{"id":146,"date":"2009-01-30T14:36:44","date_gmt":"2009-01-30T14:36:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/textmessages\/2009\/01\/rob-stennett-vs-marilynne-robi.html"},"modified":"2009-01-30T14:36:44","modified_gmt":"2009-01-30T14:36:44","slug":"rob-stennett-vs-marilynne-robi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/textmessages\/2009\/01\/rob-stennett-vs-marilynne-robi.html","title":{"rendered":"Rob Stennett vs. Marilynne Robinson"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"ryanfisher.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/197\/import\/ryanfisher.jpg\" width=\"220\" height=\"220\" class=\"mt-image-left\" style=\"float: left;margin: 0 20px 20px 0\" \/><\/span>I&#8217;m overjoyed that my good friend Rob Stennett has won <a href=\"http:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/ct\/2009\/february\/10.26.html\">the Award of Merit from Christianity Today<\/a> for his novel <span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-style: italic\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Almost-True-Story-Ryan-Fisher\/dp\/031027706X\/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1233344318&amp;sr=8-1\">The Almost True Story of Ryan Fisher<\/a><\/span>. (Here&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/ct\/2009\/januaryweb-only\/104-52.0.html?start=2\">CT&#8217;s review<\/a> of the book.) Stennett&#8217;s hilarious book is about a real estate agent who joins a suburban church in order to reach the Christian home-buying market, and then has an even better idea: He&#8217;ll plant his very own megachurch! (The working title for the book was <span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-style: italic\">The Impastor, <\/span>and I&#8217;ve yet to forgive Rob&#8217;s publisher for nixing it.)\u00a0<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>A.J. Jacobs, the author of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Year-Living-Biblically-Literally-Possible\/dp\/0743291484\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1233344811&amp;sr=1-1\">The Year of Living Biblically<\/a>, calls it &#8220;equal parts Tom Perotta and Rob Bell.&#8221; Couldn&#8217;t be a more apt description of what Rob is able to accomplish in his writing: it&#8217;s a kind of pastoral satire.\u00a0<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The merit award is a runner-up prize. CT&#8217;s top fiction award went to some writer named Marilynne Robinson. Who? <a href=\"http:\/\/entertainment.timesonline.co.uk\/tol\/arts_and_entertainment\/books\/article4774827.ece\">What has she ever done worth doing?<\/a><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m overjoyed that my good friend Rob Stennett has won the Award of Merit from Christianity Today for his novel The Almost True Story of Ryan Fisher. (Here&#8217;s CT&#8217;s review of the book.) Stennett&#8217;s hilarious book is about a real estate agent who joins a suburban church in order to reach the Christian home-buying market,&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-christianity"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Rob Stennett vs. Marilynne Robinson - Text Messages<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/textmessages\/2009\/01\/rob-stennett-vs-marilynne-robi.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Rob Stennett vs. Marilynne Robinson - Text Messages\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I&#8217;m overjoyed that my good friend Rob Stennett has won the Award of Merit from Christianity Today for his novel The Almost True Story of Ryan Fisher. 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Stennett&#8217;s hilarious book is about a real estate agent who joins a suburban church in order to reach the Christian home-buying market,&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/textmessages\/2009\/01\/rob-stennett-vs-marilynne-robi.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Text Messages\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-01-30T14:36:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/textmessages\/files\/import\/ryanfisher.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Patton Dodd\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Rob Stennett vs. Marilynne Robinson - Text Messages","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/textmessages\/2009\/01\/rob-stennett-vs-marilynne-robi.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Rob Stennett vs. Marilynne Robinson - Text Messages","og_description":"I&#8217;m overjoyed that my good friend Rob Stennett has won the Award of Merit from Christianity Today for his novel The Almost True Story of Ryan Fisher. 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