If you peruse a local Barnes & Noble, you will not find Robinson’s books in the Christian fiction section but in the general fiction section. She does not describe herself as a “Christian writer.”
However, this does not mean Marilynne Robinson is not a Christian. Her approach to faith can teach us something important about writing and faith.
How Does Marilynne Robinson Approach Writing about Christianity?
Different Christian writers have different approaches to their vocation. For example, a modern novel by Francine Rivers called Redeeming Love is a retelling of the book of Hosea. In contrast, The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis is a fantasy series referencing Christian theology in many scenes.
Rivers and Lewis had very different approaches to their writing. Rivers’ books are explicitly Christian fiction, designed from the start to explore Christian themes and marketed to a specifically Christian audience.
Lewis’ books were written for Christians and non-Christians. In a 1941 letter to Cynthia Donnelly, he said that “none of my stories began with a Christian message” and that if God is using someone as a writer, they will find their works naturally contain religious ideas.
Though these authors are very different, their books glorify God in different ways by communicating the gospel’s hope in their writings. God calls writers to cultivate their gifts and, through their writings, to convey goodness, beauty, truth, and glorify God.
Robinson has been very open about how her faith informs her writing. In an interview with Sarah Pulliam Bailey, Robinson was asked about whether she finds it challenging to write about faith and replied, “ I would never write about anything I didn’t really want to write about. So my imagination goes to where it basically lives.”
However, Robinson does not have a sacred or secular either/or approach to writing. In that context, her books aren’t “Christian books” sold and marketed through Christian bookstores, but books written for people of all worldviews, with her faith embedded in them. Robinson has used this approach to reach a vast audience of people around the world. Robinson has written for Harper’s, The Paris Review, and The New York Book Review.
Important Events in Marilynne Robinson’s Life
Robinson was born on November 26, 1943, in Idaho.
Robinson received her B.A. in History from Brown University in Rhode Island in 1966.
Robinson finished her Ph.D. in English Literature from Washington University in 1977.
Robinson’s first work of non-fiction, Mother Country: Britain, the Welfare State, and Nuclear Pollution, was published in 1989
In 1980, Robinson’s first novel, Housekeeping, was published. It won the Hemingway Foundation/Pen Award.
In 2004, Robinson published the novel Gilead, which won the Pulitzer Prize the following year.
In 2011, Robinson was the keynote speaker for the 75th-anniversary celebration of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.
What Christian Themes Does Marilynne Robinson Explore?
The theme of agape love is important in Robinson’s books. In Robinson’s novel Gilead, the dying Congregationalist minister John Ames writes a letter to his son about the pain and joy he has experienced while living in the small town in Iowa. His godson, John Ames “Jack” Boughton, confides to John about his failures and secrets. John shows compassion to Jack before he leaves Gilead. Jack’s compassion towards the prodigal Jack reflects the agape love of Christ.
Her novel Home, published in 2008, is an interesting retelling of Jesus’ prodigal son parable recorded in Luke’s first-century gospel account. The novel occurs during the same period as Gilead and covers some of the same events from other characters’ perspectives. The prodigal son figure is Jack, depicted as a troubled addict who seems beyond redemption. Jack returns to Gilead after living a hedonistic life and expresses no shame or repentance for his sins. John has an unsettling encounter with Jack when he returns to Gilead. John finds it hard to respond with grace towards Jack and feels his whole way of life threatened by his presence. Slowly, both men reach a new understanding of each other.
What Robinson does so brilliantly in Home is make Jack and John into fascinating prodigal archetypes. Readers identify with these characters as flawed human beings yearning for the grace and freedom found in Christ.
Robinson’s novel Lila (also part of the Gilead series) explores the theological theme of exile followed by homecoming. Lila is an abandoned, lonely orphan yearning for a home. Through acts of kindness from different characters in the book and her marriage to a minister, Lila discovers what it means to be an orphan and a beloved of Christ. Lila finds herself quite cautious about accepting the message of Christianity because she initially does not understand what it is all about.
Gradually, Lila finds a sense of home in Gilead as she heals from her past trauma and allows herself to be loved by the Reverend John Ames. John also finds himself struggling to heal from his past. He reveals to Lila that his first wife died of a stillbirth. His trauma allows him to empathize with Lila. Through their pain, both heal and experience a sense of home by being devoted to each other.
The theological theme of exile followed by homecoming Robinson explores in Lila correlates to the Christian life. As Christians, we find ourselves living in this fallen world with a yearning for all to be made right by Christ with the promise of the marriage of heaven and earth. Though exiles, we are called to be the hands and feet of Christ through taking care of the planet, acts of justice, kindness, compassion, and hospitality. From the early church in the first century to the present, Christians from all walks of life have read Scripture in the light of these two themes.
What Are We Doing Here? is one of Robinson’s best non-fiction works. The essays cover various topics, from climate change, politics, the importance of fiction, the theological virtue of hope, and beauty. In the Christian worldview, beauty is something evoked through different genres of music, works of literature, film, visual art, and that gives us a glimpse here and now of the marriage of heaven and earth.
One of the most important essays in the book explores the correlation between faith and beauty in Robinson’s fiction is called “Grace and Beauty.” In the beginning of the essay, Robinson acknowledges the reality of finite human knowledge and the wonder that the reality of beauty evokes. For Robinson, beauty is something that has a transcendent source that points to Christ and is not something that can be explained empirically.
Writers Similar to Marilynne Robinson
Many modern authors explore important spiritual themes in their work. They have a similar approach as Robinson does in the context of being honest about their faith in Christ while writing for people of all worldviews.
A popular modern poet and writer similar to Robinson is Wendell Berry. Berry is a farmer and poet who writes about rural life in Kentucky and the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love. Berry’s fiction and non-fiction have inspired readers worldwide to think more seriously about self-sustainability, what it truly means to love God, and how to love your neighbor as yourself. His most well-known- poem is The Peace of Wild Things. His novels Hannah Coulter, Jayber Crow, and others continue to be read by a wide audience.
Frederick Buechner is another modern author similar to Robinson. In his fiction and non-fiction, Buechner writes about how, through existential pain and questions, the agape love of Christ sustains one on the journey of faith. Buechner’s most well-known works are The Sacred Journey, Telling Secrets, The Eyes of the Heart: A Memoir of the Lost and Found, and his novels A Long Day’s Dying, Godric, and Brendan. Buechner passed away in 2022. His books continue to bring spiritual nourishment to readers all around the world.
Philosophers, theologians, and poets have written prolifically about how beauty triumphs over darkness and portrays the glory of Christ. This importance of beauty in the Christian life is immensely important. A good example from Scripture is found in Psalm 27. The ancient Hebrew poem expresses a great yearning to worship Christ, the true source of all beauty. In her characters, Robinson incorporates how she has experienced grace and beauty.
10 Best Books by Marilynne Robinson
Marilynne Robinson has written excellent fiction and nonfiction, including:
1. Housekeeping
2. Gilead
3. Lila
4. Jack
5. Home
6. What Are We Doing Here? Essays
7. The Death of Adam: Essays On Modern Thought
8. When I Was A Child I Read Books: Essays
9. The Givenness Of Things: Essays
https://amzn.to/48kZLan
10. Reading Genesis
Further Reading:
Interview: Marilynne Robinson on the Language of Faith in Writing
Obama Interviews Author Marilynne Robinson, Discusses America, Faith, Values
Q&A: Marilynne Robinson on Guns, Gay Marriage and Calvinism
Photo Credit: © Getty Images/BrianAJackson
Justin Wiggins is an author who works and lives in the primitive, majestic, beautiful mountains of North Carolina. He graduated with his Bachelor's in English Literature, with a focus on C.S. Lewis studies, from Montreat College in May 2018. His first book was Surprised by Agape, published by Grant Hudson of Clarendon House Publications. His second book, Surprised By Myth, was co-written with Grant Hudson and published in 2021. Many of his recent books (Marty & Irene, Tír na nÓg, Celtic Twilight, Celtic Song, Ragnarok, Celtic Dawn) are published by Steve Cawte of Impspired.
Wiggins has also had poems and other short pieces published by Clarendon House Publications, Sehnsucht: The C.S. Lewis Journal, and Sweetycat Press. Justin has a great zeal for life, work, community, writing, literature, art, pubs, bookstores, coffee shops, and for England, Scotland, and Ireland.
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