Has The Novel Lost Its Faith? Ctd

The Dish has debated at length whether the religious novel is dead, a discussion kicked off by a Paul Elie NYT article. Millman joins the debate:

I must admit, I both do and don’t want to believe Elie is right, personally, about belief and American storytelling today. I both do and don’t want to believe it, because one of the scripts I wrote that I’m most fond of is engaged precisely on the territory that he says isn’t being tackled. It’s about belief – and the transforming power of surrender to the divine – and it’s also about the sociology of religion in America today (not at all the same thing). I’d like to think it’s a story he’d appreciate. And I’ve gotten pushback from some producers on the grounds that it’s “too religious” or I don’t do enough to “explain” this foreign world to audiences. I’d like to think that only means I’m on to something – that I’ve got a story that “needs to be told.” And yet I not only don’t feel the script I wrote is foreign to audiences – I don’t feel it’s foreign to contemporary cinema. Of course I believe it’s a unique snowflake; but I don’t think it’s the only snowflake in the blizzard.