For all you other “Biblio-Wonks” out there – Here is a fun tool provided by SF Signalfor seeing the recommendations of NPR’s listeners of the top ranked science fiction and fantasy books of all time. Fun Hint: When you click on the pictures below it will take you to the site – then enlarge the picture again on the site and follow the flowcharts to various recommendations.

FLOWCHART: Navigating NPR's Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books

They also have an even more interactive version:

An Interactive Guide to NPR's List of Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books

[As an added bonus - These guys also have a Flowchart to help you decide Which SciFi Series Should You Watch on NetFlix.]

SciFi Series of Netflix Flowchart

Some of my favorite Fantasy and SciFi authors (in no particular order):

Orson Scott Card

Stephen R. Lawhead

Isaac Asimov

Ray Bradbury

Gene Wolfe

C.S. Lewis

J.R.R. Tolkien

Cordwainer Smith

J.K. Rowling

Frank Herbert

{My Goodreads shelf for Fantasy & SciFi}

The gargoyles on Notre Dame in Paris

I have been asked over the years what I think about people letting their children “Trick-or-Treat” on Halloween. I think this comes up because our church has provided every year an alternative to Halloween, known as Reformation Day. For more information about this, and how you can get some excellent help for putting on a Reformation Day celebration, you can go to Doorposts.

Below I have provided an excellent article by James Jordan about this subject that I have given to people who are wondering about Christians participating in Halloween.

As for me, I tend to be in two minds about the subject. On the one half of my mind, I sometimes think that it is not all that healthy for Christians to be involved in. First, because in some cases, kids tend to get selfish attitudes about it all because they are out to get as much candy as they can (although this is a minor reason for me because children can be taught to be thankful – and because getting candy is so much fun that its hard not to want your kids to enjoy that part of it). Second, and more important to me, it is a distraction from the wonderful Christian tradition of celebrating what God has for His people throughout the ages. Third, and the most troubling aspect of Halloween is the way that it seems to glorify and celebrate outright evil and debauchery. For most people today, the good rational provided by Jordan (below) is nowhere in their minds.

On the other side of my mind, I generally think that parents that like to give out candy, and enjoy allowing their children dress up (appropriately) and go around to their neighbors and family for an evening of fun can do so with a clear conscience. Having said that, all things in our lives should be done in biblical decency and order – and with the goal of teaching our children to have godly fun. If your church provides something like a Reformation Day celebration, why not also take part in it?

“Do you have faith? Have it to yourself before God. Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves. But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because he does not eat from faith; for whatever is not from faith is sin.” (Romans 14:22–23, NKJV)

Concerning Halloween
by James B. Jordan
August, 1996

It has become routine in October for some Christian schools to send out letters warning parents about the evils of Halloween, and it has become equally routine for me to be asked questions about this matter.

“Halloween” is simply a contraction for All Hallows’ Eve. The word “hallow” means “saint,” in that “hallow” is just an alternative form of the word “holy” (“hallowed be Thy name”). All Saints’ Day is November 1. It is the celebration of the victory of the saints in union with Christ. The observance of various celebrations of All Saints arose in the late 300s, and these were united and fixed on November 1 in the late 700s. The origin of All Saints Day and of All Saints Eve in Mediterranean Christianity had nothing to do with Celtic Druidism or the Church’s fight against Druidism (assuming there ever even was any such thing as Druidism, which is actually a myth concocted in the 19th century by neo-pagans.)

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I received notice of a movie that Brian Godawa co-wrote about the Scopes Monkey Trial (1925), called ALLEGED. I tlooks to be a promising and accurate portrayal of the events that had such an impact on American Society.

The Hobbit - There And Back Again

Literary Structure: For some, it is the key to understanding all things literary (especially in ancient literature). For some others, it is a useful curiosity. For other still, it is a worthless enterprise that is much ado about nothing. For me – I guess I find myself vacillating between all three. Although we cannot know for sure, it may be that authors (including biblical writers) actually do use literary structures to help them communicate their message. In which case, identifying these structures is very useful in understanding their intended meaning. It may also be that since structure is part of God’s creation, and therefore inescapable, writers my just write in such a way that their works have a structure that they are not fully conscious of. Identifying these unintentional structures can gives us a richer understanding of the text we are looking at. And still, it is possible that literary critics and students are so predisposed to find structures that they impose on the text structures that then become a distraction from a free reading of text. For this reason, I think it good to think a little about such things, allowing ourselves to be open to a wide varieties of ways of looking at the text – on its own terms.

I recently came across the following offering of such a structure. Whether Tolkien wrote the Hobbit (a favorite of mine – especially the scene with Smaug) with any self-conscious structure in mind – this is an interesting theological reflection on the book. Notice the center as a sacramental turning point in the book. Certainly the subtitle (“There And Back Again”) invites us to think of the story with two complimentary bookends, with a story that connects the two. Whether this is to you a useful curiosity or worthless waste of time, maybe it’s worth the time to think a little deeper about the story. Enjoy!

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When I was in high school my father took me to the local community college to view the whole Francis Schaeffer series of movies called:  How Should We Then Live.

How Should We Then Live is a series of instructional times addressing  “The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture.”  Starting from ancient Roman times, tracing man’s development throughout the Middle Ages, going to the Renaissance, Reformation, and Enlightenment, he shows the steps which led to the modern era. While they sound  like history lectures (which they are), they are far more – including the arts and culture from a Christian perspective.  I have always wanted to see them again, and found them through a friend in California.

Here is the first episode: The finite Graeco-Roman gods were not a sufficient inward base for the Roman society: Rome crumbled from within, and the invasions of the barbarians only completed the breakdown.

CHAPTER SUMMARIES

Chapter One – Ancient Rome

Chapter Two – The Middle Ages    The Middle Ages were the post-Roman age: a time of uncertainty in which there were great advances of the church but also great distortions of Biblical truth, eventually leading to the Renaissance and the Reformation.

Chapter Three – The Renaissance   Although the Renaissance revived the realization that man and nature are important, it went overboard by making man the measure of all things-and by that destroyed the importance of man.

Chapter Four – The Reformation   Like the Renaissance, the Reformation sought to bring freedom to man, yet unlike the Renaissance it did not lose sight of the Bible and absolute values.

Chapter Five – The Reformation-Continued    The impact of the Reformation on society at large was the opportunity of freedom without chaos.

Chapter Six – The Enlightenment   The Enlightenment believed in the perfectibility of society, and sought to bring it about mainly by the means of revolution.

Chapter Seven – The Rise of Modern Science    Modern science could only have arisen from a Christian foundation: namely, that man is not part of a closed system but can observe and act into the system.

Chapter Eight – The Breakdown of Philosophy and Science     The foundation in Philosophy and Science was changed from antithetical thinking to dialectic thinking-and because of it reason became more and more pessimistic.

Chapter Nine – Modern Philosophy and Modern Theology            Due to the pessimistic view on reason, Philosophy and Theology started to seek meaning in the irrational.

Chapter Ten – Modern Art, Music, Literature, and Films           What began in Philosophy now made itself felt in the Arts: the abandonment of reason and increased fragmentation.

Chapter Eleven – In our Society, we’ve come full circle, since our society has become like the declining Roman Empire of old: it is marked by the love of affluence, a widening gap between rich and poor, an obsession with sex, freakishness in the arts, and an increased desire to live off the state.

Chapter Twelve – Manipulation and the New Elite Because our society stands on the verge of chaos, we are in danger of coming under an authoritarian elite which will increasingly manipulate our lives.

Chapter Thirteen – The Alternatives The only plausible alternative to authoritarianism is to align ourselves to a Biblical worldview – a worldview which produces freedom without chaos.

CONCLUSION Whether or not one agrees with all of Schaeffer’s points, his passion to be a Christian who engages secular culture has laid the foundation stone for much of Christian thinking in the past three decades.