In the last few blog posts of my series on how evangelicals differ from high church Christians on entertainment, I’ve discussed several trends. I’ve talked about how suburban values inform evangelical institutions, how high church liturgy encourages a recognition of sin that evangelicals often miss, and other related ideas. Many of these ideas have been …
Tag: J.R.R. Tolkien
T.H. White: The things I left out
Recently the ever-generous Brenton Dickieson published my essay about T.H. White on his blog, A Pilgrim in Narnia. In many ways, it was me considering ideas that Dickieson brought up in an insightful Tolkien vs. Lewis scholarship series, and expand some ideas I presented at Taylor University's C.S. Lewis Center back in 2017. Someone recently …
6 Books to Read After the Hobbit
Today, September 2, is a sad day for J.R.R. Tolkien fans. It marks the day he passed away, full of life and accomplishments (including a Nobel Prize nomination). Plenty of people talk about The Lord of the Rings and its impact on literature, but not many realize how many smaller-scale stories he wrote. Along with …
Review of H.P. Lovecraft: Cthulhu Mythos
Some of you may have read a paper I presented at the Center for the Study of C.S. Lewis & Friends in 2019 that compared The Call of Cthulhu and The Lord of the Rings. Around that same time, I reviewed a collection of H.P. Lovecraft's short stories for Aphotic Realm, a fiction magazine that …
(Why Art Can’t be Strategized Pt 3)
Click Here to Read Part 2 Some weeks ago, I dealt with the idea that God can use a piece of art to suggest varying ideas to people, even ones the artist wouldn't expect people to get from the piece. I picked up this thought again a couple weeks later, noting that this doesn't mean …
The Need to Do Art Well (Why Art Can’t be Strategized Pt 2)
In Part 1 of this series, I suggested that artists can't ultimately control which spiritual themes people see in their work. This raises an interesting question: if making art is ultimately about leaving room for God to speak to peoples' hearts, then why do art well? Can't he use bad art as well as good …
Continue reading The Need to Do Art Well (Why Art Can’t be Strategized Pt 2)
Lewis and Tolkien Presentation Videos
I was fortunate enough to have camera ready when I gave my presentation on J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. I recently finished uploading the video onto YouTube, you can find it here: https://youtu.be/l6jvmLfbjJs https://youtu.be/9w3GqyQJhzU
10 Great Books About Outsiders
Going off of my presentation about monster figures in fiction, I recently wrote a post on 10 great movies with outsiders in them. There are also some great books that consider outsider perspectives and all the associate themes. Here are 10 such books: 1. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee While most people comment on …
Great Books on CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien
After finishing my recent presentation on C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, someone said they liked the quotes I used and wanted to know some of the books I used. Here are 5 of the books I read, they each provide excellent perspectives on the two men's lives and their famous friendship: The Company They Keep …
Tolkien and Lewis Friendship Presentation
As you may know from reading my other posts, I've gotten to give several presentations about the Inklings the last few years. I've compared C.S. Lewis to Terence Fisher, and talked about how Tolkien's work compares to writers like H.P. Lovecraft and T.H. White. Today, I got to give a talk at Taylor University's C.S. Lewis Center about …
G. Connor Salter 