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Hi! Thanks for writing! I appreciate the time you took!

You said "1. If the same scrutiny was applied to Alice in Wonderland and other children's novels, they would be anathemized."

Can we start there?

Personally, I think many childrens books are really no good. We may view them as harmless fun, but are they? Don't they prepare you for that next bigger step?

My parents always read to me. But we read a lot of biography. We did read Peter Pan, but that is about the only "fairy fiction" I remember.

I do remember "Goodbye Mr. Chips" and "Little Women" very fondly, among others.

But those books dealt with real people facing things that could really happen, in that they did not take place in some kind of fantasy world with occult images.

My parents predisposed me to read great books, not just fairy tale fiction. So when I was older, I was not looking for books that flirted with the occult. It was a great thing!!!

I also never got involved in watching Soap Operas, or lots of other type fiction melodramas. I think my life has been the better for it, all things considered. :-)

I respect your consistancy. "Guard your hearts and minds inChrist Jesus" I have some home school friends that present the same viewpoint. I will agree to ponder and pray on these points. I do believe God's power and revelation is way beyond the realm of man to understand. The soaring imaginations of Lewis and Tolkien have always prompted me to attempt to fathom the majesty and omnipotence of God. I am very aware of the dangers of the occult (ala with of endor) I,ve read seduction of Christianity and realize that we are in an epic stuggle of good and evil where only God can give us the wisdom or strength to contest "the wiles of the evil one" I've always like LOR because good triumps ultimately over evil. C.S. Lewis and Tolkien were scholars of mysthology in a time when europe was turning postchristian. They were holding out the last bastion of orthodoxy in a contintent that would turn away from God. It is true they were not orthodox in every respect, Incidentally Chuck Coolsen cites Lewis' Screwtape Letters as instrumental in his coming to faith. Audios, Keep up the stuggle. I will ponder your thoughts regarding mythology.

And why are "fairy tales" wrong? Are you to say that anything that doesn't seem plausble must be thrown out? If so, then I suppose we should pack up our very illogical faith and settle in for the gloom of rationalism, where everything is nicely ordered and there are no mysteries (though that it is, of course, hardly true). It might be dangerous to view the natural world as anything more than the logical, if artless in formation, product of chance. Or if there is some God surely He can no longer be involved in the whole thing, as that would cause our solid steady reason to hit roadbumps in figuring things out logically. After all, the supernatural protruding on our logic certainly makes for hard going.

Certainly "realistic" fiction has its place, and is perhaps the most important of fiction, for a good realistic work such as, say, Crime and Punishment, shows us our sin vividly and inexescapably. But if all we had was the grim, logical reality of sin, we would be miserable, joyless people, and very much doomed to black death. But we know that "realism" is not all that is real; that what is not seen is "realer" than what is seen.

And so we see the need for what we call myth and religion: we see it all through man's history, from the Epic of Gilgamesh to the Odessy to Beowulf to Star Wars. Man realizes, most of the time, that there is something unseen, and he tries to explain it. But most myths and religions are not true, and only partially fulfill man's longings: for they lack a true knowledge of God, and most mportantly, they lack His Son, the Savior of man, the great King, the Captain of the Starry Hosts. And we find that, like all myths and religions, the true God does not fit within the confines of man's reason: indeed, He exceeds them, and all myth and religion, surpassing man's fallen nature. He exceeds both our reason and our fancies- His design and guidance are greater than any scheme concocted in man's mind, and His mercies and love exceed any idea any man could have had about God.

The wisdom of God is foolishness to the scholar of the age. One cannot boil it down into "realism", but then one cannot fully express it in "fairy tales"- rather, He exceeds both, but we can express His nature and truth in both. So it is unwise to throw the faerie world and its wonder out the window, for in doing so we come close to deciding that our logic decides all: and let it be known, the wisdom of the cross is foolishness to the "wise".

But those books dealt with real people facing things that could really happen, in that they did not take place in some kind of fantasy world with occult images.

Personally, I can't think of any kind of fiction less imaginative or any more boring to read than that which presents situations which could happen to real people in real life. I live real life. It surrounds me. I read to escape, to experience a world unlike the one I know, which is why I read so much SF and fantasy. That doesn't mean I'm into the occult or that I am non- or anti- Christian or anything; it just means I have different tastes than you do.

Don't make so much of the fact that some people like fantasy.