Tag: Holly Ordway

Deeper Waters Podcast 8/27/2016: Holly Ordway

What’s coming up on this week’s Deeper Waters Podcast? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and fall out.

Christ and culture. How do the two interact? This has long been a subject of rigorous debate. There are some who want to think that we should isolate ourselves and have nothing to do with a wicked and sinful culture around us. There are some who think we should dive in full throttle and many times like to Christianize everything and before too long our bookstores are filled with what is called “Jesus junk.”

Not only those situations, but how do we interact with cultures outside of our own? While in the past, you had to leave the country, nowadays, you can just go to a different part of town with a different ethnicity that lives there and find yourself in a different culture. Here in Atlanta, I’ve seen a number of Korean churches for instance, which are no doubt a different culture. How do we interact with these?

To discuss these questions, I decided to have someone come on who is well read in the area of literature and has in fact spoken on my show on literary apologetics. She’s a Catholic Professor over at HBU and always a fascinating person to talk to. That guest is Dr. Holly Ordway. Who is she?

Ordway photo

According to her bio:

Dr Holly Ordway is Professor of English and faculty in the MA in Apologetics at Houston Baptist University; she holds a PhD in English from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is the author of Not God’s Type: An Atheist Academic Lays Down Her Arms (Ignatius, 2014); her work focuses on imaginative apologetics and on the writings of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, and Charles Williams, and she is the Charles Williams Subject Editor for the Journal of Inklings Studies. Her current book project is Tolkien’s Modern Sources: Middle-earth Beyond the Middle Ages (Kent State University Press, 2019).

We’ll be discussing how Christians should interact with the culture around them. Many of us would hesitate to say that we should not have any interactions, but at the same time we can see people who can go too far in their interactions. What is the path of wisdom in these situations?

I’d also like to discuss about what aspects of the culture we can enjoy as well. Does everything have to be 100% pure? Is it wrong for a Christian to read a novel by a non-Christian and enjoy it? What about watching shows and movies that are by secularists and others? Is this a case of Romans 14 or not? How does a Christian also interact with just pleasure itself? Is it wrong to take the time to read a fantasy novel or watch a TV show or movie when we could be doing things for the Kingdom?

I hope you’ll be here this Saturday. For those wondering also, we haven’t recorded in the past few weeks since Larry Hurtado due to my being out of town for the funeral of a friend. Hopefully nothing will happen this time. Please also go to our ITunes page and leave a positive review of the Deeper Waters Podcast. I love to see them.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 9/14/2013: Holly Ordway

What’s coming up on this week’s episode of the podcast? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

Ah books. As an apologist, I love books. I love reading. Most of my reading is, of course, academic reading. Occasionally, I find myself reading a mystery, but it is rare. There is so little time to read anything that is fiction, but what is there to be gained from reading other material outside of academic studies?

My guest, Holly Ordway, would say that there is quite a good deal to gain.

Holly Ordway is a professor at Houston Baptist University whose area of expertise is in literary apologetics. What’s that? Frankly, I’m not knowledgeable on it either, but that’s why I have a guest like this on my own show. There is not enough time to study everything, so why not invite the people who have got to study the areas that I have not been able to study?

Literature has been a great art from since almost the time humans first showed up. It’s quite likely that before too long, stories were being told to the young and these were probably not just stories about what happened in the past or survival stories, but stories meant to entertain. Eventually, stories got into writing.

Yet entertaining writing can also have a redemptive purpose. A story written to entertain can also be meant to persuade. It is meant to get past the watchful dragons and get the message of Christianity in to a world that will not see it in any other way.

When I say that, an obvious example that comes to mind is the Chronicles of Narnia, to which there have been three movies made of the books shown in theaters. Also along those lines would be a series like “The Lord of the Rings”, which is also a timeless classic. Each of these series has incredible appeal to it and each of them were written by a Christian from a Christian worldview.

Some might surprise you to know that they are from a more Christian perspective and I can’t guarantee we’ll get to discuss every work I can think of, but there are some. What if you found out that Bram Stoker’s Dracula was written from a Christian perspective? Have you considered there could be great Christian imagery in Grimm’s Fairy Tales? What about an old work like Beowulf?

Could it be that those of us in the apologetics community could often be depriving ourselves if we don’t take the time to appreciate great literature. Perhaps also we should take the time for it not so it can help us academically, but just because it’s great literature to be appreciated like any other great piece of literature.

I hope you’ll join me this Saturday as I discuss these matters with Holly Ordway. As it is an area that I’m not the most familiar with, you can be sure it is one that we can hopefully learn together on as well. Do you want to join in the fun this Saturday from 3-5 PM EST? Feel free to call in and ask your question at 714-242-5180. The link to the show can be found here.

In Christ,
Nick Peters