August 28, 2007How literary are evangelicals?This is from a recent magazine article about what evangelicals can learn from Flannery O'Connor: . . . Evangelicals publish reams upon reams of prose. What we have not tended to write is anything recognized as having literary value by the literary world. What makes this failure remarkable is that our Protestant forebears include a number of people who did: Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser, George Herbert, John Milton, and John Bunyan, to mention a few. Equally remarkable is the host of near contemporary conservative Christians—sometimes quite evangelical and even evangelistic, though not “Evangelicals”—who were also important writers. G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, T. S. Eliot, Graham Greene, Aleksander Solzhenitsyn, Walker Percy, and Flannery O’Connor are all recognized as important literary figures even by people who do not share their Christian commitment. Where is the contemporary American Evangelical who can make such a claim? The modern Christians who are important writers are all from liturgical churches: Catholic, Anglican, Orthodox. The closest thing Evangelicalism has to a name that could rank with these is probably Walter Wangerin, Jr., who is not really a mainstream Evangelical but a Lutheran—again, from a liturgical tradition. Try to think of a conservative Baptist, a Free or Wesleyan Methodist or a Nazarene, a conservative Presbyterian, a Plymouth Brother, a member of the Evangelical Free Church or the Christian and Missionary Alliance, a Pentecostal, or a member of an independent Bible church who belongs in that company. (Some have mentioned writers who used to be in those churches—but the phrase “used to” in the observation is telling.) As I glance at IVP's list of authors, I see quite a diversity - Anglicans like John Stott, J. I. Packer and N. T. Wright, Baptists from Timothy George to Roger Olson, Methodists such as Tom Oden and Ben Witherington, Presbyterians like James Montgomery Boice and Craig Barnes, Anabaptists like Tom Finger and Mark Baker, and people from independent megachurches like Bill Hybels and Mindy Caliguire. Of course, none of these are "literary" writers in the vein of a Flannery O'Connor. So why don't contemporary evangelicals tend to produce literary works? Are we too concerned about efficacy of evangelistic message and clarity of doctrine to bother with the mysteries of art and literature? Posted by Al Hsu
at August 28, 2007 1:21 PM
Literary is what I like to read and it's what I write. I'm Presbyterian and I'm here! I have a sequel coming out next spring from Kregel Publications. And can you believe it? Not only am I writing literary, but I'm writing it for the Christian YA (12 and up) market. I know there are more readers out there like me. Thanks for asking! Comment by: Stef at September 24, 2007 10:41 PMHa! No one wants to read the world through an evangelical's eyes and imagination. Especially not conservative evangelicals; everyone knows that to be intellectual and an aesthete you must be at least somewhat liberal. But more seriously: I say one has to add into account non-fiction, and spoken word with written work. Martin Luther King Jr. was a Baptist minister, and also one of the greatest (and last) modern orators. Also, I'm sure there have been a few outstanding speeches (I mean, sermons) written by evangelical pastors and speakers in the last century. Comment by: BB at October 16, 2007 4:23 AMFiction authors I've appreciated include Lawrence Dorr, Jeff Berryman, Leif Enger, James Calvin Schaap, Walter Wangerin, Jr., and Vinita Hampton Wright. Can someone tell me why their books are almost never carried by Christian bookstores? Comment by: Ken at July 28, 2008 3:57 PMComments are closed for this entry. |
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