My new book, The Hunger Games and the Gospel, is soon to be released as an ebook through Patheos Press and I’m excited to finally get to share the cover. Pretty awesome.
As most of you know I am a huge sci-fi/fantasy geek and fell in love with the Hunger Games trilogy as soon as I read it. Writing this book not only allowed me to spend time with a story I deeply appreciated, but to connect it to my Christian convictions and passion for justice. Stay tuned for more details, but for now I’ll leave you with a brief overview of the book –
In a globalized world full of uncertainty and injustice, Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games series has captured the imaginations of readers looking for glimmers of hope. The tale of Katniss Everdeen’s journey of survival in the post-apocalyptic country of Panem, where bread and circuses distract the privileged and allow a totalitarian regime to oppress the masses, parallels situations in our world today. Our culture’s hyper-consumerism and obsession with constant entertainment as well as the worldwide economic and political systems that prey upon the weak and the poor are evidence that the imbalances and injustices described in Panem don’t just exist in speculative fiction. At the same time, the series’ themes of resistance to oppression and hope for a better world, portrayed honestly as messy and difficult endeavors, echo the transformative way of life Jesus offered his followers.
The Hunger Games and the Gospel explores these themes in the Hunger Games that have resonated so deeply with readers by examining their similarity to the good news found in Jesus’ message about living in the ways of God’s Kingdom. Taking the rich statements of the Beatitudes which serve as mini-pictures of God’s dreams realized on earth as in heaven, each chapter reflects on how those pictures are exhibited both in the narrative of the Hunger Games, and in Jesus’ time, and then explores their significance for our own world. Readers are invited to allow the inspiration of the Hunger Games help them live in the ways of the Kingdom of God by discovering how they too can work towards to possibility of a better world.