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Please Return to the Lands of Luxury
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154. What If You Had to Fake Being Genetically Modified? | Enhanced with Candace Kade
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Enhanced, Candace Kade
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154. What If You Had to Fake Being Genetically Modified? | Enhanced with Candace Kade
Fantastical Truth, Mar 21, 2023

153. When Can Deconstructionism Threaten Christian Fiction? | with Michael Young aka ‘Wokal Distance’
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152. How Can Christian Fantasy Fans Heal from Church Trauma? | with Marian Jacobs and L. G. McCary
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151. How Can Fantastical Satire Sharpen Our Theology? | The Pilgrim’s Progress Reloaded with David Umstattd
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150. Is the U.S. Government Covering Up Spy Balloons or Alien Spaceships? | with James R. Hannibal
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149. Why Do Christian Fiction Fans Love So Much Romance?
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Please Return to the Lands of Luxury
“Jon Tilton explores complex topics like memory loss, personal and societal responsibility in this light sci-fi story.”
—Lorehaven on Mar 24, 2023

Exile
“This gentle fantasy from Loren G. Warnemuende shows little magic or strange creatures, focusing on complex emotions and relationships.”
—Lorehaven on Mar 17, 2023

Illusion
“Frank Peretti’s last novel creates a romantic world with sci-fi flourishes where likeable heroes, villain twists, and familiar places sell a dramatic performance.”
—Lorehaven on Mar 10, 2023

War in Heaven
“Charles Williams’s classic supernatural thriller pairs a deeply spiritual worldview with perceptive examinations of human nature.”
—Lorehaven on Mar 3, 2023

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Lorehaven helps Christian fans explore fantastical stories for Christ’s glory: fantasy, science fiction, and beyond. Articles, the library, reviews, podcasts, gifts, and the Lorehaven Guild community help fans discern and enjoy the best Christian-made fantastical stories, applying their meanings to the real world Jesus Christ calls us to serve. Subscribe free to get any updates you choose and to access the Lorehaven Guild.
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Author Ted Turnau Finds The Hidden Grace of Pixar’s ‘Soul’

Ted Turnau: “There is an important sense in which the film gets our eternal hope both right and wrong.”
E. Stephen Burnett on Jan 15, 2021 · No comments

The Pop Culture Parent coauthor1 Ted Turnau engages Pixar’s new film Soul at New Growth Press’s blog:

Toward the film’s end, my twenty-one-year-old daughter was so moved she wept. We’ll return to her later. Clearly, there’s something to this movie that deserves discussion.

Here’s the part where some well-meaning Christian writers’ Popular Culture Engagement vehicles could swerve into ditches.

In ditch 1, you grind into the “it’s all basically pagan and besides shouldn’t we preach another sermon anyway” gravel.

In ditch 2, you sink into the “it’s all so full of grace and truth and beauty so why are all the idols only in our churches?” quicksand.

The Pop Culture Culture Parent, Ted Turnau, E. Stephen Burnett, Jared MooreTed Turnau doesn’t do that. I know this because I know Ted, even though I haven’t read the full article because I haven’t yet watched Soul and this article is full of spoilers. Yet here’s a non-spoiler excerpt that helps show how Christians can better explore any story’s common graces and idols:

There is an important sense in which the film gets our eternal hope both right and wrong. What it gets right is its focus on the beauty of life on earth. The Bible is clear: that is our final destination. Not disembodied souls sitting on clouds playing harps (you get some of that cloud imagery in Soul’s Great Before). Rather, we will have new glorified bodies on a new glorified earth. The stuff we find beautiful here we will regain (imagine tasting a glorified slice of New York pizza!). But this will be creation renewed, cleansed of sin, darkness, and pain. By focusing on life on earth, the film actually gives us a better picture of what our ultimate hope should be: not heaven “up there” but a renewed life right here.

What the film gets wrong about our final destination is that it makes heaven boring.

Read more at “The Hidden Grace of Pixar’s Soul.”

Meanwhile, learn more about this method of popular culture engagement, with special applications to parents, in The Pop Culture Parent: Helping Kids Engage Their World for Christ.

  1. Another coauthor of The Pop Culture Parent is yours truly. ↩
E. Stephen Burnett
E. Stephen Burnett creates sci-fi and fantasy novels as well as nonfiction, exploring fantastical stories for God’s glory as publisher of Lorehaven.com and cohost of the Fantastical Truth podcast. As the oldest of six, he enjoys connecting with his homeschool roots by speaking at conferences for Christian families and creators. Stephen is coauthor of The Pop Culture Parent: Helping Kids Engage Their World for Christ from New Growth Press (2020, with Ted Turnau and Dr. Jared Moore). Stephen and his wife, Lacy, live in the Austin area, where they help with foster parenting and serve as members of Southern Hills Baptist Church.
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Lorehaven helps Christian fans explore fantastical stories for Christ’s glory: fantasy, science fiction, and beyond. Articles, the library, reviews, podcasts, gifts, and the Lorehaven Guild community help fans discern and enjoy the best Christian-made fantastical stories, applying their meanings to the real world Jesus Christ calls us to serve. Subscribe free to get any updates you choose and to access the Lorehaven Guild.
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