When I first began my journey to preach this was the most common question that I was not prepared to answer. I wasn’t sure where it was headed, and at the time I was still balancing my need to grasp the relationship of the various books within the Book of Books. I remember joking with David Dann that I should just find some obscure text, start reading it, and use it as my answer and see how folks responded.
Now, admittedly, I’m a huge literary addict, maybe even a book snob, not to mention a curator of unused forgotten rare words. So whenever there is a new book or written series that rises in public popularity, some friends will ask me if I have read it, or intend to.
Full disclosure: I did read the Harry Potter series (in advance of my oldest son who really wanted to read it. I thought it rehashed the plot mechanics of most of the work of its genre with less than stellar writing, but I can see why folks like it. I refuse to read the Twilight series, Hunger Games, etc. (I’m not a “tween”)
I no longer have the time to devote to sitting and reading books for the sake of the story like I once did. The last long series I completed had its first installment published in 1990, with the final piece coming out in 2013 and was not even written by the original author… (He passed away before he could finish the stories). 23 years is a long time to keep up a plot line I tell ya. That being said, most of the time folks remember that I am a Christian, so I don’t get asked my opinion on the ever-growing advance of a sex for entertainment culture full of visual & literary prostitutes and clients.
That leads me here, if you are wondering if I have read or watch the “Game of Thrones“, “Fifty Shades of Grey” or anything like it. The answer is no, and if you are seeking my suggestion if you should check them out, the answer is still no. It’s not because the story was developed initially as Twillight fan fiction (Fifty Shades of Grey), nor is it because Salman Rushdie said about the book: “I’ve never read anything so badly written that got published. It made Twilight look like War and Peace.”
Here’s why:
“Therefore do not be partakers with them; for you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light (for the fruit of the Light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth), trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. Do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them; for it is disgraceful even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret.” (Ephesians 5:7-12 NASB)
phillip w. martin 