SCI-FI AUTHOR JOHN C WRIGHT BECOMES CATHOLIC!

His wife resports that Sci-Fi author John C. Wright entered the Catholic Church this past Easter. A fellow Marylander, he majored in philosophy and went to law school, but never practiced.  His journey is one from athiesm to Christianity.

He is one of the younger writers of the Science Fiction genre so I have to admit that I do not know much about him.  However, what I do know about him sounds most impressive. 

I have posted a list of his writings so that we might all become aquinted with his literary output. 

I like to remark about such things because in some circles such religious faith and conversion stories are considered antithetical to science fiction and fantasy, despite the notable exceptions. 

Publications: 

• Farthest Man from Earth (novella) Asimov’s Science Fiction Vol. 19 # 4 & 5, No.229-230, April 1995.
• Guest Law (novella) Asimov’s Science Fiction Vol. 21 # 6, No.258, June 1997
• Year’s Best SF 3, ed. David G. Hartwell, HarperPrism, 1998
• Not Born a Man, (short story) Aberrations #24, October 1994
• Forgotten Causes, (short story) Absolute Magnitude #16, Summer 2001
• THE GOLDEN AGE (novel) Tor Books, April 2002
• THE PHOENIX EXULTANT (novel) Tor Books, April 2003
• THE GOLDEN TRANSCENDENCE (novel) Tor Books, November 2003
• LAST GUARDIANS OF EVERNESS (novel) Tor Books (August 2004)
• MISTS OF EVERNESS (novel) Tor Books (March 2005)
• ORPHANS OF CHAOS (novel) Tor Books (October 2006)
• FUGITIVES OF CHAOS (novel) Tor Books (June 2007)
• TITANS OF CHAOS (novel) Tor Books (March 4, 2008)

He writes on his online journal [March 21, 2008]:

After three years of prayer, thought, and debate, and an honest attempt to follow where the spirit leads me, I am joining the Roman Catholic Church this Easter. Normally, I would keep this private, since I am not inclined to stir up sectarian debates between the two or three parts of the shattered church; but since several people on this website have said I was Catholic, and since I corrected them and said I was not Catholic, I did not want anyone who trusted me what I said that, to be surprised when that information turns out to be out of date.

For my Protestant friends, all I can do is assure you that that Church you broke away from in centuries past has been reformed of the abuses you complained of at that time. The Pope no longer sells indulgences. The theological differences are minor enough that Christly love, if you imitate His love, will cover them. I was raised Lutheran, and drank in anticatholicism with my mother’s milk, so I assure you I am aware of most or all the objections, subtle and obvious, which you consciences in good faith might raise. The shock that came to me when I looked into Catholicism is that the Catholics do not teach what my teachers told me they teach. In any case, Protestant friends, I will be closer to you than I was when I was an atheist, so please consider this progress.

For my pagan friends, rejoice! My Protestant friends tell me my Catholic friends are pagans anyway! So I will be closer to you than I am now. And there is certainly some truth in the idea that Catholicism is a child of Jewish and Hellenic thought: the ancient civilization of Europe is still alive in the Catholic Church. If you worship Brigit, and I revere St. Brigit, this will be a common bond between us.

For the Atheist friends, give thanks! You may think of Catholicism as the most backward and obscurantist of the Christian sects. Not so! Not only does the Catholic Church acknowledge Darwinian evolution, the approach of at least some of the writers (St. Aquinas, for example, or St. Justin Martyr) is as rigorous and as rational as even the best of atheist writers, and darn mile more clear and rational than the worst of atheist writers (who are the only ones we hear about these days). Catholicism, in many of its branches, is not given to the religious enthusiasms of revivalism that so many atheists find disquieting. (Whether this lack of revivalism is a good thing or not, I leave for the reader to decide. Certainly more enthusiasm and crusading spirit would not be a bad thing for this Church at this hour of history.)

The subject of science fiction and religion is one close to my heart.  Much of the genre seems to portray Christianity in a negative fashion, if at all.  Wright speaks about this in an article at SF SIGNAL Mind Meld – Is SF Antithetical to Religion?:

I assume most readers would not regard that as a proper science fiction speculation. Eastern mysticism is not more scientific than Western, but it is more novel to us, so we wonder at it.

It is telling that there is not a single science fiction story where Eastern gods or Eastern mysticism is treated as false and contemptible. In Star Trek, if an Indian, excuse me, a Native American, introduces a starship captain to his “spirit guide”, this spirit never turns out to be a computer in disguise or a lying energy being. On the other hand, if anything remotely like the Christian God shows up, Spock shoots him with the forward phaser battery. This is because Progressives do not (as yet) regard any religion as antithetical to their world-view aside from Christianity. Perhaps Christianity is hard to tame.