I really should rename this episode to something more descriptive. Year End Reflection can mean anything. This little tradition is really a long term book review where I just sit, reflect and consider out of all the books I have reviewed, which books have made a lasting influence.

Hi, my name is Terence and this my 2025 end of the year reflection.

K-Pop Dilemma Hunter

Every year, I am involved in a children’s outreach programme. So we have kids from 6 to 12 years old coming for English enrichment classes and at the end of the year, we have a graduation day. On this day, we have a talent show. The kids tell story, sing, dance and play musical instruments. For this year, one of the performances was a song from K-Pop Demon Hunters.

I realise that what I about to say here will rub some people off the wrong way. I know there are good Christians who think that anything to do with Harry Potter, Dungeons and Dragons and K-Pop Demon Hunter to be demonic at worst, bad influences at best. In either case, performing such a worldly song in a Christian context would be considered foolish or heretic.

Anyways, I was the one who gave the go ahead because I watched K-Pop Demon Hunter. It is a good vs evil story. It does not glorify evil. There are themes that resonate with children and also with adults, hence why it topped Netflix and was a global phenomenon. I looked at the lyrics and I saw, as Paul observed in his own time, that non-believers through their poetry were trying to reach the unknown. They recognised darkness, shame, even sin, and they knew they had to fight the evil. The way they do it is through friendship, songs, martial arts.

From a Christian worldview, they kind of got the sickness right, but they did not know the right cure. And I thought that was where I could come in.

After the kids sang their favourite song, which they are listening, singing and dancing to anyways at home, whether or not we allowed it in the church, I went up to present the Gospel to all the families, the proud parents who would never set foot in a church if not to attend their children’s graduation ceremony. I stress that this was not a Sunday service or even a worship service, because a worldly song would be wrong in that context.

Interpreting Culture for the Church

There are a lot more details and nuances to what I tell you. But I just want to quickly say that there are no villains in this story. Sometimes when culture meets the church, the clash becomes ugly. That was not the case here. My purpose in sharing this story is I am amazed at how often my thought processes come back to the three books I read. I have learned to constrain my frustration when I discuss culture matters with fellow Christians because I still remember how I used to struggle with cultural issues until I read these three books.

The three books are:

• Everyday Theology: How to Read Cultural Texts and Interpret Trends edited by Kevin Vanhoozer, Charles Anderson and Michael Sleasman
• Tolkien Dogmatics: Theology through Mythology with the Maker of Middle-earth by Austin M. Freeman
• Wingfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson

My book reviews for these three books can be found in the book list at the end.

I won’t be surprised if every year, I can trace some event or incident back to these three books. This makes me wonder whether as part of our discipleship, the church should teach believers how to better handle or better interpret culture.

I’m not saying that if everybody learned to interpret culture than there will be world peace. If you gather ten professional Bible interpreters, they will quarrel about eleven interpretations.

But if people know what it means to interpret the Bible, they can discern and not be so easily influenced by their own prejudices and preferences.

A Devout Apostate?

In the beginning of the year, I read a novel: Silence by Shusaku Endo. I read the novel because I wanted to read the free book I got: Silence and Beauty by Makoto Fujimura, which is his reflection on Shusaku Endo’s book.

The questions posed in the book continue to haunt me. Is it noble, is it commendable, for a Christian to explicitly reject Christ, but remain devout within?

Christians find it easier to celebrate the lives of the martyrs. People who refused to denounce the faith and as a reward, they are burnt, mauled by lions, cut down, drowned or hanged. Such people we can tell and keep telling their heroic stories, faithful to the last, examples of virtues, steadfast, we cannot heap enough noble adjectives on their lives.

But what about those who chose to absorb the shame of apostasy, to be publicly known as Judas’ and Demas’, and yet never truly abandoning the Lord and Saviour.

I thought the Bible is clear. Those who are ashamed of Christ, Christ will be ashamed of them. Luke 9:26.

I find it difficult to excuse the traitors in the novel. Yet, under the writer’s telling of the story, I also find it difficult to condemn.

I have read a few Japanese novels and the ones I read share one thing in common. The writers are very good at planting mind viruses into the reader. The book is finished, but the world lives on in the mind.

Looking to 2026

I realise I have not read or reviewed as many books this year. I have been busy with my Masters in Divinity studies. This year, I have also taken a higher commitment in the church leadership. I could beat myself up for not meeting my goals for this podcast but I stop myself. I want to have a healthy attitude to reading and reviewing books.

For those who have benefited from my book reviews, I hope you can drop a friendly note to my email. It’s terence@readingandreaders.com. If you didn’t get that, you can just go to the Reading and Reader’s website and click on the contact button there.

Thanks for listening. See you on the other side of the year.

Book List

• Everyday Theology: How to Read Cultural Texts and Interpret Trends edited by Kevin Vanhoozer, Charles Anderson and Michael Sleasman. Book Review.
• Tolkien Dogmatics: Theology through Mythology with the Maker of Middle-earth by Austin M. Freeman. Book Review.
• Wingfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson. Book Review.
• Silence by Shusaku Endo. Book Review.
• Silence and Beauty by Makoto Fujimura. Book Review.