Books
Tessie's four-year-old son was attacked and killed by an alligator in the summer of 1991. A few months later, what she believes to be the same alligator appears in Tessie's backyard. Her family and friends believe Tessie is coming apart, but for Tessie, bringing the alligator inside her house is the first step in a cosmic journey to find meaning in her suffering.
For seven days, Tessie will walk the unforgiving road of memory backward through her upbringing within the grotesque underbelly of southeast Georgia, her years as the only female student at a conservative seminary, and her tragically short-lived season as a mother.
Part Southern gothic, part black comedy, The Great Georgia Dirt Dragon reads like Flannery O'Conner by way of Ottessa Moshfegh-a darkly comic and heartbreaking descent into love, loss, and grief-driven madness.
Have Christians settled for artistic bankruptcy? To understand Jesus and the Bible, you have to understand art. The art God creates and commissions comforts and encourages, and it disturbs and offends. What is art? Does it ever go too far? How should Christians understand, receive, and create it?
Joshua S. Porter presents a readable, literary, story-driven Biblical theology of the artistic and the obscene.
Death to Deconstruction
Reclaiming Faithfulness as an Act of Rebellion
A straightforward, readable, and relatable look at issues that too often derail faith
"Another Christian renounces the church and Christ." "Former Christian music star turns her back on faith." "I kissed Christianity goodbye." Headlines like these are becoming common. It seems like the most popular trend in faith circles lately is to deconstruct, then deconvert.
Joshua Porter knows that story from the inside out. He was raised in the tangles of American evangelical Christianity, and the church he knew was conservative, fundamentalist, and politicized. It feared culture, music, art, Dungeons & Dragons, Harry Potter, and anything else that was slightly suspect. This foundation of dread and fear was full of holes he nearly fell through . . . and out of faith altogether.
His story put him on the road to deconversion--but that isn't where he ended up. Despite his years of being surrounded by disaffected former Christians and living large in the punk rock lifestyle, Porter now finds his faith closer to the historic Christian tradition than ever.
But this book is more than Porter's own story. It also invites those who may be in the deconstruction process themselves to consider the perspective of someone who was tempted to leave his faith-yet stayed. And it provides theological insight and pastoral support to those who worry that everyone is bailing out on the church.
Punk Rock vs. the Lizard People
The 1980s have become a decade of incredible technological advancement thanks to a race of occupying alien reptiles, but sixteen-year-old Danny Thomas thinks they’re up to something.
Mostly your average video game-loving, pop-culture-obsessed teenager, Danny finds adolescence in 1987 a bit trying. Now there’s this whole new alien technology called social media. According to the world’s allegedly benevolent alien benefactors, sharing photos and personal updates online is the first step to guiding Earth toward a peaceful utopia. Danny and his friends have begun to suspect the opposite is true.
Together, seven teenagers and a defecting alien reptile set out to expose a sinister plot while navigating the treacherous waters of teenage friendship and romance. Punk Rock vs. The Lizard People combines the coming-of-age teen comedy-drama of The Breakfast Club with the frenetic sci-fi grit of District 9. Celebrating and subverting beloved tropes, what begins as a loving, nostalgic romp becomes a powerful meditation on grief and the quest for significance.