Larry Norman, Coffee Shop Evangelist

How a chance meeting with a selfless Christian star changed my life.
By Susan Perlman

The Once and Future Vampire Novelist

In a CT article by Cindy Crosby published just over two years ago, novelist Anne Rice--famous for her dark stories about vampires--spoke of her return to her Catholic faith and said she would from now on write about Christ. While she did not repudiate her earlier work, saying it was a record of her spiritual journey, she said she was through with vampires:

I would never go back, not even if they say, 'You will be financially ruined; you've got to write another vampire book.' I would say no. I have no choice. I would be a fool for all eternity to turn my back on God like that.

And for a while, she was true to her word, writing the first two works in a series about the life of Christ. The second, Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana, is due out on March 4. After a planned third installment on Jesus, Rice plans to return to her vampire chronicling. But isn't that going back on her word? Rice answers Time this way: "I don't see it as a violation of my promise, because I won't be writing about vampires in the same way." And indeed, her new promise--to put the stories in a Christian framework with an accent on redemption--sounds interesting. But Time isn't buying, commenting: "Still, it is difficult to see it as anything but a change of heart."

I cannot pretend to see into Anne Rice's soul, but to me this is a troubling turn of events. Whatever the merits and drawbacks of writing one final vampire novel, her vow was all-encompassing, seemingly linking her eternal destiny to keeping it. I am reminded of the following verses:

When you vow a vow to God, do not delay paying it, for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you vow. It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. Let not your mouth lead you into sin, and do not say before the messenger that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry at your voice and destroy the work of your hands?

Singable Doctrine

Keith and Kristyn Getty have a passion for writing modern hymns.

Manga and Bible Come Together

The Bible is the most read, translated, and packaged book in history. There are Bibles for soldiers, teens, dispensationalists, the reformed, golfers, and on and on. The latest effort to contextualize and target the Scriptures is The Manga Bible, just out from Doubleday.

Manga, a Japanese-inspired form of the graphic novel, is a big seller right now, so many will see its marriage with Scripture as a match made in heaven. However, this is not your father's (or mother's) Bible, according to a story in The New York Times.

The medium shapes the message. Manga often focuses on action and epic. Much of the Bible, as a result, ends up on the cutting room floor, and what remains is darker.

“It is the end of the Word as we know it, and the end of a certain cultural idea of the Scriptures as a book, as the Book,” Timothy Beal, professor of religion at Case Western Reserve University, said of the reworking of the Bible in new forms, including manga. “It opens up new ways of understanding Scripture and ends up breaking the idols a bit.”

While known for characters with big eyes and catwalk poses, manga is also defined by a laconic, cinematic style, with characters often doing more than talking.

In a blurb for the Manga Bible, which is published by Doubleday, the archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, is quoted as saying, “It will convey the shock and freshness of the Bible in a unique way.”

No doubt. In the Manga Bible, whose heroes look and sound like skateboarders in Bedouin gear, Noah gets tripped up counting the animals in the Ark: “That’s 11,344 animals? Arggh! I’ve lost count again. I’m going to have to start from scratch!”

I guess it's OK, as long as we don't start preaching from it.

Post-Mayhem Woes

The latest from Kenya.
By Sheryl Henderson Blunt, with reporting by Sue Sprenkle in Nairobi, Kenya