two down

So now I'm two books (almost three if you count Nehemiah) into my resolution (not like a real, formal one; just an informal, "this would be good to do..." one) to read more this year. The books were L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time and Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday.

[Warning: I am about to be blunt and maybe even rash.]

Chesterton was skillful, artful, thoughtful, and delightfully funny. He did not take himself seriously. His book is a classic, and rightly so.

L'Engle was shoddy, disjointed, laborious, and -- most of all -- blasphemous. She took herself too seriously. Her book is also considered a classic, and I am puzzled to think why. More puzzling still is why Christians propagate L'Engle's [putatively Christian] work while vehemently protesting Pullman's obvious attacks.

Give me an atheist mocking a decrepit "god" any day over a "Christian" who equates Jesus with Buddha, scientists, and artists everywhere, and makes witches speak comfort through Scripture.

More on L'Engle here from the World Reformed Fellowship. (Just to add insult to injury, L'Engle considered Anselm a heretic.)

[::waits for someone to come defend L'Engle, or at least Wrinkle::]