Friends with the World

I’ve done a little blog surfing this morning, starting with Church Salt’s “Emerging from Emergents.” The trail led me to a conclusion I hadn’t expected: those identifying with the emerging church are on the decline.

Whether that conclusion is right or wrong, however, isn’t the issue. The thinking the emerging church re-instituted—contrary to the facade they portray to those “outside,” their thinking is little more than warmed over liberalism; they borrow generously from Orthodox Christianity, Gnostic thought, Eastern mysticism, even from a heretical ascetic such as Pelagius—this thinking has seeped into the Church.

One blog post claimed youth groups have espoused emerging church views for years. I wouldn’t doubt it.

But here’s the critical point. We American Christians must re-examine our hearts to see if we have left our First Love.

James, in his letter to Jewish believers scattered from Jerusalem because of persecution, gives a sobering warning:

You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

- James 4:4

“Friendship with the world,” I would suggest, has a lot more to do with how we think than with what we do. In the previous verse, James addresses wrong motives, two verses down he speaks about pride.

Verse 5 he says something translators apparently have wrestled with without coming to a consensus. The New King James says it this way:

Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”?

In the context of “adultresses” in the last verse, this translation seems to me to make James’s intent clearest. As a husband would be jealous for his wife, so God is jealous for His Bride. And of course He wants our lives to be pure, but He also wants our hearts to be pure—free of wrong motives, without prideful self-will.

I have to believe that “friendship with the world,” then, includes the way we think.

Pastor Ray Stedman, in his commentary “James: The Activity of Faith” says this:

And if you stop believing what the Scriptures say, you will find yourself being drawn to the lies and the alluring illusion of the world around.

Drawn to the lies and illusion of the world seems to define the beliefs the emerging church has introduced. God is not a God of judgment. He is one with his creation. Hell isn’t real and Man does not sin by nature. Salvation is universal. Jesus came not as an atoning sacrifice but to show us a better way—the road of love and peace and unity.

How can I say these false teachings are in our churches? For one thing, I know these same views appear throughout The Shack, and its author, Paul Young, has spoken in the pulpit of any number of churches. I also know that Christians (as well as non-Christians) have raved about the book and its influence on their spiritual lives.

So … can a book, or a way of thinking, that helps people see God in a new way be bad? I mean, shouldn’t we want to know God in a fresh, exciting way?

Our thoughts about God can be new every morning, but I don’t believe we need to borrow from the world’s way of looking at Him to experience Him afresh. Just the opposite. Listening to the lies of the world will kill off true faith.

In the parable of the sower, that’s what happened to the seed that fell on stony ground. The soil was too shallow for roots to take hold.

Puzzle Masquerading As Aslan

If you’re a fan of C. S. Lewis’s children’s fantasy, you’re probably familiar with a line often quoted about Aslan, the Christ-like character in the world of Narnia. In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe the four children protagonists learn from Mr. and Mrs. Beaver that Aslan, the king of Narnia, is a lion. Then this exchange:

“Then he isn’t safe?” said Lucy.

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver. “Don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the king, I tell you.”

As it turns out, this description of Aslan becomes important in the last book of the series, too. In The Last Battle, a greedy ape cons a weak-minded donkey named Puzzle to wear a lion skin and pretend to be Aslan.

When the imitation Aslan, through his spokesman the ape, begins to make demands on the Narnians that are contrary to all they expected based on the old stories, they remind themselves that Aslan is not a tame lion.

But the ape and his allies, the Calormenes, soon use that same line to explain the changes they attribute to Aslan’s orders—things like conscripting dwarfs to send to Calormene to work in their mines.

When Tirian, the Narnian king, rescues a contingent of dwarfs being marched away, he finds them less than excited about helping him expose Puzzle as the false Aslan:

“Well,” said the Black Dwarf (whose name was Griffle), “I don’t know how all you chaps feel, but I feel I’ve heard as much about Aslan as I want to for the rest of my life.”

“That’s right, that’s right,” growled the other Dwarfs. “It’s all a trick, all a blooming trick. … We’ve no more use for stories about Aslan, see! Look at him! An old moke with long ears!” …

“Which of us said that was Aslan? That is the Ape’s imitation of the real Aslan. Can’t you understand?” [said Tirian.]

“And you’ve got a better imitation, I suppose!” said Griffle. “No thanks. We’ve been fooled once and we’re not going to be fooled again.”

“”I have not,” said Tirian angrily, “I serve the real Aslan.”

“Where’s he? Who’s he? Show him to us!” said several Dwarfs.

“Do you think I keep him in my wallet, fools?” said Tirian. “Who am I that I could make Aslan appear at my bidding? He’s not a tame lion.”

The moment those words were out of his mouth he realised that he had made a false move. The Dwarfs at once began repeating “not a tame lion, not a tame lion,” in jeering singsong. “That’s what the other lot kept on telling us,” said one.

What a clear picture of false teaching. Some of the Narnians believed in the re-imaged Aslan—Puzzle in disguise—and others decided to believe in neither the pretend nor the real Aslan.

The only difference I see from Lewis’s imagined description of false teaching and today’s real life version is that, instead of exploiting the not safe or tame aspect of Aslan’s character, today’s false teachers capitalize on the “but he’s good” part of God’s nature.

But God is good, so of course he wouldn’t send judgment.

But God is good so of course he wants you to be rich and healthy.

Two different lines of false teaching but from the same perversion of one aspect of God’s nature.

Though the thread running through both is different from the one Lewis imagined, the effect is still the same—Puzzle is masquerading as Aslan.

Life in the Counter Culture

This article, apart from minor revisions, first appeared in my church’s weekly a year or so ago.

In a country founded on biblical principles, it’s easy to forget that Christianity is counter-cultural. A close look at American society, though, shows that our current culture, the church included, reflects Mankind’s sinful nature more than it does our biblical underpinnings. Here’s a case in point.

Some time ago a friend of mine was put into a situation all parents dread. One of her children was caught doing something offensive to another child. Really wrong. Sinful.

The guilty child was remorseful and did not balk at the resulting discipline. In addition the offender wrote a letter of apology to the offended young person. That same day, upon receiving the letter, the offended called to say, I forgive you.

At this point, we might all smile and say, This is the way discipline is supposed to work. Except there is more story. A follow-up phone call came to my friend from one of the offended’s parents saying their child did not have permission to forgive.

And sure enough, contact between the two families dwindled to little more than polite and somewhat frosty greetings in church Sunday mornings.

Eventually the church leadership laid out a process designed to bring about reconciliation, but in subsequent meetings the offended’s parents and their now unforgiving child made it clear they had no intention of extending mercy to the repentant and disciplined offender. Soon after, the offended’s family left the church.

This sad story brings to my mind the parable Jesus told about the unforgiving servant who himself had experienced his master’s forgiveness. “Then summoning him, his lord said to him, ‘You wicked slave, I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should you not also have mercy on your fellow slave in the same way that I had mercy on you?’” (Matthew 18:32-33)

The point is clear—my forgiveness of those who sin against me needs to look like God’s forgiveness of me. But how counter-cultural is that?

Our Rambo-esque society says, Don’t get even, get revenge.

Jesus spelled out how He wants His followers to handle mistreatment: “If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also” (Matthew 5:40).

But … but … but … that’s no way to run a business, we say. Or, You can’t have people just walking all over you.

In coming to such conclusions, we’re thinking like our culture. We’ve forgotten who God is, that He is the judge, that we are not. We’ve forgotten He is the One who claims vengeance and tells us to forgo the same. We’ve forgotten He forgives us and tells us to go and do likewise.

Such thinking is so different from the way the rest of society operates. How counter-cultural!

Attacks against God from Within, Part 2

If you stopped by A Christian Worldview of Fiction a week or so ago, you know there was an active discussion generated by my post “Attacks on God from Within.” I answered some of the points raised by those with an opposing view in ensuing posts and some in comments, but there’s one more significant issue I want to discuss.

Some of the commenters claimed that God as He is presented in the Old Testament is so opposite from Jesus that He is unbelievable. Here are some salient quotes (note: the pages are posted in reverse order):

Otherwise GOD put us here, set us up to fall, and punished us for doing that which he set us up to do, which makes him a tyrant, not a just GOD.
- Debra Masters (p. 3, #14)

If GOD is capricious, and can do anything he wants outside of his own goodness/love/holiness, then I don’t want anything to do with Him anyway. If I have to believe that GOD is the way he is portrayed in the Old Testament, capricious, jealous, temperamental, schizophrenic to bi-polar, then he ISN’T GOD
- Debra Masters (p. 3, #28)

You read the bible and see GOD as GOD. I read it and see GOD as a tyrant. …

God is the creator. I don’t need him to be nice. But I do need him to be rational. Not capricious or violent or raging. Schizophrenic if you look at the GOD/Christ issue. …

I cannot make you understand why I cannot worship a violent, capricious, raging, maniacal, schizophrenic GOD
- Debra Masters (p. 3, #44)

I have stopped trying to rationalize such passages of Scripture – it makes God way too schizophrenic. If any world leader were to command the things that ‘god’ commands here, and any general were to carry them out as Moses apparently does here, they’d be condemned today as the worst kinds of war criminals.
– Mike Morrell (p. 1, #75)

As I thought about the idea of God being a tyrant or “schizophrenic,” I realized Abraham above anyone else, had a right to accuse God of such twisted thinking.

After all, He promised to make Abraham’s descendants into a great nation, beginning with Isaac. But while the boy was still “a lad,” God told Abraham to offer him as a sacrifice.

Wouldn’t you expect an argument from Abraham? Which is it, God, the boy will become a father of a nation or a sacrifice? Both can’t happen. What are you thinking? Are you … divided in your spirit? can’t make up your mind? good yesterday and evil today? Can I trust you for ANYTHING?

But no, Abraham’s reaction was entirely different. He believed God when He told him Isaac would be his heir: “Then he believed in the LORD; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness” (Gen. 15:6; also quoted by Paul in Romans and Galatians and by James).

He continued to believe God when He told him to sacrifice his son. The writer of Hebrews encapsulates his thinking:

By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten {son;} {it was he} to whom it was said, “IN ISAAC YOUR DESCENDANTS SHALL BE CALLED. He considered that God is able to raise {people} even from the dead, from which he also received him back as a type.

- Heb. 11:17-19 (NASB)

Interestingly, after Abraham proved his faith by his willingness to sacrifice his son, God gave him another promise, the Messianic promise: “In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice” (Gen. 22:18).

Abraham did not see God as a tyrant, as a monster, a war criminal, a child abuser, or as schizophrenic. He believed God—believed He would keep His promise even though it didn’t look possible in light of His very own commandment. Unshaken by the apparent contradiction, Abraham believed God.

Those today who want to throw out the Old Testament God in favor of a re-imaged Jesus do not have Abraham’s faith. Somehow, with a knife in his hand and his son spread on the altar before him, Abraham did not change his mind about who God is.

As a result, we have this wonderful picture of a father willing to offer his son, of a God providing a sacrificial lamb to take the place of the one destined to die. And a Messianic promise.

CSFF January Top Tour Blogger

On Saturday I should have posted the poll and links to those CSFF tour participants who are eligible for the January Top Tour Blogger award. What was I thinking?

Anyway, here are the bloggers who are eligible for the award, followed by the poll.

Oh, you also might want to check out Donita Paul’s posts (Monday and Tuesday)—we got our wires crossed on the dates of the tour, so she posted this week.

√ √ √ Jason Joyner
√ √ √ Krystine Kercher
√ √ √ Nissa
√ √ √ Chawna Schroeder
√ √ √ Rachel Starr Thomson
√ √ √ Robert Treskillard
√ √ √ Phyllis Wheeler

Beguiled – A Review

The first part of this week, the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance (CFBA) is featuring Beguiled by J. Mark Bertrand and Deeanne Gist.

If you read yesterday’s guest post by Mark, you know a little about his ideas regarding Christian fiction. You may then wonder, how did his concepts translate into an actual novel? I’ll be happy to give you my opinion. (Have I ever been shy about stating my opinion? )

The Genre. Beguiled is an adult Christian romantic suspense novel.

The Story. Only child Rylee Monroe has no one when her parents die—no one except the clients for whom she walks dogs and a caring neighbor in her rundown apartment building. Shortly after a frightening late-night encounter with reporter Logan Woods, Rylee becomes embroiled in a sequence of crimes committed by the Robin Hood burglar. Within days she is the prime suspect.

Logan is convinced of Rylee’s innocence. His reputation as a writer and his pending book contract depend on him finding out who is actually behind the thefts. He and Rylee team up, but suspicion leads to police accusation. Even as Rylee and Logan grow closer, she becomes the target of the Robin Hood burglar.

And I’ll stop there. I’ve probably already said too much.

Strengths. For the most part, the writing was strong. I had a good sense of who these characters were. They had depth—a past filled with difficulty and problems that affected their present.

The suspense was just the right amount as far as I was concerned. I worried for Rylee, but I wasn’t so afraid I wanted to close the book and read something else. In fact, the story questions piqued my curiosity as did the developing circumstances, so I kept turning pages in the wee hours of the night simply because I wanted to know.

Regarding the “faith elements,” which I don’t necessarily discuss in a review, I thought they arose naturally as part of character development. There was no overt preaching, but one character’s Christianity clearly influenced that person’s decisions and actions.

The authors did an excellent job establishing place. I had a real feel for the tight Charleston community south of Broad as well as the rougher, poorer area where Rylee lived. And place turns out to be more important than it first appears.

If I had to name a theme, I think I’d say it involved trust—both giving it and earning it. However, since Mark and I used to have long argu discussions about intentionally incorporating themes in fiction, I suspect I may be seeing something cohesive that the writers never purposed.

Weaknesses. I realize this was romantic suspense, not mystery. However, the fact remains, the story centered on a mystery that the two main characters were trying to solve. The problem was, there weren’t sufficient numbers of characters in the story to supply an adequate amount of red herrings.

Consequently, the perpetrator was apparent quite early (though that person’s motives still remained unclear). Since I’m a mystery lover more than a suspense fan, I was disappointed in this lack of additional suspects.

Apart from a couple minor, and probably imperceptible, inconsistencies, the story was well told.

Recommendation. Anyone who enjoys clean romantic suspense should move Beguiled to the top of their list. It’s got tender moments followed by breath-taking ones. Lots of reason to keep turning the page. Must read for fans of the genre. Recommended as a light, entertaining story for everyone else.

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Disclaimer as per current FTC rules: In conjunction with the CFBA, I received a free copy of Begiled for review from Bethany House Publishers.

Beguiled by J. Mark Bertrand

I realize the title to this post is misleading on two levels. First Mark hasn’t beguiled anyone that I know of, and second he isn’t the sole author of the novel Beguiled.

The latter, however, is on point. As part of the CFBA blog tour for Beguiled, co-authored by Mark and Deeanne Gist, I offer the following guest post by J. Mark Bertrand. Tomorrow I plan a review of Beguiled, an ARC of which I received for free from Bethany House Publishers.

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Films About the Wheat Harvest?

by J. Mark Bertrand

I didn’t realize until it was pointed out to me that I sound like a broken record, always intoning the same quotation. In my defense, I’m often asked the same question, namely, “How can you justify what you’re writing as Christian fiction?” Short answer: I don’t even try. In the same way I don’t try to justify it as crime fiction, or even good fiction. All I can say is it’s my fiction, a reflection of the world as I see it.

The long answer involves the aforementioned quote. Claude Chabrol, the French film director, was asked by Robert Ebert back in the 1970s how as a communist he could justify the kind of movies he made. “I am a Communist, certainly,” Chabrol replied, “but that doesn’t mean I have to make films about the wheat harvest.”

A FALSE ASSUMPTION
The reason I cite this response so often is that it underscores a false assumption behind the question — i.e., that an artist’s ideology ought to dictate the kind of work he does and whatever meaning it might convey. How could a Communist sleep at night knowing a particular film, perhaps the only one of his movies a certain viewer might ever see, didn’t include a persuasive pitch for collective farming and the redistribution of wealth? His only chance to convert a movie-going capitalist and he blew it!

A novelist’s perspective doesn’t have to function as a pair of blinders or a pigeonhole. Think of it instead as an influence. People are influenced by their politics, by past experience, by religious and philosophical convictions, and these influences combine to form an interesting (or at any rate, unique) way of seeing things. When a Communist puts pen to paper, he’s not representing a monolithic movement; he’s revealing himself. The same is true for any ideologue, including the Christian.

Naturally, there are people who believe by definition that Communist art should be about dialectical materialism and Christian art should be about the gospel. “Redemption,” broadly speaking, is the term often used. Paradoxically, these totalizing narratives are straightjacketed into narrowly-focused niche products that can’t speak to the whole of existence, or at least shouldn’t.

NO IMPLICIT GUARANTEE
I can respect the position, but I don’t happen to share it. As a writer, I prefer to take on the world at large, the big messy scope of reality, pursuing it subjectively and (I hope) convincingly wherever it leads. I’m confident enough in my ideas not to think they need special coddling, and have a high enough view of my readers to realize that while my work might entertain and engage them, even influence them, it’s hardly capable of scrubbing away their own conception of life and inserting my own.

So when I write, I’m speaking for myself, for better or worse. I’m a Christian, and in my less humble moments (which are all too common) I prefer to think of myself as more influenced by that theological tradition than many people who’d own the label of “Christian novelist” with less ambiguity. My books come with no implicit guarantee that they’ll match up to anyone else’s notion of what they should be. For better or worse, the worldview they embody is my own.

* * *

J. Mark Bertrand’s novel Beguiled, co-authored with Deeanne Gist, is in stores now. His crime novel Back on Murder, the first in a series featuring Houston homicide detective Roland March, releases this summer. More information at BackOnMurder.com and on Mark’s new blog CrimeGenre.com

Andrew Peterson, Author of North! Or Be Eaten

When I was teaching, I had a few students who seemed to be good at everything. They were excellent students, the best soloists in choir, the lead in the Christmas program, the star athlete on their teams (and they played multiple sports), the speech contestant winners, the head cheerleader, the top artist, the best pianist or trumpet player. I’m only exaggerating slightly. Some students seemed loaded with talent—artistic and athletic talent.

Well, I don’t know about the athletic part, but Andrew Peterson, author of the CSFF Blog Tour January feature, North! Or Be Eaten, is one of these “bursting from the seams” talented people.

Let me say up front, I don’t think this is an enviable place to be. Andrew and others of his ilk must often decide how to divide their time between things they love equally, have the same talent for, and have found success doing. Either that, or they renounce sleep.

Some of you know Andrew foremost as a musician. He is a gifted singer and songwriter. I heard him for the first time this Christmas as part of a Family Life Today program. One of the hosts remarked that Andrew is one of his favorite contemporary singers, and I thought, Do they know he also writes fantasy?

I became acquainted with Andrew as a writer when his debut novel, the middle grade fantasy On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness came out. I think I first heard about him from Jonathan Rogers, the outstanding author of the Wilderking Trilogy, who pretty much raved about Andrew’s writing.

Eventually I subscribed to Andrew’s group blog, The Rabbit Room, where he and a group of other artists discuss music and books and movies and the creation of art and theology and the Bible. What an encouraging look at a group of Christians engaged with our culture.

Among Andrew’s other endeavors, he produced a children’s book that captured my attention. From his Web site:

The Ballad of Matthew’s Begats
An Unlikely Royal Family Tree

Who says all those “begats” in the first chapter of Matthew aren’t fun to read?

Kids and parents will have fun reading and singing along with this joyful Andrew Peterson song. The lyrics tell not only of the Biblical list of relatives, but for the first time, kids will learn why the “begats” are extremely important. This story and song demonstrate that Abraham’s long lineage leads directly to the most important Bible character ever, Jesus Christ.

This special book bridges the Old Testament and New Testament, showing Jesus’ birth as part of God’s plan from the very beginning.

(So says the publisher. I’m really excited about this book, not just because I’ve always wanted to write a children’s book, and not just because Cory Godbey’s illustrations are delightful, but because I love being a part of impressing the words of the Lord on children. With a banjo.)

Andrew has taken time to blog about the CSFF Tour where you can leave comments for him if you’d like. Also, if you want to learn his thoughts about writing, check out Chawna Schroeder’s interview with him.

And don’t forget to see what the other CSFF bloggers have to say about North! Or Be Eaten.

Disclaimer as per current FTC rules: Months ago, as part of the Children’s Book Blog Tour, I received a free copy of North! Or Be Eaten for review from the publisher WaterBrook.

CSFF Blog Tour – North! Or Be Eaten, Day 2

Great tour going for Andrew Peterson’s young adult Christian fantasy North! Or Be Eaten.

As a result of the “Attack on God” threads here, I decided to take a closer look at this novel in that light. Please know that I’ll be giving spoilers, so this serves as your ***SPOILER ALERT***

One of the Igiby children, Tink, is actually the High King of Anniera. As he and his family flee north to escape pursuit from Gnag the Nameless and the Fangs of Dang terrorizing the land of Skree, he begins to change.

First he admits to his brother that he doesn’t want to be High King. Next, when they encounter the Stranders, clans of murderers and thieves living in Glipwood Forest, he shows fascination, even admiration for the head of one clan.

Later a girl who befriends Tink tells him he would make a good Strander. He saves his family by doing a little pickpocketing, only to learn that he’s earned the place as head of the clan.

His reaction is horror at the possibility that he’ll have new responsibilities, but he learns instead that a clan leader “ain’t in charge of anything. He does what he pleases, and the rest of the clan has to do what he pleases too.”

When Tink and his brother are later separated from their family, instead of going to the meeting place as they’d said, he sets off to find the Stranders and take his place as clan leader.

The old lady who tells his brother what happened explained his decision like this: “He made a choice … Because whatever it is inside a man that calls him to the edge of things, calls him to the shadows and away from the light, must have been loud in his ears” (p. 225).

I think this story gives a snapshot of temptation. Ironically Tink’s brother unfairly accused him of selfishness, but in the end he was right. Tink didn’t want responsibility. He wanted a life in which he could do what he wanted, not what was expected of him.

I can’t help but think the same holds true today. How many people reject Christ because they don’t want to do what is expected of them but what they want to do? In the end, it’s a spirit of disobedience, whether it comes from Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens or one of the nice people commenting in the previous threads about how God could never exercise eternal judgment or he would be a tyrant.

It’s a resistance to “ought” in favor of “I.” (Actually it’s a resistance to God and to the perception of “ought” but that doesn’t come out in the story). For Tink, his decision took him to a terrible place.

Ah, but the story didn’t end with him there. North! Or Be Eaten is, after all, a story of redemption.

Don’t forget to check out the blog posts by the other CSFF participants. You’ll find the list, with links to the posts I know are already up, at the end of yesterday’s article.

Fantasy and Emergent Thought

For those of you looking for a CSFF Blog Tour post about Andrew Peterson’s book North! Or Be Eaten, second in the Wingfeather Saga, you are actually in the right place. However, you’ll find much more information about the book from my fellow participants listed below or from my earlier review and thoughts about the book posted in conjunction with the Children’s Book Blog Tour.

What I want to do today (and the rest of this week) is to tie in the current discussion here at A Christian Worldview of Fiction about emergent thought with our CSFF selection.

You might be wondering what one has to do with the other. Quite a bit, actually—an entire worldview.

This series of posts began last Friday with an article discussing a provocative piece entitled “Is God ‘A Recovering Practitioner of Violence’?” In the ensuing discussion there and spilling over to Monday, some of those associated with emerging thought made it clear that they do not believe in one or more of the following: original sin, Satan as an actual enemy, hell, God as a righteous judge meting out deserved punishment.

In fact, a number of these visitors ascribe to a panentheistic worldview, or non-duality. In other words, they don’t believe in the basic fantasy motif: good versus evil.

It’s a little hard to imagine speculative fiction without duality. Avatar tried to pull it off, but good fiction is built upon conflict, so evil capitalists and military-ists were cast in the role of antagonist. As author and blogger Mike Duran has pointed out, the panentheistic people in the movie were at one with nature, even revering the animals they had to kill by way of preserving human life, yet they were not at one with the evil humans. No thanking them for giving up their lives. No reverential ceremony acknowledging their contribution to the cycle of life.

North! Or Be Eaten gives an entirely other point of view. There is an enemy bent on destruction—not of the body alone but of the soul. The threat is real, imminent, far-reaching, deadly.

My first question is, which of these two views most accurately squares with Scripture?

From first to last, the Bible is about conflict. Jesus’s parable in Matthew about the landowner who went on a journey gives a thumbnail sketch of the entire Bible.

After a time, the landowner sent reps to collect the proceeds from those he left to work the land. Instead of paying up, they beat and killed these reps. At last the landowner sent his son, but he too was killed and thrown out of the vineyard.

The parable ends with the landowner coming back. Jesus asked this question: “What will he do with those vine-growers?” Jesus didn’t toss out that question for thought. He spelled out the answer: “He will bring those wretches to a wretched end, and will rent out the vineyard to other vine-growers who will pay him the proceeds at the proper season.”

So does North! Or Be Eaten present the same struggle, good against evil? Let me answer that by quoting these lines of poetry Oskar recites about the protagonists father:

All children of the Shining Isle, rejoice!
A hero strides the field, the hill, the sand
With raven hair and shining blade in hand.
The wicked quake when lifts the Warden’s voice

So fleet his mount and fierce his mighty band!
So fair his word and fine his happy roar
That breezes o’er the Isle from peak to shore!
So tender burns his love for king and land!

Good fantasy like North! Or Be Eaten is full of conflict, mirroring the good/evil struggle in the world—the very struggle the Bible addresses, ending in Revelation with a picture of the answer to Jesus’s question: what will He do when He comes back?

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I promised you links to the other participants. Hope you take some time to peruse their reviews and other thoughts about North! Or Be Eaten.

√ Brandon Barr
√ Amy Browning
CSFF Blog Tour
√ Stacey Dale
√ DGD Davidson
√ Jeff Draper
√ April Erwin
√ Ryan Heart
√ √ Timothy Hicks
√ Becky Jesse
√ Cris Jesse
√ √ √ Jason Joyner
√ Julie
√ √ √ Krystine Kercher
√ √ Dawn King
√ New Authors Fellowship
√ √ √ Nissa
√ √ Donita Paul
√ Crista Richey
√ √ √ Chawna Schroeder
√ Andrea Schultz
√ James Somers
√ Steve and Andrew
√ √ √ Rachel Starr Thomson
√ √ √ Robert Treskillard
√ √ Fred Warren
√ √ √ Phyllis Wheeler
√ Elizabeth Williams
√ KM Wilsher

A check mark provides a link to a specific post.