1. Travis Perry says:

    Yeah, I think we can say speculative things about the Bible–but there’s always the fear (for me anyway) that someone would take something you said for story purposes seriously and establish a new doctrine based on a speculative idea…

  2. Part of it depends on exactly what we write, I think. Pretty much none of my stories take place on earth. In fact, earth doesn’t even exist in much of my story universes, and I think authors in my situation have more leeway with what they put in their Christian fiction stories. Especially since, in many cases, different story universes have different circumstances. In one of my universes, for instance, time travel is possible for a certain race, but in my other universes, time travel is something only God has control over. Having things be different in each story universe might help, because people who read all these different series will have evidence that certain worldbuilding elements are there for the sake of the story, rather than something that Christians are supposed to believe.

    I do worry about some things, though. The way I depict demons and angels in my stories tends to be fairly consistent across my story universes, with some minor changes. But, that leads to the idea of blogging about one’s stories a lot. Writing posts about where one actually stands on issues like that can be helpful, though those posts don’t always have to be blunt and direct in order to communicate our stance on such matters.

  3. Frank Peretti’s “This Present Darkness” is the perfect example of this. How it can be used well, AND how readers can make it go awry. (Meaning readers have based their theology of spiritual warfare off Peretti’s book rather than Scripture)

What do you think?