Everyone...hope this post finds you all well.
Interesting and funny note today. This morning as I sat drinking my milk before speeding off to school, I checked out a book that happened to be in the living room on the chair I sit in occasionally. So I picked it up and checked out the cover summary...
The book is Hometown Legend, by Jerry B. Jenkins. (YAY! LEFT BEHIND! REMEMBER?!) Anywho, apparently the book is about a little town in our own Alabama by the name of Athens City, who has fallen on hard times. Coincidently they also really like football. But the football team also happens to be sucking at the moment as well. So, what next? How bout a coach who left some time ago after a tragedy after a game, comes back to town to save the fledgling footabll team and thus the entire town itself!??? Awesome huh? Get this...the team happens to be named, the Crusaders. Wow. Probably the biggest pile of cliche I've seen in a while. I guess that's why they made a horrible movie about it too...Ahh Christian Fiction.
It doesn't end there...
After reading a list of the characters (all on the inside cover) and how the momentous season impacts their hope and faith (it did say that) there was a quote:
"His characters have flaws. Their lives are not easy. Yet they show resourcefulness that serves as an inspiration. Readin HOMETOWN LEGEND is like listening to a good country song."
Ivan Maisel, Sports Illustrated
That's right, this book is so good that it got reviewed by a... sports magazine... ughhh.
Inspiration. That's what the entire world of Christian Fiction has turned into. A genre of inspiration. A genre of "moving on" or "help to scrape by". This is not good. It should be a genre of transformation. Not "Wow. That really helps me be me, better in this awful situation." How about a book that makes us go, "I'm going about this whole thing wrong and this story really made me understand things alot better. It's like the situation was a dark closet, and now it's a well lit hallway. I was just insisting on opening the broom closet and maybe lighting a match instead opening the door to the outside, where the garden is located." We're settling for a match in the broom closet where there is no room to grow or transform. We should search for the garden where we can be inspired by all the other growing and transforming things around us.
Well, at least he said it was like a good country song. Is this really the quote that an author wants to make his book look attractive?
Stay tuned for the last installment of Epitome tomorrow.
Good Providence
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7 comments:
Aghhhhh, you make the review sound too good. To say that it sounds like a good country song is to say that its really terrible, and should never be read. In fact, It should be avoided at all costs.
hey there's absolutely nothing wrong w/ country...
Awesome post wayne. you know Providence reminds me of a good country song. One of those you just can't get out of your head, mind-numbingly stupid country songs that you just can't stand. If any Christian book is being compared to something so horrific, it deserves neither God's name, nor His beauty attached to it. Props to Jenkins for another touchdown. It's Good!
is brianna saying that someone who listens to country music can't be a christian?
Obviously Chris has never listened to Johnny Cash.
Absolutely Ryan... Chris I highly reccomend Cash bro. It's just that he never really gets associated with it that much because he's so good and the genre has a reputation of suck. Definately check out Johnny Cash.
No Brianna isn't saying that people who listen to country music can't be a Christian. Who am I to judge the heart of another? Only God can do that. What I was trying to say...as Wayne so eloquently put it...the genre sucks, and no I wouldn't want something that is supposed to be a resemblence to God's beauty and majesty compared to songs about lost loves, whiskey lullabye's, someone shot my dog, and junk about tractors being sexy. It's so much deeper then that, or at least it should be.
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