First post here! I apologize in advance if I am posting this in the wrong place, but it didn't seem to fit anywhere else I noticed.
So a bit of background - I an not a christian. I love to read, and I read a huge variety of literature. Early last year in a used bookstore I picked up an old book strictly because it was written in the 1800s. But while the elderly status of the story may have inspired me to buy it, it didn't inspire me to read it. The book sat on my "to-read" bookshelf gathering dust for months before I summoned up the energy to pick it up and read it. The book was "The Wide, Wide World" by Susan Warner.
I was HOOKED by the end of the second page. I was obsessed by the end of the first chapter. And by the end of the book I was addicted. I found a collection of her stories and bought it on my kindle, piecing them out to myself one by one, savoring them as if they were the finest of chocolates in the hands of a chocolate starved sweet tooth. Recently I started craving the stories again and started reading them.
Ever since I first started reading The Wide, Wide World I have wanted to discuss these books and the portrayal of christianity presented in them with a christian or two. Or three. The problem is actually find a christian who has read them and enjoyed them. I have only found two christians who had read the books - both of them female. Both of them hated the book and claimed it was sexist.
Granted, this book was written back in the 1800s - and a modern portrayal of feminism it is not. But I don't find it sexist at all. In fact, I find it was a beautiful - sometimes alarmingly enticing picture of what christianity SHOULD be (as far as I am concerned, anyway). The author treats her characters with sympathetic tenderness, and her writing is beautifully descriptive. But I wonder how realistic it all is. I wonder what other christians think of it. I am particularly curious about how these books relate to modern methodism.
My real hope is to find a christian who loves these books as much as I do, and is possibly interested in discussing the stories and their relation to the bible, apologetics, modern christianity, etc.
So a bit of background - I an not a christian. I love to read, and I read a huge variety of literature. Early last year in a used bookstore I picked up an old book strictly because it was written in the 1800s. But while the elderly status of the story may have inspired me to buy it, it didn't inspire me to read it. The book sat on my "to-read" bookshelf gathering dust for months before I summoned up the energy to pick it up and read it. The book was "The Wide, Wide World" by Susan Warner.
I was HOOKED by the end of the second page. I was obsessed by the end of the first chapter. And by the end of the book I was addicted. I found a collection of her stories and bought it on my kindle, piecing them out to myself one by one, savoring them as if they were the finest of chocolates in the hands of a chocolate starved sweet tooth. Recently I started craving the stories again and started reading them.
Ever since I first started reading The Wide, Wide World I have wanted to discuss these books and the portrayal of christianity presented in them with a christian or two. Or three. The problem is actually find a christian who has read them and enjoyed them. I have only found two christians who had read the books - both of them female. Both of them hated the book and claimed it was sexist.
Granted, this book was written back in the 1800s - and a modern portrayal of feminism it is not. But I don't find it sexist at all. In fact, I find it was a beautiful - sometimes alarmingly enticing picture of what christianity SHOULD be (as far as I am concerned, anyway). The author treats her characters with sympathetic tenderness, and her writing is beautifully descriptive. But I wonder how realistic it all is. I wonder what other christians think of it. I am particularly curious about how these books relate to modern methodism.
My real hope is to find a christian who loves these books as much as I do, and is possibly interested in discussing the stories and their relation to the bible, apologetics, modern christianity, etc.
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