rooms and The Shack as examples. Take a look at “’Rooms’ in ‘The Shack’” and let me know what you think.

Marilynne Robinson's Rocky Places

Marilynne Robinson is a writer of what could only be called serious, literary fiction. Her fist novel, Housekeeping (1980), had the good fortune of being noticed and reviewed by Anatole Broyard in The New York Times Book Review (he was afraid it would go unnoticed so he reviewed it himself). She went on to write non-fiction and essays, and published her second novel, Gilead, in 2004. Home, a kind of companion to Gilead but not a sequel or “prequel,” was published in 2008.

To read the rest of my article, please visit The Christian Manifesto.

Michael Spencer & "Mere Churchianity"

Christian Manifesto has published my blog post on Michael Spencer & Mere Churchianity. For a decade until his death from cancer in April, Spencer had been the "internet monk" read by thousands daily. His book distills a lot of what he had to say on his blog on the subject of church, culture and how we have too often confused the two. Take a look and tell me what you think.

A Storyteller First

My new post for Christian Manifesto, "A Storyteller First," is about author Travis Thrasher. Let me know what you think. I reviewed his latest novel Broken earlier this week.

Don Miller's Message

My new post, on author and speaker Don Miller, is up at The Christian Manifesto. I consider his books Blue Like Jazz and A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, and discuss how the medium is the message. Let me know what you think.

The Gospel and Stephen King

My article on the influence of Stephen King on Christian novelists has been posted over at Christian Manifesto. Take a look and let me know what you think.

If You Can't get Enough Wendell Berry

Christian Manifesto has posted my article "Wendell Berry and the Land," which takes a look at how Berry's philosophy of the land -- a kind of spiritual reverence -- plays through his short stories (That Distant Land) and poetry.

Related posts:

My review of That Distant Land published here last week.

My review of Berry's Leavings: Poems posted at TweetSpeak Poetry.

A Picture Tells a Story

A few short years before the Impressionists burst upon the French art world, Edouard Manet painted a work entitled "The Dead Christ with Angels," and at first glance it seems a profoundly Christian treatment. But is it? There's some ambiguities about this painting that hold a caution for us today. See my post at The Christian Manifesto for the story behind the painting.

The Dead Christ with Angels, 1864, Edouard Manet. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.

Matthew Paul Turner's "Hear No Evil"

Last week, I had a blog post over at The Christian Manifesto on what “edginess” can teach the church. And what I meant by “edginess” was something more akin to popular social criticism, as practiced by four writers. (They were meant to be examples, and not an all-inclusive list of everyone who’s out there.) One of those writers is Matthew Paul Turner.

Last fall, I read Turner’s Churched: One Kid’s Journey Toward God Despite a Holy Mess, an account of childhood in not only a fundamentalist church, but a fundamentalist Baptist church (and there’s a difference). And while most people focused on the funny parts (and there were a lot of funny parts), I saw something else, and that was the more serious side of a “social critic” who cares deeply for the church.

Hear No Evil: My Story of Innocence, Music, and the Holy Ghost advances the story through the teen, college and young-adult-earning-his-own-way years. But there’s a difference from Churched – the humor is still there, but it is a more quite, wry kind of humor. What I see emerging even more strongly is a concern for Christian music, on one level, and for the church in general on a broader level. Churched sounded so much like a kid speaking, which is what was intended; Hear No Evil sounds like a thoughtful young adult, poking fun, to be sure, but not taking himself so seriously, too.

We read about life in high school and college; we sense what a place like Nashville was for a college student in the 1990s, and especially for a Christian college student at a Christian college. We learn about the Christian music scene in Nashville, and it is not at all what we expect it to be. We watch an untalented woman bully her way into an open microphone session at a coffeehouse, and realize, as does Turner, that he was used to bless her. We sit through an interview with Amy Grant, who answers with great grace the questions that the boneheaded magazine publisher insists Turner ask.

Yes, there are funny, laugh-out-loud parts of Hear No Evil. But they don’t at all dominate the book. Instead, it is indeed a story about innocence, and music, and the Holy Ghost, but it’s a story told by a sensitive spirit who sometimes acts the clown but always speaks the truth.


(The publisher provided me with a review copy of Hear No Evil; I asked for it, in fact, because I enjoyed reading Churched. Just so you know.)

What Can "Edginess" Say to the Church?

A number of Christian authors, bloggers and writers are taking on some of the sacred cows of evangelical Christianity -- and usually managing to stimulate, provoke and, sometimes, infuriate. Over at The Christian Manifesto today, I have a new post about it.

Does It Have to Be Amish Romance?

So what is Christian fiction? There's a debate, usually (but not always) civil, that's pointing the way to larger questions.

I have a post over at Christian Manifesto that talks about it. And thanks for taking a look.