Theology After Reading: Christian Imagination and the Power of Fiction - Hardcover

Here is a wonderfully fresh invitation from a gifted writer to explore the storied worlds of great literary theology. -Timothy K. Beal, Florence Harkness Professor of Religion, Case Western Reserve University

Theology After Reading explores how recent novelists, alongside certain post-War Christian theologians, appear to be challenging, inverting, reinterpreting, and sometimes even affirming, the basic questions and answers of more traditional theologians. Focusing on five novels, Darren Middleton's book illustrates how literary art provokes theological reflection. Examining Graham Greene's The End of the Affair , Toni Morrison's Sula , Nikos Kazantzakis's The Last Temptation of Christ , Earl Lovelace's The Wine of Astonishment , and Paul Thigpen's My Visit to Hell , Middleton deftly illuminates the expression of both mainstream and progressive Christian doctrines as themes in these selected works of fiction, ultimately reaffirming the graced search for meaning in the mindful Christian life.