# Wolfe Getting More Christian? *The Urth list — 2 messages, 2 voices, 08 Mar 2010* > Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright > in each message remains with the person who wrote it. > Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original > archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than > retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact. --- ### James Wynn *08 Mar 2010, 11:44* > (I'll note in passing the other day I saw a blogger mention that he > didn't enjoy recent Wolfe books as much because he felt the > Christianity was getting too strong.) I think the blogger should read MORE of Wolfe's more overtly Christian stories, starting with the old "The Detective of Dreams", in order to develop a thicker skin. In my literary and cinematic SF, I tolerate --mostly with aplomb-- a constant barrage of (what I consider) nonsense regarding anthropologic climate change and (IMO) derangement regarding the last Presidential administration. So I'm not sympathic of someone who gripes about a teensy bit of religious friendliness in order to enjoy the top 5% of SF fiction that Wolfe consistently delivers. I reiterate: We're not talking about proselyzing. We're merely talking about a writer who does not deal with religious characters with cynicism or condesension. AND occassionally you'll see something that *could* be analogous of a Judeo-Christian doctrine. You didn't link to the post so I'm not sure what works this blogger was thinking of, but I would suppose he was referring to Wizard Knight and Pirate Freedom. Those works seem to have affected some readers the way Neil Gaiman claimed to have been affected when he realized the Christian elements in The Chronicles of Narnia. Frankly, I found the Christianity in WK to have been not that significant. It was there in the conclusion, but (once again) there's a lot more Gnosticism in there, as well as a genuine joy of Norse mythology and errant knight trophes. And the conclusion was certainly rationalized. Pirate Freedom has a priest as a protagonist so what do you want? Naturally, Roman Catholic Wolfe handled this character differently than a non-believer would. Big surprise. J. --- ### Dann Burdette *08 Mar 2010, 17:29 · follows James Wynn* While I haven't read the newer books you speak of, I've often felt like Wolfe's religious elements or ideas that appear in his work are head and shoulders above those of his peers. As an entirely non-religious person, I've very rarely found an author that can tackle these things without it feeling totally out of place or obvious (like the aforementioned Chronicles of Narnia), but Wolfe does this very well. -Dann ---