Fiction Evangelism?

I don’t remember when I read my first novel. I remember the summer of 1958. We lived in a trailer house behind the jail because my dad was the only cop in that small town, and rent was free. We were dirt poor, but Mom never allowed me to feel that way. I remember eating boiled eggs and pinto beans for three weeks, but Mom made it a game. I had to find the boiled eggs before I could eat mine. I remember planting my first garden in the ground between the trailer and the jail. I had no idea what I had planted or where, but everything came up that summer. That was our summer we got to eat lots of vegetables, while Mom put the various flowers in tin cans everywhere in the house and in the yard.

But mostly I remember the library bookmobile.

Bookmobile

In a town of 1500 people, it drove down every street offering to loan books to everyone, but especially to the children. If a child red ten books during the summer, he received a very special prize at the end of the summer. I don’t remember the prize. I just remember the look of total admiration and pride on Mom’s face when I handed the librarian a book and announced that I had finished my tenth book. He logged it in her record book.

So I’ve been reading ever since. I don’t read sex novels or grotesque horror stories. Everything else is fair game. In my twenties I read every major science fiction author. One day I realized that a human’s location never changes human hearts. Without evil there wouldn’t be any tension. Without tension no one would ever read a fiction novel.

Then one day I read the Lord of the Rings. I began to incorporate Christian fiction in my reading.

I spent years in academia getting degrees that I didn’t really need, but I loved the journey and the students. Then we moved to Austria.

AustriaChurch

And I had to learn German.

GermanTextbook

I took classes at the university and promptly flunked them all for the first two semesters. Back then tuition was only $150/semester, so I looked at those classes as part of my language acquisition. I asked a librarian for a second grade reader’s book, and after listening to me explain what I wanted, she gave me a first-grade reader’s book. It was children’s story about a little blue train that had trouble climbing up a hill.

LittleEngine

I lived and slept with my German-English dictionary.

During my third semester, I had graduated from my German-English dictionary to a German-German one, and then I met Sepp. We became immediate friends. He loved philosophy. When I talked to him about reading the Bible, he challenged me to read Siddhartha.

Siddhartha Book

In German. I died.

Written by Herman Hesse, a difficult writer by all counts, Siddhartha was a Hindu legend about the man who founded Buddhism. The book started with Siddhartha looking into the river at his own reflection.

The only reason I read it was to get Sepp to read the Bible with me. He owed me. He was fluent in English, but he seldom used English between us. I had impressed on him how much I really wanted to learn German, so I couldn’t complain about reading a book that he had recommended. I had to look up in my German-German dictionary almost every other word on every page. I still have that first German “novel” embedded in my brain.

We began reading the Bible while I was reading Siddhartha, and we discussed both along the way. That novel ended with Siddhartha looking at his reflection in the river. I told Sepp that Siddhartha hadn’t gotten very far in life, since he ended up where he started. He had never thought about that. And then I pointed out that Jesus began as a baby in poor village and ended up rising from the dead to be crowned King over all creation. I know that conversation helped Sepp see the difference between Jesus and other religions, but that conversation also impacted me.

I had to admit that I really enjoyed reading that book, even though it gave me headaches at times. But the headaches were caused by reading it in another language. I devoured the book. And I began to reflect back at all the times I mumbled to myself, “how dumb is that?” or “good luck with that decision,” or “that wasn’t very original,” or “seriously?”

Astonished

That enlightenment (pun intended if you know anything about Buddhism) opened the world of secular fiction to my evangelistic weapons arsenal. Why “weapon”? Keep reading.

It became inherently easy to begin a discussion about the secular novel and then use questions to point out the inconsistencies, the hypocrisies, the terrible decisions, the pain and suffering caused by evil humanity, and then end with the question: “Is that seriously all there is to this life?” You can figure out my next question. If not, ask me.

I felt like I was taking to the next level C. S. Lewis’ brilliant use of Christian fiction to sow gospel seeds. I agreed that secular writers don’t see God’s view of the world as a passage into the next world. Kant admitted that he knew nothing about existence after death, so he never included it in his philosophy of life.

And although I wanted to encourage my unsaved friends to read Christian fiction, I realized that I could first enter their world where they were before directing them to the real world. Then I stumbled onto the fact that God does the same thing. He told Jeremiah (1:10),

“See, I have appointed you this day over the nations and over the kingdoms,

  • To uproot and to tear down,
  • To cause to perish and to pull down,
  • To build and to plant.”

Note. Four negatives (uproot, tear down, cause to perish, pull down) before two positives (build, plant). God tears down wrong philosophies before rebuilding the person.

And in 2 Corinthians 10:3-6, Paul wrote,

“For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the tearing down of strongholds, as we tear down speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, and are ready to punish all disobedience, whenever your obedience is fulfilled.”

Paul labelled his arguments as “weapons” of our warfare intended to “destroy, dismantle, tear down,” “ways of thinking” that disagree with God.

Weapons

Every secular writer bases his novel on wrong premises about God and humanity. The outcomes are obviously predictable. Believers can “weaponize” those outcomes to do exactly what Paul did. And then present God’s alternative. The gospel of Jesus.

So, do you have an unsaved friend who loves to read? What non-christian books have you read most recently that could be used to spark some interest in God’s view of reality?

Oh, by the way. Fiction Evangelism works with movies as well.

Take a look:
Floyd's Publications & Fiction

Take a look:
Christine's Publications and Historical Fiction

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