I am the author of The Age of Apollyon Trilogy, a series that imagines a world where the devil has physically revealed himself while God remains silent. Satanism becomes the dominant world religion and the protagonist of the story is a practicing Satanist.

You’re probably never going to find these books on the shelves of a Family Christian Bookstore.

Yet I unashamedly label these books as “Christian fiction” and they are put out by a Christian publisher that releases Amish romances and uplifting devotionals. This was quite a risk on their part but I appreciate their bravery in keeping me on the roster. Of course, the Christian elements of the trilogy are not hard to spot but it is much darker and edgier than what is usually labeled as “Christian fiction.”

When I was writing these books, I was constantly asking myself the question in the title of this article: how dark is too dark? I was writing books about Satan, a Satanic world, Satanic people … but was I going overboard? Was I stepping over the line of necessity into gratuitousness? I wanted the books to be startling and even shocking at times, but the writing process felt like trying to rein in a runaway horse.

It was very hard doing the research for these books. I had to investigate rituals, incantations, terminology, and put myself in the frame of mind that my protagonist existed in — namely, despising God and embracing the darkness. It was mentally and spiritually exhausting and I could feel the darkness pressing on my mind all the time, affecting my mood, pulling me away from the light.

I was very glad when these books were finished.

I set out to write these books with the primary purpose to entertain, but I also wanted to convey a message. So I had to ask myself: what message? God is good, Satan is bad? Real men don’t worship the devil?

As the story took shape, I realized that it wasn’t about the battle between Heaven and Hell; it was about the battle within the human heart, between the root of evil that already exists there against the redemption that is so simple and yet so hard to accept. I wanted to plumb the depths of depravity in order to show how necessary that lifeline is to us fallen creatures.

So plumb I did. In fact, I feel like I kept things pretty tame. It could have been so easy to let the dog off the leash and revel in shock and horror but that would have overridden my purpose. I’ve come across several books in the Christian underground that examine the depraved human soul in order to elucidate the need for a Savior, but sometimes they come across as thinly-disguised horror schlock. I wanted to pattern my books after the Gothic classics that inspired me: The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Monk, and Dracula. Bram Stoker’s masterpiece was particularly instrumental, because the terrifying darkness that permeated the story was offset by the heroes’ unwavering grasp on the light of Heaven to help them defeat evil. That was the kind of energy that I wanted to flow through my story, though I took sort of a reverse approach to reach the same destination.

But how dark is too dark? Is it permissible to include horrific and explicit elements in a story intended for the Christian market? My answer would be: it depends.

Mark Carver

It really comes down to the author’s motivation for including these elements. Are they just trying to stand out and attract secular readers? Are they trying to make Christian fiction more mainstream? Are they a bit twisted in the head and need an outlet for their dark fantasies?

Or are they trying to turn the dark eyes of the world towards the light of redemption? A tiny candle flame burns brilliantly in a dark cave; without total darkness, it is hard to appreciate the relief and comfort that light brings. I believe this is why God allows such evil to exist in the world — to bring to our attention our desperate need for salvation and deliverance from the evil that we perpetuate all by ourselves.

And who says it can’t be the same in the world of fiction? If the darkness is shown to be just that, and not as something intriguing, appealing, or liberating, then there are no limits. But those of us who unleash the darkness have a responsibility to point the way to the light.

There’s enough horror in the world as it is.