Imagination and Fairytales: Good or Bad (part 2)

Due to recent discussions between myself and others, I decided to write a mini blog series consisting of two parts that addressed the importance not only of a child's imagination, but also the important role that fantasy and fairytales play in the life of both children and adults.  Part one of this series focused on the imagination, while part two will focus on the virtues of fantasy and fairytales. 

So, let us continue our series with part two.

Happy Belated Birthday

I feel like such a terrible person at the moment because I missed my blog’s first birthday by about 4 months!  Who does that?  I comfort myself by saying everyone does, but I really have no clue one way or the other.

Anyways, I decided that I wanted to commemorate my blogs birthday by looking back at all of the stats from the last year (and 4 months), that way when birthday number two comes around I will have new statistics to be able to compare the old ones to.

How am I going to do that if I missed the birthday?  I’ll be manually looking through all of the information and using mathematical equations (my mommy would be so proud) to take out any information (and blog posts) that came after the blog’s first year.  It’s better late than never, after all, isn’t it?

Imagination and Fairytales: Good or Bad (part 1)

Due to recent discussions between myself and others, I have decided to write a blog miniseries consisting of two parts that addresses the importance not only of a child's imagination, but also the important role that fantasy and fairy tales play in the life of both children and adults.  Part one of this series will focus on the imagination, while part two will focus on the virtues of fantasy and fairy tales. 

So, let us begin with part one.

Imagination doesn’t receive much respect in many Christian circles.  In fact, as we see fantasy and sci-fi on the rise once more in the culture, we have also seen a rise in the imagination being placed under siege by the church.  Perhaps this is because many cults and new age groups embrace the imagination and make it seem very mystic in nature.  Because of this, and because some people think the imagination is not rooted in reality, some Christians believe it must be bad. 

Hating Sin... And Sinners?

We must hate error, we must abhor falsehood; but we must not hate men, for God's warfare is against sin. May God help us always to make that distinction. -- Charles Spurgeon

That is the quote which not only inspired this blog post, but also started an in-depth discussion between myself and several of my friends.  The discussion came about because one of my friends said that he was surprised that even Spurgeon fell into this heresy, by which he meant the heresy of love the sinner hate the sin.

My friend’s comment surprised me and, to be honest, I didn’t really address it much.  My other friends were far more involved in the discussion than I, who merely sat on the sidelines and gave an occasional comment.  But, the longer I have thought about this, and the more I have conveyed my thoughts to others in discussions about the discussion, the more I feel like I need to actually say something and give my opinion on the matter.