Generally, I take speculative fiction to be a poor place to learn about the real world. In other words, I have misgivings about the cognitive value of speculative fiction. There are so many excellent and accessible nonfiction books, YouTube videos, … Read the rest
A Helpful Portrayal of Religion in SF: Ursula Le Guin’s The Telling
I’ve discussed portrayals of religion I think are best avoided in speculative fiction, but how can we understand what makes a of portrayal of religion in speculative fiction helpful? One place to start is Ursula K. Le Guin’s 2000 novel … Read the rest
Unhelpful Portrayals of Religion
I’m editing an anthology of science fiction and fantasy stories about religion called Strange Religion, planned to be out in April. So I’m writing a series of blog posts that I’m going to use to write the introduction for … Read the rest
Biblical Inspiration and God’s Trustworthiness
We’ve determined that God’s trustworthiness can’t be assumed because of how the Bible portrays His character. He does not deceive wantonly, but He has no qualms about deceiving His opponents to further His goals.
How are we to know that … Read the rest
Do We Need to Defend God’s Trustworthiness?
God’s trustworthiness is taken as foundational for many Christians or presumed on the basis of His other attributes (e.g. His absolute goodness), but this is theologically tenuous because the Bible attests that God engages in deceptive behavior.
Sometimes this is … Read the rest
Comparatives and Superlatives in Creative Writing
Generally we play by the rules of grammar in creative writing because readers will be put-off or confused by our failure to abide. Grammar is the fabric of the language. There is no English without English grammar. Even a nonsense … Read the rest
Alchemy and Mud: Arguments in Fiction
I’m regularly surprised when my readers spy ideology lurking in my writing, as if the presence of an argument or even a sensitive topic in a work of fiction is proof that the author is trying to seduce the reader … Read the rest
God As Executive (To Whom We Can Say Nothing)
We construe transcendent God through analogies: God as a loving father, a just or cold-eyed judge, a suffering savior, as Jesus of the Gospel, as victor over Death, as jealous tribal god of the Hebrews, as (war)lord of hosts… Read the rest
Trial in Majority
My story “Trial in Majority” was originally podcasted by Simultaneous Times (starting at 12:01) last month. First time anyone has been so kind as to compose music based on my work!
Posting it here for anyone that wants to read … Read the rest
The Nonsense End of the Heart Sutra?
Some commentators and translators of the Heart Sutra, leave the mantra at the end untranslated. So sometimes we find:
“The mantra of the perfection of wisdom is stated thus: gate gate pāragate pārasamgate bodhi svāhā.”
and sometimes we … Read the rest