Hey, friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology.

And around my guest today is Mariam Jacobs, who has a background in theater arts and is an avid reader.

She's a writer, a wife and mother, and a current seminary student.

She's the author of the recently released book On Magic and Miracles, a theological guide to discerning fictional magic.

And this becomes a topic of our fascinating

conversation. I have not met Marion before, so I didn't know what to expect in this conversation.

Her book just seems really interesting, and she's diving into an area that I'm not very

knowledgeable of, but very curious about. So I invited her on the show, and I absolutely love this conversation.

She was extremely wise and sharp and nuanced, and I think we'll serve as a really good guide

for those of you who are trying to think through what is good and healthy and profitable

fiction literature, and how do we discern between other forms of

fiction literature that maybe aren't that. So please welcome to the show, the wonderly,

Miriam Jacobs.

Welcome to The Theology and Iran. I have a question for you. Why should Christians read fiction? I mean, isn't this isn't this just fake stuff? Shouldn't we just stick to true things like theology and the Bible and rather than wasting time with fake literature? I'm making people mad by the very question, but some people have this opinion.

Yeah, no, actually, I think that a lot of people have that opinion.

And I don't even think that they know that they have it a lot of times.

They're just like intrinsically drawn towards nonfiction.

I've heard people say, you know, I just want, I just want

to like know about real things. You know, I just want to be in reality. Or there's a lot of,

I don't know, there's a lot of pragmatism. I would say it's like a stronghold of pragmatism,

like in the church where if it doesn't have like this really

obvious, like practical function, especially for something like evangelism or learning theology,

...