No brainer Book Talk

Glancing through the paper copy of OnCampus yesterday I came across "Book Talk," an interview of Tanya Erzen, author of "Straight to Jesus: Sexual and Christian Conversions in the Ex-Gay Movement," which received the 2008 Gustave Arlt award from the Council of Graduate Schools. Despite the intriguing title, there was no doubt in my mind that this wasn't an evangelical Christian book about gays finding freedom in the love of Christ. It would be highly unlikely that such an author could make her way through the arduous promotion and tenure process, or even get hired in a Department of Comparative Studies (religion, folklore, ethnography) at a major university if she were a conservative Christian with historic, traditional views on marriage or even a liberal Christian with traditional views like I was for 35 years.

But if I'd had any doubt, Prof. Erzen, who says she doesn't believe in censorship or banning books, said:

What book would you most want your kids to read? What would you want them NOT to read?Since my daughter already likes Dr. Seuss, she’s off to a good start, and I have books by Roald Dahl, Ray Bradbury and Madeleine L’Engle waiting for her. I hope she’ll read Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States when she is older. I wouldn’t mind if she never wanted to read The Purpose Driven Life or the Left Behind series.

Lots of conservative Christians don't recommend Rick Warren's book because of its lack of a straightforward message about sin and forgiveness, but I suspect she dislikes his traditional capitalism and marriage views. No tender, inquiring mind will be damaged by reading its happy, sweet message of comfort. I'm not into dispensational theology either, or any Christian fiction for that matter, but Left Behind is no more fanciful than Bradbury.