Wonders of childrens literature

Categories: uncategorized

Date: 22 April 2005 18:33:36

Third Party directed my attention to a wonderful part of The Illustrated Mum by Jacqueline Wilson today. In it the mother is complaining about being 33 and comments on that being the age Jesus was when he died. She says the following:
"He tried so hard too. He liked kids, he liked bad women, he stuck up for all the alternative people. He'd have been so cool. And what did they do? They stuck him up on a cross and tortured him to death"

Now Jacqueline Wilson is probably the type of author that some "nice Christians" (of the James Dobson school of thought) would not think of as wholesome - her plots focus on dis-functional reality rather than fluffy ideals, but I think this is probably one of the best pictures of Jesus that Third Party has been given for a long time.

Ok so it stops the story part way through and doesn't focus on the "really cool" bit where he comes back, but I just think it gets to the centre of things in a way Christian writing doesn't tend to. I don't know where Wilson stands on religion, but she certainly seems to have a very accurate understanding of what the gospel says. If we're meant to be following Jesus example it does lead to the question, "are we sticking up for alternative people?"