I have problems with feeling guilty about ridiculous things. Last week, I was incredibly blessed to receive a promotional copy of The Green Bible.

This new edition of the Bible (from a Harper Collins imprint, interestingly) is so beautiful I feel guilty that I’m going to keep it and use it as my new Bible. But not too guilty, you understand.

It doesn’t make sense that I would feel guilty about such a gift, but I guess I just don’t feel like I deserve it. But don’t worry. Like I said. I’ve decided to keep it and love it for myself. Call me selfish. Call me crazy. This is not one that I’m going to give away. It’s only $20.00 on Amazon anyway.

Besides just being an interesting concept, the book is very satisfying to hold. The linen cover feels good. The book has good weight. It opens easily and rests open. The pages are thin but substantive. And the ink is easy on the eyes.

You’ll get a sense of the concept by watching their promotional video. For example, they say the Bible has over 1000 references to the Earth. That’s more than the number of references to heaven. More than the number of references to love. Watch the video and tell me what you think.

Randy Ingermanson just posted a hilarious article called Three Reasons to Ban All Non-Amish Novels that does a great job of listing some of the quirks of the Christian publishing world–in particular the cussing problem. Randy says, CBA limits authors to “tofu cuss-words that make them sound like that gosh-darned Miss Marple.”

Heh heh heh.

One question, though, Randy. If I were Lassie and Timmy told me to save him because he’d fallen down in “gzbr wll” again, I’d have a problem. I’d have absolutely no clue what “gzbr” meant. Geezburr?  Jeezbeer?

And I’d be a dog. Reading a text message.

Just saw this on Publisher’s Weekly. It was announced yesterday. That’s right. Thomas Nelson will no longer attend the primary CBA tradeshow, ICRS. I’m not sure whether this means they are leaving the Christian Booksellers Association, or just no longer attending the tradeshow.

Update: Michael Hyatt weighed in on this in the comments. They aren’t leaving the CBA, just no longer attending ICRS. He pointed people to a Q&A about this specific issue on his blog.

At any rate, you need to know this stuff. So keep reading and be sure to click through to the articles as well.

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I’ve heard some folks asking what it looks like when Christian writers weave their faith into novels as a theme.

So often, we are clumsy about this. Very clumsy. We try too hard. Protest too much. Just to moments of conversion and theology without having an organic reason to do so. In short, we cheat. We twist the story and the characters to have our moment of moral parable.

Flannery O’Connor doesn’t do this. Tolkein doesn’t do this. Lewis does a bit, but we forgive him because Narnia is so cool. So when did we lose confidence in the power of stories and characters to express truth with integrity?

All of this talk about writing is fine and dandy, but ultimately unhelpful without any examples. What does it look like when a master craftsman integrates faith seamlessly into a novel? Look no further than Michael Flynn’s recent literary scifi masterpiece Eifelheim.

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My buddy Mark D. Roberts linked to me today. What a guy! He’s just finished a series on praying in public venues. You can read the story of my brother-in-law’s chaplaincy in high school over at Mark’s post for today.

And Mark’s link got me thinking about taking our faith public.

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Here’s a little poem since I haven’t posted one in awhile. Comments to follow.

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There’s been a lot of talk and some fear in Christian circles about the new atheist fantasy for kids. As usual, the critics agree we’ve made much ado about nothing.

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Yesterday, I wrote my thoughts on The Return‘s front cover, back cover, endorsements, and stuff.

Today, I’d like to do a quick community review of page one.  As Camy Tang said recently, most readers give a book a page or two to hook the reader. She figures that’s about 20 seconds.

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To be fair, I should judge The Return by a little more than its cover, right? But we do need to start at the beginning with…

1) The cover

As a science fiction fan, this cover gets my attention. I recognize that photo from NASA’s archives. Looks like a genuine Rover shot, but I’m not really sure.

My feeling that The Return could actually be good, sound, technical science fiction is reinforced by the blurb on …

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A few weeks ago, I joined Mary DeMuth’s Authentic Parenting blog tour. I’ve posted about the book’s powerful stories and its practical tips. I even posted a quick “hard sell” post just to see what would happen. (You can read more about Mary’s book on her site RelevantBlog.)

Today I want to think about what the book does theologically. Continue reading →