A Moral Imperative
“You can’t legislate morality.” I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase. Maybe said it yourself. While in a personal manner, there is some truth to it, the statement as written is categorically false.
Why? Because the truth is that all laws are based upon someone’s morality. We have laws against murder because we believe that activity in most cases to be morally wrong. We have speed limit laws to limit traffic casualties because it is understood to be a right and moral goal.
If the phrase was stated, “You can’t legislate the adoption of a moral code,” it would be accurate. The truth is, however, that all laws are an attempt to impose a moral code on a population’s behavior. Even the most insignificant law exists to enforce someone’s concept of right and wrong.
“You can’t effectively preach morality in a novel.” I’m sure you’ve heard that or some version of it. “Don’t be preachy.” Often that translates into meaning if the story appears to have any kind of moral agenda…. Bad. Seemingly neutral? Good. If they do have a moral agenda, it had better be near invisible. Stealth seed planting only, please.
The statement is false.
Why? Because all stories convey someone’s moral code, no matter how overt or subtle they may be. Every story, no matter how benign, preaches a moral code. Even an amoral code is a type of morality.
The question isn’t whether a story preaches morality, but whether it does so effectively.
For the Christian reader, substitute “the Gospel” in place of morality or alongside it. Whether a Christian author has the gospel in a story isn’t the issue, but what gospel and how effectively he conveys it.
This is the scary part for authors. Authors are not the ones who decide what moral or gospel message resides in a tale. Authors don’t decide what message will be conveyed.
Oh, we try. Believe me, we do. Then we toss it out to the public. People read it. They report what they received from it. Sometimes it is what the author intended. Often it is not. Sometimes it agrees with the author’s morality and theology. Often it does not.
When all is said and done, readers decide what message exists in a story’s pages.
Classic case in point. Fahrenheit 451 is known for its message that censorship of literature is a means of controlling people in a dictatorial government. Yet Ray Bradbury, who wrote it, protested that the story isn’t about government censorship. He may not have intended that moral, but that is the moral message readers received.
What’s ineffective preaching?
I’m sure many of us have our own definitions. Mine is a story that tells instead of shows the moral or the Gospel. Or to put it another way, it is the mixing of non-fiction with fiction.
Several years ago, I reviewed a book for my first publisher, Double-Edged Publishing. The publisher wanted my opinion of the book, as he was considering publishing it. It was well written. Good, interesting story. One big problem. At several points, the author stopped the story to inform the reader for several paragraphs what meaning and message should be derived from the events just depicted. Cut those out and the story could have stood on its own.
Authors do this because they are scared to adopt Jesus’ method of preaching. How did He frequently do this? By telling a story, often micro-stories, and let the hearer figure out what message to distill from His words.
Many came away from one of Jesus’ “sermons” saying, “Interesting stories. But not sure what he meant by them.” Others might say, “What? Is he talking about me?” Then there were those with ears to hear that would have one of those “Ah ha!” moments as the message sank in.
If Jesus explained his stories, it was only to the disciples after the crowds dispersed. Jesus was content to let the crowds find the message. Many authors are not. They are intent that the reader get their message, so they tell alongside the showing.
As a reader, this limits what message God can reveal. Same reason I hate reading someone else’s highlighted book. I get what they saw as important, not what I might see as important. The message the author wants to convey may not be the message God has for that reader. By feeding it to them like a baby, an author can bind God’s hands.
Jesus knew if a person was not ready to hear the message, there was no point in trying to force feed it to them.
The most effective preaching is when people see the truth for themselves. When that happens, they are far more likely to adopt that message as their own.
All fiction has a message, a moral, and a gospel according to someone. The real question is, what message, moral, or gospel, and how effectively are they conveyed for those ready to hear?
What messages have you picked up from stories that were conveying it effectively?
Part of the problem is that the word “preaching” carries the implication that the audience isn’t smart enough to understand without having everything explained for them.It can also be associated with forcing a viewpoint instead of opening a dialogue.
True, Galadriel. The word “preaching” does have a negative connotation, especially in fiction. But I believe each story does preach something, one way or the other. When it comes across preachy, that isn’t because it has a “sermon” when it shouldn’t, but because it is delivering its sermon ineffectively.
One important point, though, was that he told stories that fitted with their background. E.g. the lost sheep, the vineyard etc were Old Testament images which he was expanding on. Because he was talking to people who knew the Old Testament.
An author today can’t assume any knowledge of the Bible. So they need to write stories that start where people are. Otherwise allusions will go way over their heads.
Kirsty, I think that point is true, but it is the same principle of story telling one can apply to any attempt to communicate a message via a fictional story. For instance, I had a character in Reality’s Dawn “come to Christ” without ever preaching a “sermon” but through watching the “sermon” through the main character’s life over the course of several stories, seeing his faith in action.
As an author, it would have been tempting for me to connect the dots for the reader on how he came to that decision. But I let the reader figure that out, and connect the dots God wants them to see for their situation and life.
But yes, allusions and allegory can easily go over people’s head. That’s the nature of using them. I put some allusions and allegory into Reality’s Dawn, for instance, that most readers won’t know. Like few will know why the steam house is an octagonal building unless you know your church history well, especially related to architecture and theology about the eighth day of creation.
But those are more like little nuggets for readers to find and figure out, and if missed don’t detract from the story. The morals and messages conveyed are through experiences most anyone could grasp. Sometimes the moral is somewhat obvious, sometimes more interpretive.
But like I pointed out, I’ve had people pull messages from those stories I didn’t think about when I wrote them. That only means God is able to “preach” using my story to a particular person’s needs. And I’m cool with that. Its the interaction between author and reader Becky talked about yesterday.
Great points, Rick. I really like your explanation that preachy writing tells more than shows and that it is a mixture of fiction and non-fiction. I’ve come to believe that preachy writing also is the author delivering his moral message directly to the reader, bypassing the characters. Rather, effective deliverance of message in story, as I see it, is allowing the character to discover the moral message. If the readers discover it too, great, but they might not and writers need to be OK with that.
Welcome to the Tuesday slot, BTW. Great to have you on the Spec Faith team.
Becky
I like that distinction. This is tricky, though. It is usually at these “ah ha” moments for the character that us authors then want to use some internal monologue or dialog to explain the motivation. Sometimes delivering a “Roman Road to Salvation” homily in the process.
It would be the same effect if Jesus had said, “A merchant, upon finding a pearl of great price, went and sold everything he had to buy it. The man thought to himself, ‘if I do this, I will have everything worth anything.’ So it is true when you find me.”
Jesus could have done that, but He didn’t. He left it hanging for the hearer to get the message, who had ears to hear. He just told what the man did. But I like that methodology when pulled off well.
While I would say that all stories have a message, I don’t think I would say they all have a moral. I don’t think those words are perfectly synonymous. And I have to disagree with amorality being a type of morality. That’s a little like saying that atheism is a kind of religion. (Clarification: atheism is not a religion.)
While atheism may not qualify as an organized religion, it is a faith. But I think the distinction between “faith” and “religion” may be comparable to that which you draw between message and moral: while they’re both attempts at persuasion, the latter carries a weight of authority (or ostentation, YMMV) which the former doesn’t presume upon itself.
Uh, no. It is specifically a lack of faith in supernatural stuff. You might be able to say that they have faith in science or humanity or themselves or something, but nothing not comparable to what the average person in the same culture has. I have at least some faith in science and humanity and myself, and I imagine you do, too.
Did I say “in supernatural stuff”? Why, no — I did not.
Faith is trust, pure and simple. One has faith in God, another has faith in not-God. Neither belief, by definition, can be proven or disproven through human scientific inquiry, since their scope exceeds the grasp of science. Both beliefs require … well, faith.
They don’t see it that way. I heard somebody compare it to not believing in ghosts. Would you say those people believe in not-ghosts, then? It seems more like a semantic game.
Well, let’s break it down. If I don’t believe in ghosts, why would that be? Ghosts are supposed to be spirits. Spiritual things cannot, by definition, be examined by human science. Therefore, I cannot ever know for a fact that ghosts don’t exist. So what do I say on the matter? Not “I know there are no such things as ghosts,” but rather “I don’t believe in ghosts,” which is just the negative form of “I believe ghosts don’t exist.” Either way, it’s a belief. One belief may seem much more reasonable or substantiated than the other, but that doesn’t alter their basic nature. It doesn’t mean they don’t both require some degree of faith.
In the case of God, what does it mean, practically, when an atheist declares his or her “lack” of belief? It means that the atheist believes the entire physical universe originated from pure nothingness without outside instigation. It means the atheist believes that the universe developed into a teeming cornucopia of interdependent complexity through absolutely random happenstance. It means that the atheist believes the natural human yearnings for purpose and meaning and beauty and morality to be nothing more than vestigial byproducts of an evolutionary biology motivated solely by reproductive necessity.
When put in those terms, the deceptively-enlightened-sounding phrase “I don’t believe in God” loses its incredulous tang. We can see now that atheism requires just as much — if not more — faith than theism. It isn’t mere “faith in science,” either (an oxymoronic phrase when you think about it); actual science — as opposed to the opinions of scientists — can pass no judgement on the beliefs inherent to atheism. They stand or fall by faith.
This is much more than a semantic squabble. The recognition of atheism as a faith carries huge implications. Atheism is still generally perceived as a kind of “blank slate” perspective on life, as though its adherents just haven’t been able to ferret out reason enough to sully their enlightened minds with the primitive beliefs espoused by the unwashed masses. After all, they only sign on to things that can be proven by science, right? Nothing could be further from the truth. They’ve been down in the faith muck with the rest of us this whole time. And that makes a world of difference.
My point is that it isn’t a 1:1 replacement. It might be a simple swap from God to science in the formation of the world, but in everyday life they do not carry a concept of God. Nothing truly replaces (“replaces” isn’t the right word, but I’ll go with it) for them what God is supposed to be to Christians.
Right. Atheists are victims of false dogmatic certainty even more than Evangelicals often are.
I know that real atheists have a lot of reasons to disbelieve that I don’t understand, and I don’t want to be unfair. But I think denial is a cheap and cowardly way to handle uncertainty, to affirm the human need for security and common sense. Among the skeptics, agnostics have a much more reasonable and commendable position.
Indeed. Those who don’t recognize this have simply passed from one kind of propaganda to the other. Atheists don’t recognize that theirs is an equal and opposite religious faith out of either willful blindness or a bourgeois desire to think themselves above all that religious competition. It ends up a refusal to complete on fair grounds and win solely based on spreading the myth of belief “neutrality.”
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/
notleia,
True, not every story has a moral message it is conveying…at least intentionally, but I didn’t exactly say they did.
I do think all stories have some type of moral code, upon which may or may not be those of the characters, but upon which the story and the world operates by. Because the author’s own beliefs tend to determine the underlying morality of the world, whether or not a specific moral is ever “preached.”
By saying “moral code,” I’m not meaning a list of dos and don’ts written down or in one’s head. Rather what values are, in the overall story, highlighted in a positive, neutral, or negative light.
I would suggest that a belief that there are no morals is a statement upon what values a person holds about right and wrong and how one discerns that. That becomes one’s moral code, even if only to say there are no morals. That is their code concerning morals. That will tend to be evident overall in their stories.
IOW, we all tend to have a bias underlying our stories.
I keep thinking about Cormac McCarthy. The two books I’ve read of his are some of the most amoral stuff I’ve read. Take “The Road.” It does assume some common morality like caring for one’s family is good and eating other people is bad, but that’s implied to be impulses individual to the father and son pair. It’s implied that the majority of people are now extreme pragmatists and anything else is pretty futile.
So while it assumes that what is generally accepted as moral/immoral is indeed good/bad, respectively, does the story more or less wipe it out by portraying it as futile? I think it’s thoroughly ambiguous.
Sort of like, yeah, there are things we feel to be right and wrong, but what does it really matter in the end? Interestingly enough, sort of the same vibe you get from Solomon in Ecclesiastes. All is vanity.
Some have made the same accusations about the Matrix. Neo mimics Christ in several ways, but in the end, it all just resets the world to go through it all again. No one really “wins” in the end. It is all pointless.
Yeah, that’s a certain view of morality. A lot of people look at morals as pointless, even though we all tend to feel certain things are right or wrong. But the big debate there are absolutes in morals, which the Scriptures would say exist because of God.
Without an external authority, we all devolve into the accusation of Israel in the book of Judges: Everyone did what was right in their own eyes.
Some fun reading about morality in fiction can be found at tvtropes.com. They call the moral message of a book an Aesop, and they give a ton of examples of how it can work or backfire. Like the Space Whale Aesop where the consequences of your morality are so fantastic as to be worthless-if you don’t save the whales, two centuries later space whales will come to kill your planet.
I think R.C. is right about that every book has some form of moral code if only that humans are moral beings. Amorality gets thrown around about, but it means the complete absence of morality, and it’s something you don’t find outside of animals or severely damaged people. Sometimes though the stated code and unintentional code clash, and that’s where you don’t get an effective book.