26 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Humorous, Eye-Opening Intellectual and Historical Fiction, April 16, 2003
This review is from: Flight of Peter Fromm (Paperback)
This is one heck of an entertaining book. The main reason is this: Gardner's narrator, Homer Wilson, is downright hilarious. Both his telling of Peter's story and his asides remind me of Uncle Screwtape in C. S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters. Throughout the book, Homer subtly spins every story he recounts and every subject he addresses. His descriptions of certain real-life people are especially funny. For example, Homer describes C. S. Lewis, whose works were broadly Christian, as an "Anglican apologist." He describes J. Gresham Machen, who hated to be called a fundamentalist, as "the last of the scholarly fundamentalists." And those are just two little examples of Homer's spinning. It is strangely exciting to read a story narrated by someone you know you can't trust.
_The Flight of Peter Fromm_ is poignant in that Peter is ultimately ruined by Homer's spinning. Reason does not demand the loss of faith that Peter experiences, but the constant influence of the culture in which he lives, which subjects all things Christian to radical doubt while accepting the bases and consequences of agnosticism unquestioningly, eventually wears him down. Fortunately, Peter's end is hardly the necessary one for those committed to the life of the mind.
Finally, this story is eye-opening in that it reveals what can happen to those who are too brash and self-assured. Peter just knew he would convert the University of Chicago; instead the University toppled him. If Peter had been a little more humble he may have emerged from divinity school with his faith alive and enriched and refined.
I would recommend _The Flight of Peter Fromm_ to both agnostics and Christians. Agnostics, as they enjoy the outcome of Peter's story and conclude that that outcome was inevitable, should take a moment to notice the subtle deceptions of Homer Wilson, and at least consider the possibility that they should test their own thinking more rigorously than they usually do. Christians should take a good hard look at the road that leads, step by tiny step, to unbelief, and ask whether reason demands each step taken down that road. Hopefully all readers will appreciate the meticulous research, wonderful details, and humor that combine to make _The Flight of Peter Fromm_ a truly remarkable work of intellectual and historical fiction.
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding - a must read for believers and unbelievers, July 26, 2000
This review is from: Flight of Peter Fromm (Paperback)
Gardner's only fiction as far as I know, and what a beauty! Gardner follows the young Fromm on his journey from religious fundamentalism to skeptical enlightenment. Fromm is a student in a liberal Chicago seminary who discovers for the first time in his life that alternative explanations exist for much of the dogma he's accepted since his youth. This story is phenomenal and should be read by anyone having a religious background, regardless of where you are in your spiritual journey now.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
a fun theological novel, March 25, 2006
This review is from: Flight of Peter Fromm (Paperback)
With all the Christian fiction out there (much of it horrible) it's refreshing to read a novel like "The Flight of Peter Fromm." It's a powerful comming of age novel as Peter, a divinity school student at U of Chicago, slowly sheds his Fundamentalist skin and journeys away from the Christian faith.
As the story goes on--as Peter goes deeper into contemporary theology--he considers these new theologies, only to reject them. By the novel's end, as Peter talks to his major professor (an atheist) Peter is a philosophical theist: he still holds to a vague notion of God but it's not the God of orthodox Christianity.
This novel was a joy to read. I found that Peter's journey paralleled my own journey as a young divinity school student. More Fundamentalist Christians won't like it (except to see the route one can take in losing one's faith). But for those Christians who no longer stand within the orthodox fold, and who want to make better sense of their faith journey, reading about Peter's journey can be helpful.
Also recommended: How to Lose Your Faith in Divinity School
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