Best-selling and award-winning author Nicholas Sparks was the featured guest for the 10th annual McBride Lecture for Faith and Literature.
“Sparks is one of today’s best-selling authors of all time with nine motion pictures adapted from his work, and he is outspokenly Christian,” Vice President of Academic Affairs Scott LaMascus said. “He has recently been called the culture’s storyteller for the 100 million people who have bought one of his books. … So it isn’t hard to see that he is a good choice to help us mark the tenth McBride Lecture for Faith and Literature.”
LaMascus introduced Sparks with high-praise to the audience in the sold-out Hardeman auditorium on Friday.
“The message of this man’s life is much more than a movie trailer,” LaMascus said. “Sparks rescues love and romance from the cynical world focused on the dysfunctional and which often sees caritas as too idealistic.”
Sparks shared with the audience his story of becoming a famous writer with the help of an amateur literary agent, and how his family was vital in the process.
“All of my novels, in some way, draw from personal experiences,” Sparks said. “There’s an old adage: ‘you should write what you know’ and I know people.”
At the age of 28, Sparks wrote one of his most well known stories, “The Notebook.” The novel was inspired by a true story, as told by his father-in-law, of the love shared by his wife’s parents.
“All great love stories by definition have to end in tragedy because no one lives forever,” Sparks said. “That’s the way of the world.”
Family members directly inspired his next two novels. “Message in a Bottle” pays homage to his father’s story of love and loss, and Sparks’ little sister inspired the main character of “A Walk to Remember.”
Some of the more popular of Sparks’ seventeen books include “Dear John” (2006), “The Lucky One” (2008), “The Last Song” (2009), “Safe Haven” (2010), “The Best of Me” (2011) and “The Longest Ride” (2013), as well as the 2004 non-fiction memoir “Three Weeks With My Brother,” co-written with his brother Micah.
“It’s pretty easy to just write him off as a sappy love-story novelist, but a lot of his books actually carry pretty heavy themes, hidden beneath a level of sappy love story,” senior Nicholas Jensen said. “I hope that [students] come away with a deeper appreciation of his writing and his writing caliber, because I think sometimes it gets overshadowed.”
Sparks pulls in the full spectrum of emotions people go through and showcases the beauty of the human life, which fit with the goals of the McBride Lecture, senior Elizabeth Henderson said.
“As a former student of Dr. McBride, I know this was something he emphasized,” Henderson said. “He never sidestepped the hard issues in our class discussions, but was sure to talk about how they are just as much a part of life as happy times.”
Past McBride speakers included Pulitzer Prize winners, a National Book Award and the Bellwether Prize for social justice winner, as well as those who serve on the juries of major prizes, including the Nobel Prize.
“Usually we have pretty highbrow academic people coming in or writers who are a little more off the radar,” senior Jessica Williams, undergraduate fellow for the McBride Center for Public Humanities, said. “So, this year’s really different since he’s kind of this big name celebrity figure.”
The mission of the McBride Center for Public Humanities is to motivate students, faculty and the community in programs that explore the combination of Christian faith and literature.
“I hope OC students will see that creative work is a powerful influence on people and on culture,” LaMascus said. “So if Christians are not genuine leaders in this way, we are missing our calling to restore the world to the way God created it. That’s what it means to be a ‘roaring lamb’ – full of love for all neighbors, but with a powerful message for all who hear us.”
The McBride Center and the McBride Lecture are named after Bailey and Joyce McBride. Bailey McBride, a member of the Oklahoma Higher Education Hall of Fame, spent almost 50 years at Oklahoma Christian as a student, administrator and faculty member before retiring earlier this year.
“[Bailey] is a legacy faculty member and academic leader who represents the very best of what OC is – a place where faith deepens as learners grow to become stronger readers, communicators and thinkers,” LaMascus said.
LaMascus was named chair of the Department of Language and Literature in 2001 and conducted a long-range planning meeting with faculty and staff to set goals and priorities for the students.
“The faculty formally identified hosting speakers to inform and inspire our students as a strategic objective as one of the top two or three priorities on our list,” LaMascus said. “The McBride Center for Public Humanities was the result of many collaborations with OC leaders like John deSteiguer and the many alumni who love Bailey and Joyce McBride.”
In order to honor the McBrides, a commemorative dinner was held before Sparks’ keynote as well as a dessert reception afterwards.
The night included multiple congratulatory sentiments to the McBride’s on being awarded a National Endowments for the Humanities challenge grant for the McBride Center of Public Humanities.
“I think it is important to thank him and Mrs. McBride for all they have done for the students at OC,” Henderson said. “They have given years and years of time to this school. I also appreciate their humility through it all. They are so friendly and kindhearted.”
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