[Austin Rivera] What the Church Could Learn From Frank Herbert
We’re going to continue posting essays from the festschrift (with the authors’ permissions.) This time it is a pleasure to introduce Austin RIvera, a 3rd year MDiv student at Duke Divinity School and candidate for elder’s orders in the UMC.
What the Church Could Learn From Frank Herbert:Reflections on Heretics of Dune
I am not usually a reader of novels, but just recently, feeling again the urge to indulge myself in some classic science fiction, I decided to read Frank Herbert’s Heretics of Dune, the fifth novel in his “Dune Chronicles.” I had read the fourth novel, God Emperor of Dune, in my first year of college, and picked up Heretics of Dune a little while ago at a used book store, thinking I would probably enjoy some time continuing the series. Herbert is an author whose art as a novelist is not equal to the ideas he engages, but that does not make those ideas any less fascinating. I suppose I should warn you at this point that there will be spoilers in the rest of this.
