This month the CSFF Blog Tour is highlighting Wayfarer's Journal, an online source for Christian science fiction. This is an excellent website that features SF with a Christian perspective. So much SF these days seems to take non religious view of the future. That's on a good day; the rest of the time they are actively anti-religious. This webzine is an attempt to take speculative fiction and present it with a viewpoint that a huge percentage of Americans share. That is a Very Good Thing.
The stories are thought provoking and timely. The layout is professional. The feeling and attitude are warm and welcoming. This is a place you should visit and support.
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3 comments:
First, you complain about the lack of SF with a Christian perspective. I think that this state of affairs is a reflection of the world in general. Christianity plays a very small part in the lives of people in Britain and for much of northern Europe, possibly Australia too. As you are probably aware, there is an active faction here consisting of people such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens et al who are vociferous in their condemnation of organised religion and all it stands for. Backing their argument, of course, are zealots and fanatics of all faiths who use religion as a means to power and to impose their own bigotry and intolerance over large swathes of populations. Religion has some hard battles to fight if it is to prove its worth in the 21st century.
Second, you say that the stories with a Christian perspective are 'thought provoking and timely'. That is good. Fiction should challenge your understanding of the world and offer an opportunity for you to re-evaluate your own core beliefs. Therefore, fiction that goes along with the viewpoint of a majority is IMHO a Very Bad Thing.
Who knows? Perhaps in the future society will be purely secular and based on humanist principles. Would that be so very terrible a thing?
It is sad that Christianity is knocked down because of some of its practitioners. I attend a Calvary Chapel that has recently sent a mission team to England, I think Manchester, and they are attracting huge and responsive crowds. My feeling is that people all over Great Britain want to know Christ but the Anglican Church has not been doing the job. Many times there is a difference between 'religion' and 'Christianity.'
As for a future society based on secular, humanist principles... I think it was tried and didn't work out too well. (However you can still get yourself named as Time Magazine's Man of the Year.)
Mmm, I'm dubious about people in Great Britain wanting to know Christ - the cult of instant celebrity is the latest spiritual craze. Secularism has too great a hold here; people do not see the relevance of religion in their lives - unless, of course, you are an immigrant from Eastern Europe or the Middle East. Also, most Brits, me included, shy away from anything that resembles tub-thumping demagoguery and what is thought of as southern bible belt dogmatism.
It is not only the Anglican church which is losing worshippers, the Methodists, United Reformists, Baptists, Catholics and others are all suffering the same fate. Many people seek some kind of spiritual life but they do not wish to be part of organised religion.
For the rest, Sunday morning worship consists of visiting the retail outlets.
As for Mr Putin, he didn't get where he was today by putting either humanist or religious principles into action. Although Marx was dismissive of religion - 'opiate of the masses' I believe he called it - Communism displays elements common to organised religions.
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