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The Fiction IssueSeptember 23, 2002 If you haven’t noticed, ninetyandnine.com looks a bit different this week. We normally run a gamut of articles from in-depth spiritual features, personal testimonies and devotions to fun stuff like surveys, polls, music and books reviews, and an advice column. But what we’ve never run is fiction. Until now. Taking a break from our informative and enlightening non-fiction fare, we’re treating our readers to a collection of fictional short stories and reviews. Why fiction, you ask? Because fiction, at its core, is a story holding greater truths. It’s food for thought wrapped as entertainment. It’s the easiest, best way to teach, challenge, and excite. Jesus used fiction to drive His points home. Only it wasn't called fiction then; it was called parables. It's interesting that of all the times Jesus is recorded as preaching and teaching throughout the gospels-excluding the Sermon on the Mount (which is in only two of the gospels)-almost nothing is recorded of what He actually preached. But His fiction, or rather His parables, seems to have been written down with breathless, scrupulous accuracy. If we believe the Bible is divinely inspired, then that's a heavenly endorsement of fiction. Yet, we're a society that prefers concrete truths. Non-fiction is the bread and butter of mainstream publishing. And Apostolics in particular seem to keep a wary distance of fiction, as if it might somehow usurp or overturn the power of Scripture. While there have certainly been a fair share of fictional broadsides against Christianity, there have also been some immortal classics penned in support. It's interesting to note that Christianity remained nourished under the harsh grip of the Soviet Union because the Communists failed to ban classic Russian authors like Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, both of whom openly wrestled with their faith through fiction. Besides, how many famous non-fiction authors have made it through time? For every well-known historian (Suetonius, Gibbon) or philosopher (Aristotle, Marx) or leader (Caesar, Churchill), there are a dozen storytellers we know simply by one name (Dante, Dickens, Hemingway, Homer, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Virgil, Voltaire, Shakespeare, Austen, Kipling, Orwell). True, English majors like to put on airs that every sentence has six different meanings and 12 secret levels of symbolism, but stories are to be enjoyed first, contemplated second. Reading is not broccoli.
Thanks to everyone who submitted stories and reviews. You made us laugh, cry, think, and even scratch our heads. We weren't able to publish them all, but appreciate your efforts and hope you and your fellow readers enjoy this issue as much as we have. Finally, let us know what you think about this issue-is it worth doing again?
ninetyandnine.com © 2002, ninetyandnine.com --------- |
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