What can we learn from fiction?
A confession: I am often reluctant to read fiction because I have a whole pile of ‘serious’ books yet to be read. When I was younger, stories were so much fun! Staying in my room for hours, I would journey with Gulliver, experience human cruelty with Cinderella, and struggle through life with Oliver Twist. As I became a Christian and gradually came to develop a passion for God’s kingdom, imaginative literature fell into the background and the Bible (with allied writings) became the one thing needful. Furthermore, as I progressed in my eagerness to understand the Christian worldview and live it out in the world, books that teach Theology and that help one ‘think biblically’ became primary. And I never seem to have enough time to get and read them all! Why read Dickens or Tolstoy when I have not touched Schaeffer or Piper?
But, as Russel Moore points out, this reasoning is misguided, and his article below tells us why.
The Christian Mind 