What happens when an atheist college professor at spiritual ground zero asks herself: "What if God is real?" In this memoir of her conversion, Holly Ordway turns her analytical mind toward the path that leads from darkness to light-from death to life. Simultaneously encouraging and bracing, she offers a bold testimony to the ongoing power of the Gospel-a Gospel that can humble and transform even self-assured, accomplished, and secular-minded young professionals like herself.

Not God's Type: A Rational Academic Finds a Radical Faith

Biographies & Memoirs

Holly Ordway

Leaders & Notable People

Moody Pub

Not God's Type : An Atheist Academic Lays down Her Arms

Ignatius Press

How can we share the Gospel and make disciples in our modern culture? Many people, including young people from Christian homes, are walking away from the faith, or have never had it presented to them in a compelling manner. However, our polemical, distracted media environment makes it difficult to have thoughtful discussions about anything. In this context, literature and the arts have a powerful role to play by providing an engaging and inviting way to share the Christian faith. In Tales of Faith, Holly Ordway shows how literature―and especially old literature―can foster fruitful discussions that allow us to meet people where they are and help them move closer to knowing Christ, or to knowing and loving him more fully and deeply. Here, readers will find a practical, accessible guide to using literature to discuss topics such as the nature of God, virtues and vices, the Crucifixion, longing and sadness, and much more. For each literary text, Ordway provides an introductory essay, a selection from the text (or the whole poem for short pieces), questions for discussion or personal reflection, activities, and recommended resources. Drawing from ancient classics like the Odyssey and the Aeneid and medieval masterpieces like Beowulf and the Divine Comedy, and providing both practical advice and spiritual guidance for the reader, Tales of Faith offers teachers, parents, and all lovers of classic literature an invaluable resource for sharing the faith through story.

Tales of Faith: A Guide to Sharing the Gospel through Literature

Literature & Fiction

History & Criticism

Word On Fire

Tolkien described The Lord of the Rings as “a fundamentally religious and Catholic work” and declared, “I am a Christian (which can be deduced from my stories).” Yet he insisted his writings were not allegories, and Middle-earth is loved by millions who do not share his religious beliefs. 
How were his faith and his fiction related? Holly Ordway answers that question biographically, focusing on Tolkien’s spiritual development, a dramatic story that previous accounts of his life have left largely unexplored. 
Here we find Tolkien’s faith was hard-won. His Anglican upbringing was overturned when his mother converted to Catholicism. Soon afterwards, she died, leaving Tolkien under the guardianship of a Catholic priest, who forbade him for three years to see his Protestant sweetheart, he eventually married her nonetheless. The Great War, in which most of his close friends were killed, deepened Tolkien’s reliance on his faith, but then, for nearly a decade, he “almost ceased to practise” his religion. Friendship with C.S. Lewis and success with The Hobbit were followed by another war and by turmoil in the Church that sternly tested Tolkien’s commitments. 
The challenges and triumphs in his religious life are reflected in his masterpiece, The Lord of the Rings, that epic tale of endurance against the odds. As Ordway shows in her expertly researched and richly illustrated study, Tolkien’s faith and Tolkien’s fiction are intimately related, though in subtle and complex ways. This long-overdue spiritual biography gives new insight into his works by shedding fresh light on their author’s deepest-held convictions.

Tolkien's Faith: A Spiritual Biography

Arts & Literature

Word on Fire Academic

Product Description \nIt is a widely accepted point of view that J.R.R Tolkien was dismissive of the modern fiction of his time, and that &lsquo;The Hobbit&rsquo; and &lsquo;The Lord of the Rings&rsquo; were fundamentally medieval and nostalgic in their inspiration. &ldquo;Tolkien's Modern Reading: Middle-earth Beyond the Middle Ages&rdquo; takes this claim, coming from one of his first biographers, and reexamines it through new meticulous archival research. This groundbreaking Catholic script by Holly Ordway reveals how Tolkien, in fact, had a fantastic imagination and understanding of both the facts and the fiction of the modern world. In contrast to the widely accepted image of Tolkien, this influential book portrays him enjoying a broad range of contemporary works, engaging with them in detail and depth&mdash; And Even naming specific titles as sources for, and influences upon his creation of Middle-earth. This Christian book shows Tolkien admired authors such as James Joyce and Beatrix Potter, Rider Haggard and Edith Nesbit, William Morris, and Kenneth Grahame. Ordway further mentions how the forgotten works of S.R. Crockett and J.H. Shorthouse also made a significant impression on Tolkien's work. In an effort to show Tolkien&rsquo;s genius in a new light, Ordway's painstaking scholarship portrays how Tolkien's book was connected with the literature of his own time and at the same time concerned with the issues of the contemporary culture. Ordway's ground-breaking study illuminates his views on topics such as technology, women, empire, and race. For Tolkien's genius was not simply backward-looking: it was intimately connected with the literature of his own time and concerned with the issues and crises of modernity. <ul> <li>Comprehensive Christian Books: Devoid of jargon, this approachable, comprehensive literature by Holly Ordway can enrich anyone's understanding of Tolkien's writings and bring new depth to his classic tales.</li> <li>Renowned Inspirational Books: Based on meticulous archival research, Ordway shows how Tolkien has appreciated both popular, and forgotten contemporary authors of his time and how said authors made a significant impression on Tolkien's literature.</li> <li>About the Author: Holly Ordway holds a PhD in English from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and is a Fellow of Faith and Culture at the Word on Fire Institute and a Visiting Professor of Apologetics at Houston Baptist University.</li> <li>Proclaiming Christ: Word on Fire Catholic Ministries supports the work of Bishop Robert Barron, which aims to highlight Roman Catholic history, spread the message of Jesus Christ, and to manifest the spirit of Christ to the masses.</li> </ul>\nReview 
This is a work of the first importance. Holly Ordway's painstaking scholarship, her close reading of primary sources in their proper context, challenges, and thoroughly revises, the image of Tolkien as someone who took no interest in contemporary culture. Ordway also offers a fine critical understanding of why and how Tolkien drew on those sources, an understanding that will enrich anyone's experience in re-reading the legendarium. Her book is itself highly readable, devoid of jargon and presented with real elegance and wit, a delight for the general reader, but also a groundwork for future Tolkien studies. --Malcolm Guite, Fellow of Girton College, Cambridge, and author of 
Faith, Hope and Poetry: Theology and the Poetic Imagination\nA distinguished work of detailed literary scholarship that is enjoyable and accessible for all readers. Ordway has undertaken a careful, sometimes combative, psycho-bibliography that shatters any sense that Tolkien was simply a clueless and nostalgic curmudgeon. Rather, she gives us a portrait of a nuanced thinker and reader who was generous and aware, Catholic and conscientious, creatively engaged with, but not bound by, his own culture. --Michael Tomko, Professor o

Tolkien's Modern Reading: Middle-earth Beyond the Middle Ages

Religion & Spirituality

Apologetics, the defense of the Faith, shows why our Christian faith is true—but it's much more than that. Apologetics isn't just the province of scholars and saints, but of ordinary men and women: parents, teachers, lay ministry leaders, pastors, and everyone who wants to develop a stronger faith, to understand why we believe what we believe, to know Our Lord better, and love him more fully. In Apologetics and the Christian Imagination: An Integrated Approach to Defending the Faith, Holly Ordway shows how an imaginative approach—in cooperation with rational arguments—is extremely valuable in helping people come to faith in Christ. Making a case for the role of imagination in apologetics, this book proposes ways to create meaning for Christian language in a culture that no longer understands words like 'sin' or 'salvation,' suggests how to discern and address the manipulation of language, and shows how metaphor and narrative work in powerful ways to communicate the truth. It applies these concepts to specific, key apologetics issues, including suffering, doubt, and longing for meaning and beauty. Apologetics and the Christian Imagination shows how Christians can harness the power of the imagination to share the Faith in meaningful, effective ways.

Apologetics and the Christian Imagination: An Integrated Approach to Defending the Faith

Christian Books & Bibles

Emmaus Road Publishing

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Books by Holly Ordway