Fiction Is Good For You

Philip I think it’s the same reasons as why kids should. I don’t think those reasons go away. Like — why should adults keep eating food?

All right, welcome to another episode of All Are Yours. The same people are still here. We have not been talking this entire time, but we are talking now.

Sean We are here.

Philip We are here, yes. I hope you are as well.

And to get right into it — because there’s nothing else going on in the world. It is pretty mellow right now as we speak. Global events are unusually calm. So it’s up to Sean and me to get things more exciting.

Sean Which — the fact that we can sit here and talk about something other than all the global events may either be ostrich theology, where you’re just burying your head and you don’t want to deal with it, or it is a part of wisdom in dealing with global things, some of which we literally can’t do anything about other than pray about, or trust God about, or I suppose learn about.

Philip That’s right.

Sean But neither you nor I have our hands on the levers of the Department of War.

Philip Right.

Sean Not directly.

Philip Yeah. And in some way, if you’re talking about other things than what is on the highlights of your Twitter feed, either it’s ostrich theology, like you said, or you know something bigger, something else — and so you’re more in the loop. So one way or the other, we’re not going to be talking about global events today.

Sean Yeah. I know this isn’t the topic yet, but I think about it even in terms of what kind of sermon should be preached on any given Sunday. There are times when maybe directly addressing a national or global catastrophe, or a decision even to go to war with Iran — or whatever military conflict, or bombing them, at least, I think we can say we’re doing, whether or not we can say we’re at war with them.

How much should we directly do that? And how much do Christians in particular need to have at least some opportunity to remember — like you said — that there is something beyond the sun? That there is actually a God who is in control of all those things?

And yeah, it’s a balance. I have enjoyed scrolling through Twitter over the last couple of weeks and the jokes about guys monitoring the situation. I think that’s funny. Fifty years ago, or even twenty years ago, your monitoring of the situation would have been watching the six o’clock news for however long they talked about it, and then potentially getting the daily paper, and that was it.

So now you can just keep hitting refresh on whatever your favorite social media thing is, and go to particular websites, and whatever kind of propaganda or lies or truth they’re telling, you can keep consuming it as much as you want. And that is fun. Some of it is probably even helpful. But if that consumes all of our thinking, it’s actually kind of narrow.

Even part of my talk at the fiction festival this coming Saturday is related to how fiction helps us in a day like today.

Philip Mm-hmm. Right.

Sean In these kinds of circumstances.

Philip Yeah. And I think that putting yourself in a constantly reactive mode — where everything that I do is things that are just happening to me and I’m reacting to that — versus: I am proactively building something, and then there are things that come up, whether they’re local or global, maybe related to what I’m doing, and so I have to respond. I have to do something with it. Or they’re unrelated, and I can look at them and pass by and continue walking forward.

So it’s case by case, there’s wisdom. But the point is that if we’re only and always reacting to whatever other protagonists are choosing for us to react to, I think that’s in some sense a position of anxiety — where I’m not continuing to proactively build, but I’m just constantly emotionally reactive to all of it. Whereas looking at what is beyond the sun: there is something bigger at play. And what do we actually have control over, that we can continue building, continue moving the needle in? Keeping the focus on that requires a certain kind of discipline as well.

Sean Yeah. So I will try to not just say all the things that have been bouncing around in my mental hopper related to our Raggant Fiction Festival coming up on Saturday.

Philip So —

Sean Ostensibly we’re going to talk about some fiction.

Philip That’s right.

Sean What’s good about fiction, maybe what our favorite fiction books are, in this episode. So it’s nonfiction on fiction.

Philip There you go. It’s opinions about fiction.

Sean Yeah.

Philip And so, fiction-related. Maybe the overall banner at the top, just to keep people from guessing our position: we think that fiction is good.

Sean True. Amen. Take an offering. We go home.

Philip That’s right.

Sean Yeah. So maybe one of the top ten essays or articles I’ve ever read — one that got stuck in my head and just continues to color a bunch of the angles I have on things — is C. S. Lewis’s Learning in War-Time. And I will bring this up in my talk at the fiction festival as well.

Because that is the talk where he says — this isn’t the exact quote — that the only people who learn are basically the people who want it so much that they’ll do whatever it takes to learn in unfavorable conditions, because favorable conditions never come.

And the talk is given just a couple of months after World War II began. He’s addressing the question of why it is okay, and actually even good — and I think he even gets to the point where I’d say it is inescapably going to happen, not just because it’s good but because of who we are — that we are going to care about more things than just current events. Even when those current events could kill us, human nature is drawn to other things than just the immediate right in front of our nose.

So, people were wondering what the relevance of being at university was when the global war was back on. And at that point, in Oxford — I think he was in Oxford when he was giving this address to the students there — they could actually have been bombed themselves, in England. So they were close.

And he said, well, actually, there’s always a bigger problem, even than whatever war is nearby, and that is eternity. At any given moment a heart could stop beating, and you enter either heaven or hell forever. And he’s like: if you are allowed to study, or read books, or do any other kind of good thing when you’re on the precipice of eternity, then probably —

Philip The —

Sean — the question of whether you can study or read a book or drink some tea in light of there’s a war on is already answered. The greater problem is obviously our eternal status, and God has actually given us good things.

So that’s where the quote comes from about men combing their hair at Thermopylae. And that wasn’t because that was part of the pamphlet on hygiene. That’s just part of our nature.

Stories are a huge part of our human nature. God obviously is the great author. So when we take Tolkien’s comment about being sub-creators, there’s a sense in which we can’t help but want to tell stories to each other. That’s how we — not just how we pass time, but that’s even how we pass along loyalties. That’s a way we identify good guys and bad guys. Stories are how we do that.

The Bible has stories. Even parables are made-up stories that are communicating a point. So we can’t stop with stories.

I don’t think that stories are the only things we should care about. I don’t really need to hear a big story from my surgeon when I’m going in to have back surgery. I’d like to know he can identify the parts.

Philip Yeah.

Sean And that’s no story. But it’s kind of inescapable — even when we’ve got heaven and hell on the other side of any given breath — that we’re going to enjoy listening to, or reading, or even struggling through to write, stories.

So stories are great, I think. Doug Wilson’s worldview wheel, where he talks about four spokes — narrative, or story, is totally one of those things that goes into every Christian’s worldview in particular. This is a good thing. So we’re allowed to, and even more than allowed to. It’s probably inescapable that we’re going to deal with stories. So we might as well have some principles and read some good ones.

Philip Right. And I think that’s one of the things that reading fiction, listening to stories being told, teaches us: being aware, being in the cloud of the bigger picture, of the bigger narrative.

A good storyteller is not just “one plus one equals two, the end.” There are different characters coming into play. There are different narratives crossing over each other. There are backstories and side stories and side narratives happening, and all of this complication — the storytelling does culminate toward one big conclusion, one climax, but a good author keeps it interesting in that way.

And so when we are narrow-minded in our approach toward real life — something is happening, our full attention is there, we can’t have a layered approach — I think reading stories, paying acute attention even to the way a good author tells a story, helps us read our own story here in a much more layered, nuanced, complex way, that also keeps it interesting. There’s much more happening than just this one thing right in front of my face right now. Being able to do that, I think, is one of the first things we learn from reading a good story.

Sean Yeah. I have famously talked about needing to repent from being a fiction hater. I was not only avoiding reading stories, and in particular fiction stories — I think I would have been encouraging other people that it was wrong for them to spend time doing that as well. It was just a waste of time, frivolous, if not actually filling their heads with unnecessary things.

This was after graduating Bible college and seminary, and I still was holding on to this in a virtuous sort of way, up on my high stool yelling down at the fools for reading these stories. And I was wrong — and again, I think I was even sinfully wrong, not just for that pride, but for thinking that that sort of narrow-minded attitude was wise, when it was actually the opposite of that.

It probably started being provoked when we had kids and were thinking about how we wanted to educate them, and I wasn’t thinking a lot about that right at the beginning. My wife helped me get some good reading in that provoked my thoughts on what I wanted my kids to actually have. But also, studying Genesis and realizing how many things God had made that he meant for us to receive and see as good.

So I started trying to read stories for myself, and I was actually encouraged — and then saw why people I cared about were so pro-stories as well, for the sake of kids.

So yeah: we need to learn to read so that we can read the Bible, yes. But so many other good stories help expand our imaginations. They color our worldview. Your comment about how there are so many plots going on around us all the time, and God himself is in control of each little plot as it overlaps with other people, or with higher-level plots — person, family, church, city, state, nation, world, generation, all those kinds of things. We have no idea how many plots are actually happening at the same time that God is moving toward that ultimate end.

But reading a good book helps give us an opportunity to think about that, from a little bit outside the black-and-white, straightforward, narrow thinking that it’s easy to fall into — or at least easy for some people to fall into.

Philip Right. Well then, one of the results of your repentance was the ECS Raggant Fiction Festival.

Sean Yeah.

Philip Which, from when we’re recording this, is coming up this Saturday — the tenth annual one.

Sean Tenth annual, that’s right.

Philip And there have been a couple of years when it was maybe just our local people speaking, but most of the time there are other guests involved as well.

Sean Yeah, we’ve had guests who have actually written and published stories.

Philip Right. They know what they’re talking about.

Sean Yeah. So, Doug Bond — he came the first couple of years. To my knowledge he still lives in Western Washington, a little bit down south. And he’s written a bunch of historical novels in particular. I actually really enjoyed his one on John Calvin. I’ve read a few of them. I read one — I forget what the title of it is — related to Lewis and Tolkien in World War I, but that also was an interesting angle.

Then we have had Becca Merkle. She came when we were talking about the Chronicles of Narnia.

We had C. R. Wiley — Chris, to you. He came when we were talking about some Tolkien stuff, because he did a couple of talks, and one on Tom Bombadil. His book on that was just coming out.

We have had Doug Wilson come. And now this is the second year we’ve had Ben Palpant come. He’s got a few different genres of book, but including some storybooks. Brightwing was the one he actually introduced last year. I’m told he’s got Brightwing 2 at the publisher, but it’s not going to be ready for the fiction festival.

Philip Okay. I think last year the first one had just come out, or —

Sean Yeah, I think we were the first ones to be able to buy it directly.

Philip Yeah.

Sean Which was kind of fun.

Philip So if you didn’t come last year, and if you’re not coming this year, you’re missing out already.

Sean Yeah, exactly. And Christine Cohen, in fact.

Philip That’s right.

Sean She’s another one, and there’s some possibility — she has her new novel coming out in 2027, and she said she might be interested in coming back.

So we’ve had people come in. And then a few times, our own teachers at the school who are teaching fiction at various levels, whether elementary or secondary. And then Leila Bowers has taught fiction at the college level multiple years as well.

So I keep talking, because it was sort of my idea to try to have a day. I don’t know of any other seminar or conference sort of day that is celebrating fiction like this. It’s not a Renaissance fair, so we don’t all dress up in costumes and churn butter in between sessions and —

Philip I could see you. I could see you doing something like that.

Sean Yeah, with my straw hat and my straw pipe.

Philip Actually, recently somebody mentioned that they saw my podcast with that old man. So they were referring to you.

Sean Wow.

Philip So maybe if you had a straw pipe or something, that would have fit that character too.

Sean I always greet the seniors at school when they become a twelfth-grade senior. When I see them I say, “Good morning, senior,” or “Good afternoon, senior,” or whatever it is. And this year a couple of them have taken to calling me “senior” in return.

Even this morning I was talking with one of them, and he said, “You’re not offended by that, are you?” I said, well, if I didn’t have this much gray in my beard, then I might be offended. But no, it’s pretty funny.

So, somebody called me the old man.

Philip That’s right. I was on a podcast with the old man.

Sean Okay. But I mean, it’s generational.

Philip That’s right.

There’s one thing — and we could talk about this for a long time — regarding fiction being useful for kids, for enculturating kids and giving them that worldview, giving them the flavors, the loyalties, like what you were saying, building that up.

What use is there for fiction for adults? Should we put aside childish things? Okay, maybe there’s a use for it when we’re kids, when we still need to nurture those kinds of affections. But shouldn’t adults get to something more serious, something more substantive? What kind of substance is there for adults in fiction? Why should adults be engaged in fiction reading?

Sean Yeah, I’ll give some thoughts. Hopefully then you’ll also give your own thoughts on answering that.

I don’t think anybody should just read fiction instead of the Bible, or instead of any kind of nonfiction things they want to learn about. I don’t think anybody should just eat one type of meal all the time. If it was an either/or, if you could only choose one, I would not encourage people to only choose fiction. I would encourage them to choose good nonfiction, in particular God’s word.

However, the different kinds of mental exercise are good. Just like — okay, if you could only choose one kind of calisthenic or weightlifting, one barbell exercise to do, you could just do one, but you wouldn’t actually develop the whole body. And fiction develops mental thinking-exercising muscles that are different than nonfiction.

And of course there’s easier-to-read and harder-to-read fiction. So an adult could just read the five-year-old-level book. “See Spot —”

Philip “— run.”

Sean Yeah. Would that be exercising their mind the same way? No. They can get better at it, which I think is good as well.

But yeah, it’s a kind of exercise that we don’t get a lot of other places — and especially if you choose the right sorts of fiction books. I think there’s direct encouragement that comes from it, not just good exercise.

The stories that resonate the most for me are almost always ones where good and evil is clear, where there is a resolution. Any story that’s going to keep your attention is going to have some kind of conflict, some adversity that then has to be overcome. That’s true when we’re watching stories on a television show or in a movie; that’s also true in a good book, of course. But I am encouraged oftentimes by the character who has basically given themselves for the cause, and then it’s worked out. And I don’t feel like that’s cheating.

Obviously there are some books that are too simplistic in that way. But then those books typically don’t get considered classics, or ones that everybody is recommending you read.

So there’s exercise of imagination. There’s direct encouragement of seeing: okay, this is what struggles often — this is what it looks like to be in the middle of the struggle. This is where you get the resolution of the struggle; that’s the next part. You don’t start in chapter one with resolution. So that’s a good lesson.

And then even seeing the opposite of how you would want things to be. So it’s not necessarily encouragement, but in a way you could say it’s encouragement to go in a different direction. When you read 1984, you’re like, hey, wait a second, we should not be doing that. Read Brave New World — hey, wait a second, this is not actually good.

And ironically, in both of those there are different reasons for not reading books. In 1984, Big Brother keeps you from reading the books. In Brave New World, you’re given so many things that are cotton candy that you don’t even care about reading books anymore. So, ironically, what the mind gets fed does actually matter. Fiction helps in that respect.

What would you say in terms of why adults still should get some in?

Philip I think it’s the same reasons as why kids should. I don’t think those reasons go away. Like, why should adults keep eating food? Same reasons. Is there maybe a different level of maturity? So, regarding food —

Sean Paul’s —

Philip Right — taste. Paul uses the analogy of milk and meat for doctrine, for theology. Kids start with milk and then they mature into meat.

I think in a similar way with fiction, there are different levels of complexity, different plot lines that adults can grasp that kids cannot, or that can be communicated in a way that might be more difficult for kids. But I do think a good story speaks to all the generations, all the ages. There’s something kids can take for themselves and something adults can also be nurtured by and learn from.

I think it’s clear that when Jesus was communicating his parables, there were both kids and adults in those audiences. Jesus said not to hinder the kids from coming to him. And I remember as a kid growing up in a Christian household knowing a lot of the parables that he talked about, and being able to apply them in a very direct way. But as I grew up, those parables were not irrelevant to me — and even the application of them became more clear, more potent.

So I think in the same way that for kids their affections are stirred, their loyalties are stirred, adults could see that even more clearly in those stories. Even something simple like the Narnia books: there’s a lot in there for kids, and there’s even more in there for adults. And the more you learn and grow, the more you could draw from that.

So again: perspective, worldview, character — seeing all those different things in a story, communicated differently than through prose or through just nonfiction writing. Even Lewis’s approach of That Hideous Strength being the fiction attempt to argue for the same thing he’s arguing for in The Abolition of Man.

So it’s the same point, but put into story. And I think in some sense it’s even much more potent as a story than just as a lecture or as prose. It sticks with you more.

Sean Which — the preface, or, it’s not the preface, I can’t think of the right word, and I can’t remember which of the books it actually is. It might be The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, where Lewis is greeting someone and says he hopes she appreciates the story again when she’s old enough for fairy tales the second time, something like that.

Philip Yeah.

Sean So, your comment about how you can actually come back to it and see it from a different perspective. You’ve seen more things, you can put more things together — but both the young and the old can still appreciate the same story.

Philip Right.

Sean Yeah, I think it’s Empire of Bones by Nate Wilson that —

Philip Empire of Bones —

Sean Nate Wilson. Is that what you’re thinking of?

Philip Oh — sorry. Empires of Dirt is Doug Wilson’s. Yeah.

Sean No, it’s the third in the Ashtown Burials series. I think it embodies the nonfiction Death by Living. So just like That Hideous Strength sort of is the story form, the flesh on top of the bones of The Abolition of Man — so Empire of Bones is the flesh on top of the skeleton of Death by Living. Super excellent. Very encouraging.

I guess as adults we think we’ve matured past it. I’m trying to think — what would be the top reasons why adults argue that they should not spend time reading fiction?

Philip Yeah, I think there’s the adult who’s just not reading anything. He’s just binge-watching Netflix, or —

Sean But that’s a story. I mean, if we were pushing back on that, what would we say? “Hey, but I’m watching a sitcom.” Not sitcoms — I’m watching a serial show. Well then, why doesn’t that get to count?

Philip Right. So again, there are different reasons why somebody’s not reading it. If somebody’s just not reading anything at all because they’re consuming it in that other way — yeah, I think there’s a place for the visual consumption of the story. But maybe it’s like eighty-twenty, where you’re getting twenty percent of the value when you’re watching it, versus getting the full value when you’re reading it.

I think there’s a lot more that your mind is doing, to not just understand the point of the story but even the way it’s communicated. There’s a big part of storytelling, like in all art, that is just presenting beauty — the way you write it, the way you’re turning your phrases, the kind of words you’re using, the way you’re painting that picture. Again, it’s not prose in the way where you’re just telling the actual point.

And in visual art a lot of that just goes over you, especially if it’s a show or a movie, as opposed to a painting. A painting you could stand and look at, to dive deeper into the intricacies of what the painter is trying to do there. But with the story, you’re moving through it much more slowly, and it’s meant to be moved through slowly. So you’re grasping these different flavors. Your palate is experiencing much more nuance, I think, in a written story than it would in visual art that is just a movie or a show.

So just taking it in that way, I think you’re missing out on a lot. If fiction is good for you, you’re getting much less of that goodness if you’re only consuming it visually than if you’re reading it.

Sean Yeah. And when you are consuming it visually, someone else has actually put the pictures out for you to then just receive, rather than you constructing those mental pictures yourself.

Philip Right.

Sean Maybe we’ve talked about it in a previous place, but in general it seems like a good rule for kids especially: they have to read the book before they get to watch the movie.

Because — and I don’t particularly love the Lord of the Rings movies anyway — but whether you like how they’re portrayed or not, it is someone else’s decision what the orcs look like. It is someone else’s decision what Helm’s Deep looks like. So is that bad? No. But if you watch the movie first and then you read the book, you have not had to do the work of coming up with what that would look like for yourself.

Philip Right.

Sean It’s part of the exercise.

Philip Yeah, it’s a different vehicle. It’s a different way to communicate that. Some of us find some of Tolkien’s details more annoying than others.

Sean Yeah.

Philip But everybody would probably find it annoying in the movie. And the details that Tolkien is expressing — the movie, even the ones that they do portray, it’s visual, so it just flies by you. And then there’s a lot they have to skip over for the sake of that vehicle. It’s a different way to tell the story. So even if the parts they do portray are accurate according to the author in the book, they’re still not going to be able to express everything. They’re not going to be able to talk about all of it. And so you’re going to miss a bunch of it if you’re not reading the book.

Sean Yeah.

Philip But that’s one way: I’m not reading at all. The other way is people who are reading, and so — I only have a limited time to read, so I have to choose between nonfiction and fiction. And if fiction falls on the back burner for me, I’m going to keep going to nonfiction. So there’s that sort of adult as well, who is reading, but he’s going to be reading other things.

Particularly maybe in some of our circles, in Christian circles, that nonfiction pertains even more to theology, Christian living, that sort of thing.

Sean Which is good.

Philip Right.

Sean Read those things.

Philip Right. And I think that’s kind of what you were saying at the beginning, regarding the different things you’re using to work out your worldview muscles, your narrative muscles, your truth, goodness, and beauty muscles. Nonfiction is a good tool for that, but you’re going to be lopsided. You’re not going to be able to see and understand as much as you would if you’re taking in both nonfiction and fiction.

Again, Lewis’s approach of The Abolition of Man and That Hideous Strength, or what you’re talking about regarding Nate Wilson’s approach with Empire of Bones and Death by Living. There’s a way to read the same general message and look at it in a much different light. So I think you’re missing out on a lot of what you’re actually going for.

If you’re going for truth and goodness, and you want to learn about beauty — there’s one way, to read the recipe and have a chef explain to you how to cook this thing. And it’s a whole other thing to taste the dish. You’re going to learn much more about it, from a different perspective, when those flavors fall on your tongue.

Sean Yes. I think I would give three little tips, because —

Philip We like tips.

Sean Yeah.

Philip That’s why we come to you, Sean.

Sean As an adult, for the sake of fiction.

One is to just commit to always have a fiction book going. So even if you’ve got another nonfiction book that’s crucial, that you need to read — great. But also have a fiction book that is your go-to when it’s time. And at the minimum, okay: read two pages a day. Can you read your theology book? Great. Do you have an assignment in your theology book? Great. But can you sacrifice another five minutes just to keep two — sorry, two fiction pages going? Yeah, you probably can.

Lots of people don’t like reading more than one book at a time. I think fiction is all right for the sake of breaking that rule, because you can typically remember where you’re at in a story more easily than you can remember where you’re at in a math book, or some other kind of good nonfiction book. So: one is just always plan on that. Default to always having a fiction book ready to go.

Another thing to do would be to try listening to it. I find that stories are made to listen to better. I don’t particularly love listening to books, but fiction books are more obvious to consume as an audiobook. So driving down the road, instead of listening to podcasts, try listening to a fiction book.

A third tip would be: cheat, and read that book out loud to your kids. Multiple times I have wanted to read a fiction book, and I got the external accountability by telling my kids we were going to read that book. So they expected that that was going to happen. I had to commit the time, and I got not only the time with them and giving them good things for their imagination, but then I got to hear what the story was about.

So I’ve covered lots of books that I might not have read on my own, or might not have found time for on my own, but we got multiple birds knocked down with the one reading, by reading it to the kids. That one seems super easy for people who’ve got younger kids still at home. And maybe that means you don’t get to read the Tom Clancy novel to them, or whatever it is. But there were plenty of good stories I wanted to consume, and I just made the excuse that I was going to get it in by reading it out loud.

Philip Right. What about some thoughts you’d have on Christian stories? There’s Christian nonfiction, non-Christian nonfiction; Christian fiction, non-Christian fiction. Should Christians read fiction written by unbelievers? Is there even a category like “Christian fiction” — is that something that exists in the real world? Maybe some thoughts on Christian fiction versus just fiction in general.

Sean Well, I like Christians, and I like fiction, so I think Christian fiction —

Philip It’s like peanut butter and jelly.

Sean Yeah — could be really awesome. Sometimes.

Christians in any kind of art get mocked for producing, you know, whatever schlock —

Philip Slop.

Sean — junk, super simplistic, superficial. That is totally possible.

Philip Mm-hmm.

Sean But Pilgrim’s Progress is pretty good Christian fiction. We also have — was Dante a Christian? I think the three-part Divine Comedy probably would get counted as Christian fiction. Or Milton’s Paradise Lost. We get to count those.

Philip Yeah, right.

Sean So maybe we don’t have lots of amazing Christian fiction just coming out of the publishing houses one after the other in 2026.

Philip Mm-hmm.

Sean But for that matter, I can’t remember a fiction book by C. S. Lewis that I’ve read and thought, this is junk. Even if there were parts I didn’t like. They’re not all my favorites.

Tolkien’s is probably Christian fiction, even though I have my own thoughts about his Catholicism getting into more of a works-based salvation than just working out salvation. But still more Christian than pagan.

So I think Christians have written a lot of excellent stories — even if it’s too easy to say, “oh, that person goes to church, they wrote a book, it must be great.” That doesn’t make it beautiful just because they profess to be a Christian.

In terms of reading stories by explicit non-Christians, I would go back to: lots of times it’s super helpful in terms of practicing finding out what someone else’s worldview looks like. And what categories they had to borrow from Christians just to write their story. Especially ones written in the last couple hundred years — almost all of them, in some way, got to be what they are as a story because of Christian things in there. So maybe they hate Christianity, maybe they hate that there’s a God. But they’re still writing against that, and you learn things from that.

Going back before, like even before Jesus. In some of our Omnibus classes at ECS, reading things like the Odyssey or the Iliad — those are not Christian stories at all. Homer didn’t profess to be a Christian. Couldn’t have been a Christian anyway, because they weren’t called Christians until Antioch, whatever covenantalists say.

There is a verse that says when they were first called Christians. So we don’t just go back to the Old Testament and say they were all Christians, even if they were looking forward to Christ. However —

Philip Got to get that in there too.

Sean Yeah. So: wasn’t Christian in any way, wasn’t even God-fearing in terms of the Lord, for Homer — but completely helpful to get a sense of what it was like living in a religious culture where there were many gods who didn’t get along.

Philip Mm-hmm.

Sean And how actually unstable, unhappy, with no certain kind of peace available in that sort of world. That’s actually really helpful to think about.

That was one of the reasons, when we had Omnibus for adults and we looked at all of the things we were going to read in terms of ancient history leading up to about the time Christ came — we called that Omnibus Tenebrae, because of the darkness of all the stories. They’re begging for some kind of gospel. They’re begging for a savior. They had some presented sort of heroes in their stories, but they weren’t perfect. They weren’t sinless. They couldn’t actually offer atonement as a spotless lamb, like —

Philip Like —

Sean — Jesus does.

So as a Christian it was really helpful — not just entertaining, it was actually edifying — to read stories from people who were longing for a thing that they had no idea where to find, that Christ then actually resolves. So before Christ came, those stories have their own angle of benefit.

And then post-Christ — it’s hard to imagine, especially in Western civilization, which, I mean, we’re mostly reading English things. You can read Russian novels in Russian, so you get that added benefit. But still, post-Christ, the world has been changed by God taking on flesh and dying and then defeating death and sin.

Philip Right.

Sean So all the stories depend on that arc in some way, even if they hate it. So yeah, I think we can read ’em.

Philip Mm-hmm.

Sean I’m not talking about pornographic, or emotionally pornographic —

Philip Or —

Sean — those kinds of things. I’m not saying go read those to get benefit and see how enslaved people are. I have not read Fifty Shades of Grey. I don’t read those. I don’t read Twilight, or horror things, for a variety of reasons. So there are, I guess, limits we would say to pagan stories that would be beneficial. But as a category, I wouldn’t eliminate that as a potentially useful thing.

Philip Yeah. I think that when people put the adjective “Christian” before something — when they use “Christian” as an adjective — I think that depends on what you mean by it.

So, like, a Christian business. We’ve talked about this before: when people are using their business as a means to demonstrate ethics or promote evangelism, and that’s what they mean by saying “Christian business,” well then business becomes a means to an end. And the end there is a narrow view of Christianity, where Christianity is defined as ethics and evangelism. So I’m using business to that end, and then the actual thing becomes irrelevant.

In a similar way, I think there’s a way people use “Christian” as an adjective to define the story, or even to define the author — and that means the story must have a gospel presentation in it, explicitly in some way. The story must directly point to Jesus in a very explicit, clear way. And if it doesn’t, then if it’s written by a Christian author, that Christian author is being unfaithful to his calling in some way.

But if Jesus is Lord over all of it, then really what Jesus owns is the definition, the standard, of truth, goodness, and beauty. Jesus gets to define what is true, he gets to define what is good, and he gets to define what is beautiful. So whether the person who is promoting truth, goodness, and beauty worships Jesus or doesn’t worship Jesus, the standard for those things still belongs to Jesus.

So if an unbeliever writes a story that is true and good and beautiful — I think that is possible for an unbeliever to do — that unbeliever is writing, if I could use that sort of definition to define “Christian,” a Christian story. Because Jesus owns those definitions. And that unbeliever might be upset with us hijacking his story in that way. But it’s not up to him. Again, Jesus is the one who owns those definitions. If a Christian —

Sean In the dark —

Philip Or —

Sean — in the light. So just because people in the light can see what people in the dark are doing, people in the dark shouldn’t complain that the people in the light can see it better.

Philip Right. But if a Christian writes a story that is not true, not good, and not beautiful, then no matter what he says about himself or his intention, that story is a lie. It’s not presenting the standard of Christ accurately.

And I would even go into that where I do think Christians use stories, or fiction, when they’re trying to create it, in a similar way, where they could exploit it. They’re exploiting the art in order to present some kind of message. And that’s the same thing as any kind of tangential promotion.

So there is unbelievers’ fiction where they’re using the story to promote feminism, or to promote some kind of equality, or saving the earth, or corporate greed is bad, or whatever that is. There’s an actual message, a political statement they’re trying to make, and they’re using story as a form for it. Well, that in some sense makes the story weaker, because it’s just being used as a means to an end.

Again, to be able to put all of that together — and if the message itself is true and good and beautiful, I think that is where it’s worthy of our attention.

Sean So what’s your favorite? What do we want to do, top three?

Philip Are we counting —

Sean Series, or are we going to just do individual titles? Your top — the ones that come to your mind, like, whatever you do, you should read these for sure. You got a list like that?

Philip Yeah, see, it’s hard to — a book that is part of a series is hard to read on its own. You’re going to get much more out of it —

Sean Okay, we’ll let it be. You can name a series, and it only has to count as one, if you want to get more in there.

Philip Yeah. I’ll take this one just because you’re asking me, and then you could take a different one. So the top one I would say is That Hideous Strength, with the series involved with it, I guess — with the Space Trilogy, or Ransom Trilogy, or whatever you want to call it. If you’re going to read something of fiction, read that one, and read it more than once.

That’s — I think when we talked about our top seven books in general, that one was in both of our lists as just a top book overall. I think you have said that That Hideous Strength is your favorite book, fiction or nonfiction — or your top in fiction.

Sean It’s definitely top. It would be number one in fiction. Probably it depends on what mood I’m in as to whether I’d let it be the top of all categories. But there’s never a time where I think, “I wish I was not reading it.” I’m not constantly reading it every day, but I always think, man, I should be rereading that right now. That would be good.

Yeah, the Ransom Trilogy, That Hideous Strength, is really hard to beat for me.

I really like one called Peace Like a River. I’d give five out of five stars to that. I could probably reread that at any time; I’ve read it two or three times.

And I really like the whole Wingfeather Saga series. That’s really good, by Andrew Peterson.

Philip Yeah. That was one where I had used the trick of reading it to my kids for the sake of reading it to myself. That was something I read to the boys before bed over the course of time.

Sean Yeah.

Philip There are four of them in that one.

Sean Yeah. The 100 Cupboards series — that’s where we got the idea of a raggant from. A raggant does not exist anywhere. Our school’s mascot is a raggant, for a few different reasons, and that connects back to Nate Wilson’s series right there, the 100 Cupboards series. 100 Cupboards I think is the name of the first of the three in that series, but it covers all of that. I really enjoyed Henry York. I enjoyed those books a lot.

Philip Yeah. And — you have to. Maybe even before you read the Ransom Trilogy, That Hideous Strength — if you haven’t read Narnia, for sure that one. If you’re an adult and have not read Narnia, you must. It is easy to read. It’s not complicated. And it’s not unsearchable wealth in it; there’s an end somewhere, but it’s hard to find. There’s a lot of richness, a lot of depth to what Lewis is doing in Narnia.

Sean Yeah, I didn’t read it as a kid. Maybe when I got engaged, or right after we got married, Mo said it was unbelievable that I had not read at least The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, let alone the whole series. So I did read it, and I did like it.

And then I started The Magician’s Nephew, I think, which is the next one in the publishing order. And I got like a chapter in and I quit.

So the Chronicles of Narnia was the first one I actually had an excuse to read to Maggie and Calvin.

Philip Okay.

Sean That was my first time reading through anything past The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Philip Yeah.

Sean And I delighted in it. I really enjoyed it. The kids enjoyed it, I really enjoyed it. So it was not a pain in the butt. It was only good.

And I’ve read them a few times since. Again, I don’t know that there’s ever a time where it would be bad to be reading a Narnia book.

Philip Yeah.

Sean The Lord of the Rings are fine, and I would much rather read them — even including The Hobbit, fine, along with the trilogy — I’d much rather read them than watch the movies again. But I don’t have quite —

And there are Tolkien people and there are Lewis people, and I think that’s fun. All are yours. Good. Both. We don’t have to choose just one or the other. I probably enjoy the Lewisian canon of books more than Tolkien’s, but again, I’m glad that I read them. Reading them to the kids is a great thing to do as well. So, nothing wrong there.

I have tried to read — not “tried” because it was painful, but I have read — maybe three or four Wodehouse novels. And those are fun. They’re their own thing. Are they Christian books? Mm, I mean, eh. They depend on Christian principles, even though it’s not going to get anybody saved and point you to Jesus. Point you to Jeeves, but not to Jesus.

Philip Yeah, that’s right. I think Wodehouse — not every Sunday, but I enjoy a Sunday afternoon reading a Wodehouse book.

Sean Okay.

Philip I think “popcorn fiction” would be an insult to Wodehouse; I think he’s much better than that. But you read it more for enjoyment than for some kind of deep worldview lesson. That’s not as much there. But it is definitely very fun, and I particularly really love the way Wodehouse puts words together, how he uses metaphor. Some of his word pictures I think are a lot of fun.

So there’s a place for that kind of beauty as well, where you enjoy the way the author is serving you the dish, even if you’re not getting a bunch of macronutrients from it.

Sean I think one time I took City of God by Augustine — not fiction, obviously — I took it on vacation with me one time. And, you know: bad genre choice. Wodehouse would always be a good choice to take on vacation.

Philip There you go.

Sean Yep. Again, not that you have to sit there and read it all day. But it’s tasty, and it’s not ruining your health, even if it’s not max protein.

Philip Right.

Sean You got any others that, yeah, adults should make sure they read — this fiction book, that stands out?

Philip So, I haven’t read it, so this is not worthy — but from my wife. She is currently reading the second Leo Tolstoy novel that she’s read of his. She read Anna Karenina and she really enjoyed it, with the Momnibus ladies.

Sean Okay.

Philip And right now they’re working through War and Peace. Her take is that Tolstoy does a really good job in his writing. I have not read him, but that would be one of her recommendations currently.

Sean I’ve tried probably four or five times to get going in The Brothers Karamazov.

Philip Uh-huh.

Sean And —

Philip Yeah, I think that’s Dostoevsky.

Sean I haven’t completed a Russian novel yet.

Philip You’ve got to keep up with the names.

Sean Yeah. And I actually really liked Moby-Dick. So the ones that are in the Western Civ sort of canon, the kind that make it into Omnibus.

The Great Gatsby is dumb. I’m glad I read it one time — I mean, I’ve read it a couple of times, but it’s not because I loved it.

Pilgrim’s Progress is a fiction book that you really could read all the time. It always repays.

So there is not a lack of options out there. But definitely, if you haven’t read Narnia, probably. And if you have young kids, no better excuse than to read that. Or, if you’re a dad, let’s say, and you are not feeling comfortable about your out-loud reading — okay, well, get an audiobook and play that for your kids with you there. So then you’re listening and they’re listening. Great if you can read it. But we’ve got tech slaves that can do things for us. So hit the play button.

Philip There you go. All right. Well, if you’re not going to the fiction festival, you’re going to miss out.

Sean Hope it was good. Because likely — well, what do you think? This recording may or may not make it out before Saturday.

Philip Yeah, we’ll see. That’ll be a goal.

Sean Have it get out before then.

Philip That’s right.

Sean Press a play button on our podcast.

Philip That’s right. There you go. All right — read some fiction. That’s it.

Sean Yeah.