Christianity is a faith of stories. We know this partly due to the parables of Jesus and the narrative form of much of the Bible, but also thanks to the storytelling of Christians throughout the millennia. St. Augustine, who wrote thousand-page theological treatises, is remembered and celebrated most for the story of his life he told in the Confessions. And Dante’s narrative depiction of hell has influenced popular Christian thought more than any systematic theology ever.
I hope to introduce to you or remind you of some of the modern prophets whose works have held faith-shaping significance for me. Not all these authors are Christians, and it would certainly be ugly if you gathered them all in the same room for tea, but I think they all have something valuable—perhaps even prophetic—to tell those of us in the contemporary Christian community.
1. "Till We Have Faces" by C.S. Lewis
No, I’m not just getting the requisite Lewis book out of the way. This was Lewis’s favorite of his own novels, and although it’s much less obviously Christian than the Chronicles of Narnia or the Space Trilogy, it is fundamentally about the relationship between the human and the divine. It is an answer—though maybe not a satisfying one—to a human race that is deeply upset and angry at the unfairness of life, the same human race that kills the innocent and privileges beauty over virtue.
2. "Candide" by Voltaire
This quick and quick-witted read is sharply critical of the kinds of Christianity that too often shout out simplistic, pat answers to complex problems. By subjecting his characters to tragedy after tragedy, from arrest and execution to the famous Lisbon earthquake of 1755, Voltaire creates a picture of the world that is so bleak that saying “God means this for good” becomes almost ridiculous. It’s one thing to believe that God works everything out for good, but that means nothing to people around us who are suffering.
3. "Gilead" by Marilynne Robinson
Besides its gorgeous prose and profound reflections on the lives of both pastors and fathers, this novel is interesting for how it explores the relationship between beliefs and relationships. A brother returns from Europe an atheist, a son dishonors his family, a beloved wife dies too young. Rather than existing in a separate universe from esoteric theological reflections, these events and the ways people react to them are deeply intertwined with their theological views about who God is and how he acts.
4. "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver
This is a novel of failed faith. A Baptist missionary family moves to the Congo in 1959, but their evangelical aims are frustrated by their inability to understand the new world they’ve entered. In an age like ours when missions work and gospel-spreading can so quickly turn into hurtful and unproductive culture wars, Kingsolver offers us a warning of what can happen when closed-mindedness blocks out compassion.
5. "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel
A strange choice, perhaps. There is one way to read this novel—the most common way, I suppose—that sees it as an argument against faith. Things that seem miraculous can always be explained some other way. But I think the other side of the story is the one many Christians need to hear, and this side invites us to celebrate the beauty of faith—and tigers and mysterious magical islands—without seeking to undermine it. Simply pitting reason against faith doesn’t tell enough of the story, and Martel knows that.
6. "A Swiftly Tilting Planet" by Madeleine L’Engle
I could easily have listed A Wrinkle In Time here instead, but I’d rather introduce the third book in L’Engle’s Time Quintet to a larger audience. Though it’s written for children (or because it’s written for children), this book provides the most compelling picture of the whole of history working towards God’s glory I’ve ever read, seen, or heard. It’s a story of good and evil in which the good is God and God is love. Plus there’s a unicorn.
7. "The Lord of the Rings" by J.R.R. Tolkien
Yes, it’s a novel. And there’s no way I can even begin to list all of the wonderful things about it and its relevance for the Christian life here. I will let one of my favorite one of my favorite quotes suffice: “The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.” - Haldir the Elf in Lothlórien
Just as Christianity is a faith of stories, these stories show signigicant faith-shaping.
