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Written by Frank Chiapperino
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Ian Fleming's Seven Deadlier Sins & 007's Moral Compass
A Bible Study With James Bond by Benjamin Pratt
Lewis and Tolkien were masters at weaving spiritual themes into fantasy fiction and Pratt may have discovered another famous author. Here is a bit from his website:
My pilgrimage in cracking the 007 Code sometimes felt as though I was caught up in the pages of a novel. In August, 2000, I was bicycling for ten days around Lake Champlain in northern Vermont. One unseasonably cool evening in a small clapboard motel tucked back from the highway amidst birch and pine trees, I did what I often do when I am alone in such a setting. I reached for the Gideon Bible, which lay alone in the small drawer of the pine bedside table. I flipped through the pages of this well-worn book with a scuffed blue cover to a short letter, called the Epistle of James. I was startled to the point of shaking when I read the opening words: “James, a bond servant…” (James 1:1) Sleep was not restful that night, nor was riding properly balanced the next day. I had come here with two couples to get away from the mental stresses of my life, to push and test my muscles, to soak up the beauty of nature, to drink a little beer, eat good food and laugh with good friends. I am a former pastor who has spent my life chasing links between the spiritual and the profane. This journey to Vermont was to have been a little oasis – not a life-changing confrontation with one of my greatest quarries: the Bond of fiction and the Bond of moral and spiritual reflection. Yet there lay the words on this little page in this out-of-the-way inn: “James, a bond servant…"
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