In the last several articles, I have been playing around with Biblical lessons around community and family interactions. While I don’t follow any strict rule on what topic I choose, I do tend to follow a trend. We have recently looked at Sci-Fi horror Caddo Lake and The Bird Box, and the animation film 9 among others. Mostly we have discussed why kind of impact we as Christians make on the community around us. What we leave behind. The movie... Read more
Fiction drives our world. In my first article, Illumination: How Stories Reveal God to Us, I talked in detail about how our minds and societies metabolize and grow on stories. The reality about these stories is that often they are saturated with fiction. For better or for worse. Because of that, I have been wanting to expand the types of articles I write to include thought pieces on fiction’s role in society. Coincidently, last week’s election provided the perfect doorway... Read more
There are many different ways to serve God with our lives, and He calls us all differently. In the past few articles, I was able to highlight a few through stories like The Martian and 9. However, not all ministry is as highly praised and often spoken of in Christian circles as mission work and church work. Though even mission work and church work can be overlooked more often then I’d like. The ministry that is most often forgotten both... Read more
M. Night Shamalan’s most recent thriller is a sneaky Sci-Fi. Unlike many of the clear science fiction stories we have looked at in the future, like The Martian or The Foundation Series. The twist would not have held nearly as much weight if the marketing had given away the genre as it was a bit of a spoiler to even mention it. I was quite confused for the first half, but the pieces soon fell into place. Caddo Lake is... Read more
If this article has reached you, I can be almost a hundred percent sure that you have heard about the power of love before. A lot of stories tout it. As a child, it came in the form of the power of friendship, with shows like the Care Bears and My Little Pony. Disney movies liked to promote the romantic side, but this only blossomed into Hallmark and Lifetime movies. Even some of the stories I’ve touched on emphasize it.... Read more
In last week’s post, I looked into how The Martian. I address how it speaks about the church and the Christian community supporting individuals committed to God’s Mission. This week, I want to dig into the concept of mission more from a different perspective. The quickly forgotten and frankly terrifying animated movie 9 contains a powerful message about how the greatest motivation to go out into a dangerous world is love. One of the most powerful sermons I’ve ever... Read more
I have talked a lot about my love of science fiction in this column. I’ve attempted to choose stories my readers would at least be familiar with, such as Frankenstein, A Brave New World, and Foundation. Despite that, most of my choices would not be recognizable to people who don’t enjoy the genre. The Martian, though, is viral enough and recent enough, that most people would still know the basics. Potatoes, for one. Math. A lot of Math. I... Read more
My past articles have largely covered books and movies within the Science Fiction genre. We’ve looked at classics like A Brave New World, Frankenstein, and Foundation, to twisty horror like Life, and Annihilation, and more besides. All these stories engage the mind and lead the reader to think deeply. Fantasy, however, particularly fantasy written for children, is one of the best ways to engage human emotion. This is exactly how I feel about the movie Song of the Sea. To... Read more
Reading regularly in Science Fiction without reading about the future is nearly impossible. Many stories are set in the future. We’ve already discussed several, such as A Brave New World and Life. Others, like Edge of Tomorrow and Kindred use time travel as a central concept. The Foundation series by Isaac Asimov does not go in the most obvious direction. It focuses on making the unknown future known is one of the more important ones in the science fiction... Read more
Last week we looked at a familiar monster in the classic Frankenstein. This week I’d like to start with an different kind of monster. The 2022 science fiction horror movie, Life, attracted much interest from its initial trailers. The story echoed earlier genre classics, such as Alien, but featured realistic science and a stellar cast. It garnered conflicting reviews but most people agreed that the story shone in its first act. I would agree. I would also agree that... Read more
Illuminating Fiction
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