Mary Doria Russell — The Novelist as God

On Being with Krista Tippett

On Being Studios

Sociology, Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality, Krista Tippett, Arts, Culture, On Being, Society, Society & Culture, Science, Social Sciences

4.7 • 10.2K Ratings

🗓️ 29 January 2009

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Our guest has grappled with large moral and religious questions on and off the page. We discover what she discerned — in the act of creating a new universe — about God and about dilemmas of evil, doubt, and free will. The ultimate moral of any life and any event, she believes, only shows itself across generations. And so the novelist, like God, she says, paints with the brush of time.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Krista Tippett.
0:05.7	Today, Mary Daria Russell is a paleo and thermologist turned novelist.
0:11.1	She created a universe in her beautiful, theologically evocative science fiction series, The Sparrow
0:17.1	and Children of God.
0:18.9	We discover what she discerned on and off the page about the nature of God and about
0:23.9	subjects like evil, doubt, and time.
0:28.1	In history, who's the good guy and who's the bad guy and who's responsible and who's
0:32.7	who started it?
0:33.7	That's the question.
0:34.7	Who started it?
0:35.7	It depends on where you start the story.
0:37.8	It's the great sweep of time that allows us to make sense of our lives and the lives
0:44.6	of people.
0:46.4	God paints on a vast canvas and that his brush is time.
0:53.0	This is Speaking of Faith, stay with us.
1:00.2	This public radio podcast is supported by the Fetzer Institute as part of its campaign
1:04.8	for Love and Forgiveness online at loveandforgive.org.
1:08.9	I'm Kate Moose, managing producer of Speaking of Faith.
1:12.2	This week we bring you a rebroadcast of Krista's January 2009 conversation with author Mary
1:18.2	Dorea Russell on the moral and theological themes in her popular series of science fiction
1:24.3	novels.
1:26.8	I'm Krista Tippett.
	...

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