By: Stephanie

Stephanie — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 18:26:37 +0000

Definitely, Larry! One of my favorite quotes is, “The pen is mightier than the sword.” It is so true. I once heard someone complaining about someone in the movie business (something to do with Warner Bros, I think) saying the goal of the company was to influence, with well-made movies, the minds of the young people watching. My first thought was, “But that’s what we SHOULD be doing!” That is the nature of words, stories, treatises and more, to influence. Every thing we read influences us in some way. When we consciously notice that influence, it often is magnified or, if it is a detrimental influence, can be refuted. It’s when we don’t notice those detrimental ideas that they take root and grow wild, taking over our minds. That is at the heart of why I want to discuss the books I read. To analyze their influence and draw the good out of them. Or warn others when there is no good in them.

By: Larry Fogelberg

Larry Fogelberg — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 22:07:50 +0000

Reviewing literature from a Christian perspective. Hm. Just the last few days, I was thinking about Playboy Magazine, and how us guys used to love to read it when I was a teenager. And in hindsight, the most abominable section of that magazine was not the foldouts of naked women (after all, a naked woman is just a naked woman, in all the glory God bestowed upon her), but the most abominable — the most pernicious — element was a column written by Hugh Hefner, called the Playboy Philosophy. If you’re not familiar with it, it justified free sex and denigrated everything spiritual. I was influence by that pernicious rot far more than by the foldouts, to the point where I feel a visceral repulsion whenever I see pictures of HH in his captain’s hat. Ideas are powerful. And depraved ideas are no exception. Would you care to comment?

Comments on: Recovering from a Stumble

By: Stephanie

By: Larry Fogelberg