. . . Augustine argued that Christians not only had a right to employ “the art of rhetoric,” but also the obligation. Though sometimes skeptical of literature, he recognized that Christians, should they abandon the field, left it open to “those who expounded falsehood.”
. . . just as we need composers to create hymns, the church needs writers—novelists and theologians alike—to build up the body, to enhance our worship, to delight us with stories that exemplify the truths of the Christian faith. Still—it may be time to confess that we’ve left literature in the hands of those who have no hope to offer.
A very good article. Thanks for posting the link.
I am going to share this article with my Faith in Literature book group. Over the past years we’ve read O’Connor and Sayers fiction. We even have a Walker Percy on the list for later this year. We read “secular” authors too but it is interesting, as the great Madeline L’Engle used to point out, to see how God uses writers. I often note that they write more than they know.