244. How Did Speculative Faith Lead to the Lorehaven Mission?

Happy New Year! As we launch this podcast’s 2025 season, we look back at a website with a legacy that predates Lorehaven. Way back in 2006, several Christian fantasy creators started a team “blog” called Speculative Faith. Let’s look back on that project that led to thousands of great articles from dozens of creators, and then later grew into the Lorehaven mission and this podcast. Episode sponsors Enclave Publishing: Memoria by J. J. Fischer Garden of Mysteries: A Dragon Slayer Bible Story by Laurie Christine Sunrise Publishing: Squire of Truth by Jill Williamson Mission update New at Lorehaven: the upgraded Lorehaven Book Search page! Subscribe free to get updates and join the Lorehaven Guild. We’re breaking from reviews and book quests, returning in early spring. This was the original Speculative Faith site header from 2006 to 2009. 1. 2006: the creation of Speculative Faith Speculative Faith started nearly 20 years ago with five Christian creators: Carol Collett Bryan Davis, later author of many dozens of fantastical novels Rebecca LuElla Miller, who stayed with the site the entire time! Mirtika Schultz, who wrote the very first post Stuart Stockton, who hosted the site and later wrote Starfire Stephen did not join until that October. Naturally, this was his first post: Nine Marks Of Widescreen Stories: Part 1 That’s right—a takeoff on the Reformed group’s “nine marks” concept Here’s the reborn Speculative Faith logo and motto from 2015. 2. 2010: the rebirth of Speculative Faith Stephen got married, then a year later, went to work salvaging the site The original blog was neglected and buried under spam comments Now the site got its own name, SpeculativeFaith.com, and a new life Open discussion Stephen and original founder Rebecca LuElla Miller anchored the site Many dozens of writers contributed hundreds of articles over the years Guest writers included names you may now, before they were cool: Jill Williamson, several articles at the original site, March-May 2009 Andrew Peterson, Please Stop Writing Fantasy Novels, July 2011 Chuck Black, The Power Of Christian Fiction, Nov. 2012 Rebecca P. Minor, later the founder of Realm Makers, July 2012 Morgan L. Busse, several articles starting in 2012 Nadine Brandes, Should We Be Reading Books To Escape Reality?, Dec. 2014 3. 2025: the legacy of Speculative Faith SpecFaith led Stephen to experiment with more reviews and the Library. The site also led to more-polished featured articles by guest writers. Inspired by SpecFaith, Stephen and (then) Ben Wolf launched Lorehaven. That began as a magazine, but shifted in 2020 to curated online content. This combined the strengths of volunteerism and more polished work. Today, all Speculative Faith content lives as a subsection of Lorehaven. As of New Year’s Eve, all those great articles show in Lorehaven searches! So do the many reviews, some of which may be adapted for Lorehaven. Com station Top question for listeners Do you remember reading Speculative Faith? If so, how far back? Next on Fantastical Truth What if the future king’s squire and a struggling songstress teamed up to solve a medieval murder? Jill Williamson debuted her first fantasy, By Darkness Hid, in April 2009. Since then she’s written many dozens of books across fantasy, sci-fi, and teen-spy genres. Now she’s returned to the Blood of Kings world for Squire of Truth, releasing next week, and joins our podcast.