Jason Albertson

Children's literature has always been a point of interest for me. It can offer scope for metaphor and makes for straightforward communication of ideology.  I got a chance to read  A Wrinkle in Time  this week, and it didn't disappoint me. I had read somewhere (and I can't recall exactly where, now) that it may be seen as a sort of counterpoint to C. S. Lewis's Narnia books. Where Narnia had a theology and cosmology very similar to that described in the Bible, the ​Wrinkle universe does not. This is most plainly shown when one of the mentor characters is introducing the main characters, Meg, and her brother and a friend, to the cosmic struggle of the universe: "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it" (John 1:5), but the darkness is constantly trying. The mentor character identifies a list of figures who are engaged in the fight against the darkness on the planet Earth (as distinct from innumerable other planets). The list inclu...

I read this short account of conversion to and from Reformed theology on a colleague's recommendation. I found Fischer to write engagingly. He uses metaphors throughout in compelling ways. As the title indicates, this is the story of a personal journey of belief. Thus, as  Kevin DeYoung notes , it's extremely light on exegesis and substantive, nuanced interaction with the Calvinist positions Fischer finds inadequate. As a Wesleyan-Arminian, Fischer's objections to Calvinism echo some I've felt and heard, but his lack of methodical engagement with key arguments would likely be frustrating to a Calvinist reader.  The primary problem Fischer encountered in Calvinism is the reprehensible nature of God's actions. He acknowledges God's transcendence and consequential inscrutability, but argues that if God's goodness encompasses creating individuals and predestining them for Hell, then God's definition of goodness is apparently meaningless to humans. If God...