In my last post, I discussed the 1888 English novel Robert Elsmere, which was vastly influential in its time. Briefly, it describes the crisis of faith of an Anglican clergyman, who suffers a deconversion experience inspired by contemporary Biblical criticism. How does the book stand today? Have Christians come to terms with these questions? What can we learn from the book today? Looking at the novel today, several major points come to mind. One, as I remarked last time, is… Read more

I recently posted about The Damnation of Theron Ware,  a classic example of a book that was hugely popular and influential for some decades, but is now largely forgotten. Actually, literary history is littered with such cases, and their oblivion is often unfortunate, as some of these texts – like Theron Ware itself – are really excellent pieces in their own right, beyond their value for historians and scholars of religion. Probably the greatest example of this type of book… Read more