Check out this guy Scott W. Kay on some factors that may be preventing evangelical Christians from producing great literature, including lack of imagination, shaky grounding in theology, and lack of exposure to great literature of all kinds. He cites Flannery O’Connor and Camille Paglia—strange companions, indeed! John Piper responds to the same Touchstone article that set Kay off, exploring how fiction and art are “true and valuable.”
Speaking of reading great literature, Ken Morefield is up to chapter three in Jane Austen’s Emma. The less said about his reaction to the Austen-bio-fiction film Becoming Jane, however, the better!
After I posted this, we had some discussion in one of my classes on the topic of “required courses,” which ended up mentioning just about every category of course listed under our “General Core Curriculum” and included the questions, “Why do we have required courses?” and “What is the virtue of being well-rounded vs. being specialized?” and “Can required courses help prepare one to live a better life?”
Such good questions. I believe reading Flannery O’Connor would answer some of them.