Matt W Cook

I like big books (and I cannot lie).

I’ve been seriously reading novels for about two years now. Not just as a minor hobby, but really digging into the books, ripping them apart and digesting them. I think I haven’t had a time in the last two years where I wasn’t in the middle of some book. I read just about anything I can get my hands on. I find almost every genre appealing. Right now I’m in the middle of Silence of the Lambs (creepy, I know). I started it yesterday. I think I’ll be done it tonight.

The book that I was reading before Silence of the Lambs was Dan Brown’s Deception Point. What a difference between the two! Deception Point is clever. Silence of the Lambs is profound. Fortunately for Dan Brown, we live in an odd society where cleverness is almost always to be preferred before profoundness. So in the west we now have a society where everyone knows J.K. Rowling, Dan Brown and all their creations, while many may have never even heard of amazing writers like Thomas Harris or the like.

And then I thought of the Christians.

Have you ever read a ‘Christian’ novel or seen a ‘Christian’ movie? Are they not almost always incredibly shallow? Why is that?

I think I’ve made this rant before. Have I? The rant that the Christian world is generally not very good at what it does, especially in regards to creative things. Why is it that to get a deep, profound work of creative genius I need to look to writers who generally deny that creative Source that gave them their creativity?

Are we just lazy? I’d really like to think so. If not, then we’re just stupid and shallow. I think we have a lot to offer and teach and show if we really pulled up our socks and got to it.

More to come later…