Customer Reviews

Christian Mythmakers: C.S. Lewis, Madeleine L'Engle, J.R.R. Tolkien, George Madonald, G.K. Chesterton, and Others

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In this relatively short work, Rolland Hein manages to successfully review and critique the works of many Christian authors who created mythological stories. The critiques, ranging from Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" to Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings," are arranged chronologically, beginning with Dante and ending with contemporary 'mythmakers.'

The reviews not only cover the works and the Christian elements in them, they also provide useful information and good insight into the lives of these men and women. Quotes are presented, giving the authors' views on the art of Christian mythmaking and their attitudes toward the various ways we can discover truth.

This book is excellent. It is very well-written, and thoughtfully organized. The insight it provides on such authors as Tolkien, Lewis, and MacDonald is invaluable. If you are interested in one or more of these authors, get this book--it may help you to better understand them or even discover new authors and new worlds to explore.

This is one of the best introductions to popular Christian fiction that seeks to draw the reader into the world of meaning. too often modern literature, following earlier reductionist authors, strips the inner meaning of life away, leaving a dark, bleak universe void of any real and lasting meaning by which the reader can transcend the shadows of life. The authors covered in this short intro do the opposite by enlivening the universe with meaning, playfulness, sobriety, and joy.

Lewis, Chesterton, Bunyan, Charles Williams, George MacDonald, Tolkien, L'Engle, and Walter Wangerin are discussed individually with a fantastic apologia for their literary forms as an introduciton. A great read! Enjoy!

This book is a fascinating look at ten Christian mythmakers, that is authors who have used the power of myth to convey Christian truths in a new way. The narrative begins with John Bunyan and his seminal Pilgrim's Progress, continues through George Macdonald, G.K. Chesterton, Charles Williams, J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and finishes up with Madeleine L'Engle, Walter Wangerin, Robert Siegel, and Hannah Hurnard.

Professor Hein begins with a short biography of the author, and then proceeds to explain the author's work, examining its theology and significance. I found this book to be quite fascinating, with the author giving me a look at these masterpieces of Christian literature in a way that I had never thought of before. If you are a fan of any of the authors above, then I highly recommend that you get this book!

Fantasy's "breaking away" from the primary sensory world offers a journey into the unknown to experience the REAL, according to Rolland Hein. We all have a Mythos (worldview); this cherished text sharpens the Christian sensibility by using the secondary worlds to help us understand spiritual concepts. Out-of-print version has been updated, a superior gift to anyone interested in Christianity, Fantasy, Narnia, Middle Earth, Imagination, or any of the Oxford Christian Writer or their successors.