Kim Fabricus wills us to read great novels, like Orange Prize Winner Marilynne Robinson, whose two novels Gilead (2004) and Home (2008) are fantastically rich theological explorations, unlike the awfully written The Shack (which I have read, and while I applaud what it is trying to do, came away disappointed, especially with its anti-church flavour), which Eugene Peterson is not and will never be the new Pilgrim's Progress. Sean gives two snippets from Home to whet your appetite. Ben reviews Gilead here and Sean writes about it here. I read Gilead last summer and looking forward to reading Home this summer.
The Guardian has a number of articles on Robinson (here and here).
My wife put me off the Shack she was so frustrated with it she threw it in the garden!
Posted by: Glen | June 05, 2009 at 04:21 PM
The thing that annoyed me most was the description of the author on the back enjoying the 'wastefulness of grace' - oh shut up with your hippy christianity.
Posted by: andy goodliff | June 05, 2009 at 04:41 PM
cheers Andy - you're a brave man - I wouldn't dare enter into a debate about the quality of literature as they often end up like those about art and music! However, I wont disagree with you on that either. I must admit I didn't come away feeling the negativity about the church and whilst it's true, it's there, I'm not nervous about how someone not yet a Christian would be put off by that - unless they use it to confirm their previous bad experiences. Someone has just lent a copy to my sister-in-law 'you might like this' - the reader is not yet a Christian who just picked it up somewhere - I'll ask her what she thought about it as these are the opinions I'm really interested in the most.
Posted by: Nigel Coles | June 08, 2009 at 10:14 AM