Miranda

Rating:
Summary: Miranda meets the challenge of good Christian science fictio
Review: ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Miranda

Written by John L. Cowart

Published by Scythe Publications Inc. of Nashville, TN in 1996.

It would be easy to start dreaming of what the world would be like toward the end of the 21st century. Space travel, fancy gadgets to help people function in low gravity environments, and alien forces would probably float through our imaginations. But, what about the forces within our own hearts? How will people treat one another in the year 2085? Even more importantly, how will the children of God stay faithful amidst the technologically sophisticated and in the face of severe persecution?

Easy to ponder, yet it is quite another matter to take pen in hand and put it all down on paper with a Christ-centered focus. Perhaps this difficulty of creating good science fiction from a Christian perspective is one reason that so little of it is now available. John Cowart has accepted the challenge with Miranda. The suspenseful conclusion of each chapter makes it hard to put down and the end of the book offers an unexpected conclusion that will cause you to re-examine the strength of your own faith.

Miranda is a space colony/mining camp on one of the moons of Uranus, toward the edge of our solar system. A Pulitzer Prize winning reporter for the New York Times takes a special assignment to report on life in deep space. Little does he know the deep trouble he will find there. Yet, he and his companions discover that God can even use deep space to deepen one's faith when he trusts the Lord with his whole heart.

I am always looking for principles to live by in the books I read. I will share one from this title and that is the lesson of forgiveness. Do you remember how Christ distinguished believers and non-believers as recorded in Matthew 5:43ff? One of the ways to tell a child of God from a child of the world is by the love they have for people who are not easy to love, like the ones trying to hurt them. Forgiveness is the mo! st effective way to see the power of love overcome the power of evil. There is a gripping testimony, toward the end of Miranda, as a persecuted believer extends forgiveness to those who had inflicted such pain and sorrow upon her own life and that of her friends but her husband, a non-believer, could only extend anger and hatred. I am not saying that this is easy, but Christ would not have taught us to forgive our enemies nor exemplified it from the Cross if we were not to practice it in our own lives, even if our life is "out of this world", on a place like Miranda.

I recommend this title for any science fiction fan, especially for those who want to have a deeper walk of faith.