I don’t take donations, and I don’t have a Patreon page. But what I would like to ask is that you consider my two books as possible gifts this holiday season.

Both books are novels that explore Christian apologetics, and if you enjoy the material at this blog, you’ll appreciate the critique given to the Christian position in these books. Perhaps someone on your holiday list needs a copy. Or perhaps you know a blogger or journalist who might be able to provide a little PR love.

The apologetic argument becomes another character in Cross Examined: An Unconventional Spiritual Journey. It’s the story of a young man torn between two mentors and struggling to maintain his Christian worldview in the aftermath of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. This earthquake was actually predicted by a real church, and the novel takes off from this historic event.

A Modern Christmas Carol is a reworking of the Dickens classic, in which a shrewdly successful televangelist receives unexpected Christmas visitors: first, his long-dead partner, and then three ghostly guides. Finally able to acknowledge the shallowness of his message and doubts he has long suppressed, he makes amends with far-reaching consequences.

Christmas topics

Here are a few Christmas-y posts:

• The virgin birth story is always in the list of supposedly fulfilled biblical prophecies. When you actually read it, however, it’s startling how many ways this claim falls apart.
• The War on Christmas™ seems to come sooner every year, doesn’t it? Some Christians seem to enjoy being offended, and the Catholic League’s Bill Donohue is a professional at it. Literally—it’s his job. In one end-of-the-year survey, he thought he found a juicy factoid with which to attack the atheists, but it blew up in his face.
• Stand-up comedian Patton Oswalt demolished a pop Christmas song and taught an important lesson about how God doesn’t work: “How Christianity Infantilizes Adults.”
• A parable about two kids arguing about evidence for Santa has interesting parallels with evidence for Jesus. Be careful about dismissing the existence of Santa, because that reasoning may demand that you dismiss Jesus as well.

We cannot know that Santa definitely doesn’t exist.
This is technically true.
But what’s your best guess?
Go on. Be bold.
— Ricky Gervais

Image credit: Donnie Ray Jones, flickr, CC