Fictional apologetics please

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I am not sure which forum to post this in…my apologies if this isn’t the right place.

I am in the mood for some good fictional reading with an apologetic bent to it.

I am looking for recommendations please. Thanks.

(I am thinking of things like: “Theophilus” by Michael O’Brien, “How Firm a Foundation” by Marcus Grodi, “A Philadelphia Catholic in King James’ Court” by Martin de Porres Kennedy) I really enjoyed those.

Thank you for any suggestions you have.
 
Your examples are a bit heavier than this, but how about
“The Shack”
Can’t remember the author. I liked it. Interesting idea.

And a really good book to read is:

The Screwtape Letters
C.S. Lewis can’t go wrong with him!

Fran
 
JohnGerard said:
I am not sure which forum to post this in…my apologies if this isn’t the right place.

I am in the mood for some good fictional reading with an apologetic bent to it.

I am looking for recommendations please. Thanks.

(I am thinking of things like: “Theophilus” by Michael O’Brien, “How Firm a Foundation” by Marcus Grodi, “A Philadelphia Catholic in King James’ Court” by Martin de Porres Kennedy) I really enjoyed those.

Thank you for any suggestions you have.
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The items on the following list are the only things I can think of for now. They get progressively less like what I think you are looking for toward the bottom.

“Socrates Meets Jesus” is probably Peter Kreeft’s most fictional apologetics book. In it, the ancient philosopher Socrates somehow gets teleported to modern times and enrolls at a stand-in for Harvard Divinity School, where he learns about Christianity and challenges the modernists and unbelievers.

“Socrates Meets” is a series of dialog books involving fictional versions of the following characters: Decartes, Hume, Kant, Machiavelli, Marx, and Sartre. Each one is a different fictional dialog-based novel. If you want to search for one, google “Socrates Meets” and then one of the names above. “The Best Things in Life” is another example from the same series.

“A Refutation of Moral Relativism” is also a fictional dialog novel by Peter Kreeft. It is about a Muslim and a liberal feminist who discuss moral relativism. The apologetics in the book is obviously meant to show that there really is an objective moral law.

As a last example by Peter Kreeft, the book “Between Allah and Jesus: What Christians Can Learn from Muslims” is a fictional dialog novel about lots of things, including abortion, evolution, Church and State, Islam and Christianity, and terrorism.

A very ancient dialog novel about apologetics is the book “Dialogue Concerning Heresies” by St. Thomas More. That book is somewhere between fiction and non, leaning toward non. St. Thomas emphasizes several times that the dialog really happened between himself and a university student, just as the book presents it. And the book is so heavy on the essay-like material that there are probably very few people who would pick it up for the sake of entertainment. But on the other hand, the dialog is often quite funny, and it seems clear to me that some of it is fiction. St. Thomas alternates between apologetics and jokes, moral subjects and tall tales. The book is really good, and I think it counts as a variation of fictional dialog, but I don’t think most people would find it entertaining enough for what you seem to be looking for.

G.K. Chesterton’s play “The Temptation of St. Anthony” is a fictional story about St. Anthony in which, if I understand it correctly, he encounters spirits who challenge him using objections that were flung around by the materialists and hedonists of Chesterton’s day. It’s technically not a novel, it’s a script for a play, but a lot of people read play-scripts as if they were novels.

C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien are well known for weaving Christian ideas into their books, and some of those ideas are apologetical. C.S. Lewis uses the “liar or lunatic” dilemma in the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to show, in a fictional way, that Lucy is telling the truth about the magical wardrobe. That’s a way to teach apologetics through fiction. Those books are probably not what you are looking for, thought.

The Fr. Brown mystery novels from G.K. Chesterton often answer misconceptions about Catholicism.
 
Thank you both, Fran and dmar, for your suggestions. I will look into some of those.

John
 
JohnGerard said:
I am not sure which forum to post this in…my apologies if this isn’t the right place.

I am in the mood for some good fictional reading with an apologetic bent to it.

I am looking for recommendations please. Thanks.

(I am thinking of things like: “Theophilus” by Michael O’Brien, “How Firm a Foundation” by Marcus Grodi, “A Philadelphia Catholic in King James’ Court” by Martin de Porres Kennedy) I really enjoyed those.

Thank you for any suggestions you have.
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If you click on the link in my signature, you can read one of my novels for free. Throughout the story, an atheist and a theist debate the existence of God. (Guess who wins!)
 
Kay_Cee said:
If you click on the link in my signature, you can read one of my novels for free. Throughout the story, an atheist and a theist debate the existence of God. (Guess who wins!)
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oooh, nice. Well, thank you very much! I’ll check it out.🙂
 
“A Case of Conscience” (1958) by James Blish was a Hugo-award winning SF novella, later expanded into a novel that revolved around multiple theological issues, including what is the soul, Original Sin, good and evil, Manichaeism, evolution, and numerous other issues. It’s a very thoughtful book.

In it, a Peruvian Jesuit scientist on a mission to the first planet found with intelligent life begins to suspect that all is not as it seems. The dominant species on the planet are large, intelligent gentle lizards that seem to show every virtue but have no concept of God or religion. The priest comes to the conclusion, based on this and other evidence, that the beings and the entire planet are a creation of the Adversary - which, once he accepts it, excommunicates him as he has accepted the heresy of Manichaeism by accepting that Satan is capable of creation. The first half of the book is largely an extended dialogue with the other (non-religious) members of the expedition as he argues out his position. It’s fascinating. Very interesting ending, as well.
 
I’d also recommend Evelyn Waugh’s novel “Brideshead Revisited”. Iit was adapted into an excellent miniseries with Jeremy Irons that showed on BBC and PBS here in the states. Avoid the later movie, which was awful). Would especially be enjoyed by anyone who is a fan of “Downton Abbey”.

A young man with no particular religious beliefs forms an intense relationship with the scion of a wealthy but disintegrating Catholic family in England, and later with his friend’s sister, as the family struggles to cope with a changing country and changing societal mores and retain its Catholic identity. Waugh, who was Catholic, explores the nature of Grace and conversion in the young man’s fascination with the family and eventually, their faith, and the peculiar methods by which God reaches out to us, like G.K. Chesterton’s famous analogy of the “twitch on the thread,” which is explicitly referenced in both the novel and the miniseries.
 
Hey, thanks a bunch for your thoughts A-Mike. Those sound good to me.
 
Many moons ago, and somehow I think I got them for free, I read several books by Bud MacFarlane. I really enjoyed them.
 
JohnGerard said:
I am not sure which forum to post this in…my apologies if this isn’t the right place.

I am in the mood for some good fictional reading with an apologetic bent to it.

I am looking for recommendations please. Thanks.

(I am thinking of things like: “Theophilus” by Michael O’Brien, “How Firm a Foundation” by Marcus Grodi, “A Philadelphia Catholic in King James’ Court” by Martin de Porres Kennedy) I really enjoyed those.

Thank you for any suggestions you have.
Click to expand...
Rod Bennet is a Catholic apologist whose interest lies in history. He wrote a fictional book called “The Christus Experiment” in which a team of time-traveling scientists capture Jesus and bring him to our time to interview him and record his answers to some questions. Apparently, the book deals with common arguments against the divinity of Jesus from academic circles. For example, in the first chapter a scientist says there is “some measure of truth” to the idea that Jesus was “a political figure at first” who had a “tremendous and rather volatile personality cult.” So if you’d like a fictional apologetics book that answers modern skepticism, you might give it a look. More info here: wonderboss.wix.com/christus#!more-about-christus/c521

Also, I’m currently making my way through A Canticle for Liebowitz. It’s a classic, award-winning sci-fi novel by a Catholic. The plot centers on the theme of the everlasting nature of the Catholic Church. After a nuclear holocaust, the Church is one of the only remaining centers of structure and order in the world, and a particular religious order is tasked with preserving anything they can find of the surviving books and other written memorabilia from before the nuclear fallout. The book begins 600 years after that event, when society is back in a “dark ages” where no one knows about electricity and the major political forces are tribal warriors who don’t really care for books and learning. The star of this section is a novice of the above-mentioned religious order who lives at an important abbey in the southwest. About a third of the book is spent in this setting, and then it fast-forwards to an additional 600 years later, to a time when society is just beginning to understand science again. The abbey is still doing its work of preservation, but now it is visited by a secular scholar who is interested in finding what scientific works have been preserved by the monks. The book here focuses on the intersection between religion and science, including the different outlooks on natural knowledge taken by churchmen and unbelieving scientists. The book then fast-forwards another 600 years to a new space age, but I just started this section so I don’t know what its theme will be.

I think you might like the book because it is very fictional and yet it shows how important the Church is to world history and the building of civilization, and deals with the intersection between religion and science from a faithful Catholic perspective…
 
Thanks alot, dmar198! That does sound very interesting. I will definitely check it out.

Also, thanks to everyone for your suggestions. I feel good about the selections that I have to look into based on your responses.

John
 
You’ve got quite a list, but I can’t resist a quick addendum:
have you read Michael O’Brien’s newest book, Elijah in Jerusalem? Good, though not as suspenseful and action-based as Father Elijah, it’s more dialogue and theological.

Also Charles Williams’ supernatural thrillers are great: The Place of the Lion, War in Heaven, etc.

.
 
Hey Viki63,

Thanks for your (name removed by moderator)ut. I did read Father Elijah but I haven’t read the new one yet.

And your trilogy sounds interesting, too!

Thanks a lot!👍
 
dmar198 said:
Rod Bennet is a Catholic apologist whose interest lies in history. He wrote a fictional book called “The Christus Experiment” in which a team of time-traveling scientists capture Jesus and bring him to our time to interview him and record his answers to some questions. Apparently, the book deals with common arguments against the divinity of Jesus from academic circles. For example, in the first chapter a scientist says there is “some measure of truth” to the idea that Jesus was “a political figure at first” who had a “tremendous and rather volatile personality cult.” So if you’d like a fictional apologetics book that answers modern skepticism, you might give it a look. More info here: wonderboss.wix.com/christus#!more-about-christus/c521

Also, I’m currently making my way through A Canticle for Liebowitz. It’s a classic, award-winning sci-fi novel by a Catholic. The plot centers on the theme of the everlasting nature of the Catholic Church. After a nuclear holocaust, the Church is one of the only remaining centers of structure and order in the world, and a particular religious order is tasked with preserving anything they can find of the surviving books and other written memorabilia from before the nuclear fallout. The book begins 600 years after that event, when society is back in a “dark ages” where no one knows about electricity and the major political forces are tribal warriors who don’t really care for books and learning. The star of this section is a novice of the above-mentioned religious order who lives at an important abbey in the southwest. About a third of the book is spent in this setting, and then it fast-forwards to an additional 600 years later, to a time when society is just beginning to understand science again. The abbey is still doing its work of preservation, but now it is visited by a secular scholar who is interested in finding what scientific works have been preserved by the monks. The book here focuses on the intersection between religion and science, including the different outlooks on natural knowledge taken by churchmen and unbelieving scientists. The book then fast-forwards another 600 years to a new space age, but I just started this section so I don’t know what its theme will be.

I think you might like the book because it is very fictional and yet it shows how important the Church is to world history and the building of civilization, and deals with the intersection between religion and science from a faithful Catholic perspective…
Click to expand...
 
dmar198 said:
Rod Bennet is a Catholic apologist whose interest lies in history. He wrote a fictional book called “The Christus Experiment” in which a team of time-traveling scientists capture Jesus and bring him to our time to interview him and record his answers to some questions. Apparently, the book deals with common arguments against the divinity of Jesus from academic circles. For example, in the first chapter a scientist says there is “some measure of truth” to the idea that Jesus was “a political figure at first” who had a “tremendous and rather volatile personality cult.” So if you’d like a fictional apologetics book that answers modern skepticism, you might give it a look. More info here: wonderboss.wix.com/christus#!more-about-christus/c521

Also, I’m currently making my way through A Canticle for Liebowitz. It’s a classic, award-winning sci-fi novel by a Catholic. The plot centers on the theme of the everlasting nature of the Catholic Church. After a nuclear holocaust, the Church is one of the only remaining centers of structure and order in the world, and a particular religious order is tasked with preserving anything they can find of the surviving books and other written memorabilia from before the nuclear fallout. The book begins 600 years after that event, when society is back in a “dark ages” where no one knows about electricity and the major political forces are tribal warriors who don’t really care for books and learning. The star of this section is a novice of the above-mentioned religious order who lives at an important abbey in the southwest. About a third of the book is spent in this setting, and then it fast-forwards to an additional 600 years later, to a time when society is just beginning to understand science again. The abbey is still doing its work of preservation, but now it is visited by a secular scholar who is interested in finding what scientific works have been preserved by the monks. The book here focuses on the intersection between religion and science, including the different outlooks on natural knowledge taken by churchmen and unbelieving scientists. The book then fast-forwards another 600 years to a new space age, but I just started this section so I don’t know what its theme will be.

I think you might like the book because it is very fictional and yet it shows how important the Church is to world history and the building of civilization, and deals with the intersection between religion and science from a faithful Catholic perspective…
Click to expand...
I’d also recommend Leibowitz. Miller, who was a Catholic, was on a bomber crew that destroyed a Benedictine monastery in WWII, an act that haunted him his whole life and led him to write the novel. (Fellow SF writer Joe Haldeman, who is himself a Vietnam combat vet, said Miller had the worst undiagnosed case of PTSD he had ever seen.)

Miller passionately opposed both abortion and euthanasia, which becomes a key plot point in the last third of Leibowitz. His 1952 short story “Conditionally Human” is an interesting (and prescient) argument against abortion, using the analogy of animal rights.

Not to overload the OP with other recommendations, but I’d also suggest:

Michael Flynn’s novel “Eifelhelm” about a medieval priest’s contact (and conversion) of some crashlanded aliens.

P.D. James “The Children of Men” (made into a good movie) about the sanctity of life and the value of children.

Brian Moore’s novel “Catholics” - a near-future SF novel about the Latin Mass and faith. Also made into a good movie with Martin Sheen.

Flannery O’Connor’s novels and stories were intensely Catholic, even though they were largely set in the southern Protestant milieu. Her “Wise Blood” was an attempt to portray the conversion process of a Catholic saint in a modern evangelical setting. Also made into a good movie by John Huston. Walker Percy was another southern Catholic who worked some of the same spiritual territory.

Jerry Pournelle, a Catholic convert, wrote “Inferno” with Larry Niven, an interesting SF novel which supposed that Dante’s description of Hell was literally accurate, and follows a skeptical SF writer and his mysterious companion as they attempt to escape. Touches on aspects of universalism and sin as viewed in a modern context. The sequel is pretty good, too.

Gene Wolfe, another Catholic SF and fantasy author is generally considered to be one of the finest living literary figures working in any genre, and his Catholicism is always working, often subtly, in the background of anything he writes. There is always a lot more going on under the surface in his plots, which often reward re-reading. His short story “The Detective of Dreams” is explicitly Catholic, as are a lot of his short stories. His recent novel “Pirate Freedom”, is a meditation on violence and grace, told from the perspective of a priest in the near future who also lived a life as a pirate on the Spanish Main. Hard to describe the plot, but fascinating.
 
Arizona_Mike said:
I’d also recommend Leibowitz. Miller, who was a Catholic, was on a bomber crew that destroyed a Benedictine monastery in WWII, an act that haunted him his whole life and led him to write the novel. (Fellow SF writer Joe Haldeman, who is himself a Vietnam combat vet, said Miller had the worst undiagnosed case of PTSD he had ever seen.)

Miller passionately opposed both abortion and euthanasia, which becomes a key plot point in the last third of Leibowitz. His 1952 short story “Conditionally Human” is an interesting (and prescient) argument against abortion, using the analogy of animal rights.

Not to overload the OP with other recommendations, but I’d also suggest:

Michael Flynn’s novel “Eifelhelm” about a medieval priest’s contact (and conversion) of some crashlanded aliens.

P.D. James “The Children of Men” (made into a good movie) about the sanctity of life and the value of children.

Brian Moore’s novel “Catholics” - a near-future SF novel about the Latin Mass and faith. Also made into a good movie with Martin Sheen.

Flannery O’Connor’s novels and stories were intensely Catholic, even though they were largely set in the southern Protestant milieu. Her “Wise Blood” was an attempt to portray the conversion process of a Catholic saint in a modern evangelical setting. Also made into a good movie by John Huston. Walker Percy was another southern Catholic who worked some of the same spiritual territory.

Jerry Pournelle, a Catholic convert, wrote “Inferno” with Larry Niven, an interesting SF novel which supposed that Dante’s description of Hell was literally accurate, and follows a skeptical SF writer and his mysterious companion as they attempt to escape. Touches on aspects of universalism and sin as viewed in a modern context. The sequel is pretty good, too.

Gene Wolfe, another Catholic SF and fantasy author is generally considered to be one of the finest living literary figures working in any genre, and his Catholicism is always working, often subtly, in the background of anything he writes. There is always a lot more going on under the surface in his plots, which often reward re-reading. His short story “The Detective of Dreams” is explicitly Catholic, as are a lot of his short stories. His recent novel “Pirate Freedom”, is a meditation on violence and grace, told from the perspective of a priest in the near future who also lived a life as a pirate on the Spanish Main. Hard to describe the plot, but fascinating.
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Thanks again A-Mike.

I don’t mind being overloaded. I’m hearing about a lot of stuff that I didn’t even know was out there. I’m sure to find some of it very interesting and just what I was looking for.

Thanks again.

John
 
JohnGerard said:
I am not sure which forum to post this in…my apologies if this isn’t the right place.

I am in the mood for some good fictional reading with an apologetic bent to it.

I am looking for recommendations please. Thanks.

(I am thinking of things like: “Theophilus” by Michael O’Brien, “How Firm a Foundation” by Marcus Grodi, “A Philadelphia Catholic in King James’ Court” by Martin de Porres Kennedy) I really enjoyed those.

Thank you for any suggestions you have.
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According to this review, Msgr. Robert Hugh Benson invented the genre of “the historical/apologetic/thriller novel.” His book Come Rack, Come Rope! tells the story of two star-crossed Catholic lovers who are caught in the grip of the English Reformation in the 1500s. Crisis Magazine calls it a Catholic classic and Whiskey Catholic says it “is fast paced and riveting…with heavy doses of apologetic material throughout.”

The book is old enough to be in the public domain. Here is the full text: gutenberg.org/cache/epub/15992/pg15992-images.html and here is a free audiobook version: librivox.org/come-rack-come-rope-by-robert-hugh-benson/
 
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