Novels

  • Boy reading bookBy Robin Phillips, November 19, 2012 in the Christian Worldview Journal

    My dad, Michael Phillips, is a Christian novelist, so as I was growing up fiction played an important role in our lives. His career began by editing the novels of George MacDonald before he branched out to begin writing his own novels.

    Though my father was a good story-teller, he never intended to just tell stories as an end in itself. Rather, he sought to use his fiction ministry to draw people closer to God the Father, and to spur believers on to a life of more faithful obedience to the commands of scripture.

    Growing up it was sometimes interesting to hear people object to my father’s writing ministry. “Why not just tell the truth plainly, instead of putting it into stories?” I would sometimes hear people say. Other times I would sometime people say something like this: “If I wanted to learn more about the Lord, a novel would be the last book I would pick up. Why not go straight to the Bible or to works of theology?”

"The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.
All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,
All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,
But nearness to death no nearer to God.
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries
Bring us farther from God and nearer to the Dust."

TS Eliot

Topics

 

 

 

Recommended Books

We use cookies

We use cookies on our website. Some of them are essential for the operation of the site, while others help us to improve this site and the user experience (tracking cookies). You can decide for yourself whether you want to allow cookies or not. Please note that if you reject them, you may not be able to use all the functionalities of the site.

Ok Decline