Review: Blending Santa and Jesus...
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 11 19, 2013
This was an interesting story that attempts to bring together the traditional Christian Christmas story with the secular Christmas tradition of Santa Claus. As a story I think it would be interesting to children under the age of 10. As the book is novel-length, it would have to be read to them.The book seemed to have two parts; part one was the story of Jesus, which unlike traditional Christmas stories of Jesus told his whole life story from birth to death to resurrection. I particularly liked that aspect of the book as it told all of Jesus’ story. The second part of the story was about what happened to the innkeeper after Jesus’ death.This was definitely the fantasy part of the story where we have flying reindeer, baby angels and Jesus’ adopted uncle Shai living forever at the North Pole. I thought that this was a creative way to meld the two traditional stories together.As this is a book that claims to fit into the genre of Christian literature, I must comment on the theology within the story. While it is true that the Bible does not tell us about specific events that happened in Jesus’ life as he was growing up, and therefore the author had to create some possible scenarios in order to tell the story, I do not think he followed theologically what we know about Jesus from the Bible on some important points.An example of one of these points was when Uncle Aaron tells the story of when Jesus was a young boy and he disobeyed his mother and got burned by the contents of a hot pot. However, the Bible tells us that Jesus did not sin even as a child. “[Jesus] was tempted in the same ways we are tempted, but he never sinned.” (Heb. 4:15).There were a few grammatical errors that were missed in the proofreading, but otherwise the writing was clear and concise. The dialogue flowed well and the transitions between scenes were smooth.I think this was an imaginative novel and might make a fun read at Christmas. Readers should be cautioned however, that the theology presented in the book (the portion about Jesus, as obviously Santa is not in the Bible) may not align with their understanding of what is written in the Bible itself. I gave this book two stars.Thank you to the author Scott Roloff who provided a free copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review. All thoughts are my own.