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And Christian culture has stopped talking about things like courage and loyalty. Has stopped telling beautiful stories of fantasy with meaning. Where's today's C.S. Lewis or J. R. R. Tolkien, or George MacDonald? As a kid, I absolutely hated the little "Christian" books sold at the "Christian" bookstore. They were about "real life for kids" as the authors saw it and they were horrible, stupid stories that didn't entertain or enlighten me.

Agreed, there hasn't been any decent Christian books period since Lewis, Chesterton, Dostoevsky and the like. Problem is that modern Christian oriented books are so heavy handed with the message, as if the readers are too dumb to get it, (even CS Lewis was actually quite guilty of this at times.), that it becomes an obnoxious sermon. I get enough sermons at mass. Wish there was one book to compare with "The Napoleon of Notting Hill", probably the most inspirational work of fiction both for young and old.

On a side note, you read Dune when you were twelve?!?! I read in when was fourteen and it blew my impressionable mind out of the water!

Heh, my dad started me on Heinlein's juvenile novels when I was nine. Got permanently twisted after that. I also learned that I didn't have to put up with lousy novels just because they have a "Christian" label.

Lewis might have been heavy-handed, but he had a story worth telling and characters that were likable. Today it's all message and moral, no story.