/ SpecFaith

Are Heroes Passé?

Have our tastes in fiction moved past the good guy? Is there no interest in a character who wants to be heroic and works to be heroic and succeeds at being heroic? Must all our heroes be reluctant or all our protagonists be “bad guys”? Have we come to an end of good guy heroes?
on Aug 31, 2015 · 12 comments

cover_sixofcrowsPublishers Weekly sent out a typical mailing last week, this one with the subject line “The Fall’s Most Anticipated Novel is Almost Here . . .” As it turns out, this “most anticipated novel” is speculative. The promotion is for Six Of Crows by Leigh Bardugo, due to release late in September.

The PW’s starred review said this story “has all the right elements to keep readers enthralled: a cunning leader with a plan for every occasion, nigh-impossible odds, an entertainingly combative team of skilled misfits, a twisty plot, and a nerve-wracking cliffhanger.”

And yet, it’s apparent it doesn’t have a hero. One librarian said this in her review: “Bardugo will have you rooting for the ‘bad’ guys and staying up reading way past your bedtime.” These “bad guys, descirbed as “six dangerous outcasts,” are

    * A convict with a thirst for revenge
    * A sharpshooter who can’t walk away from a wager
    * A runaway with a privileged past
    * A spy known as the Wraith
    * A Hartrender using her magic to survive the slums
    * A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes.

I’m reminded of other stories with “outlaw” heroes: Robin Hood, for example, or more recently a TV program called Leverage in which a group of con artists worked cons to bring justice for needy clients. Or what about White Collar, a TV program in which the main character is a criminal serving the remainder of his sentence by using his felonious talents to help the FBI.

Clearly there is some history in which flawed characters, as opposed to characters with flaws, surface as the individuals readers cheer for. We want to see justice win, even if those dispensing it are disreputable and use unsavory, even illegal, tactics.

In fact, we accept great flaws in our heroes, too. We don’t want our phones bugged, but if Jim Rockford or Thomas Magnum bugs the bad guy, illegal though it may be, we are happy if the tactic works. We don’t believe in torture, but when Jack Bauer tortures a terrorist to find out where the bomb is, we’re glad he’s on the side of right, doing what needs to be done to save the country.

Since there’s some history in fiction for such flawed heroes and even antiheroes, are we seeing a new trend or simply more of the same in books like Six Of Crows? In other words, are our choices now between bad guys and really bad guys?

I guess what I’m asking is this: have our tastes in fiction moved past the good guy? Is there no interest in a character who wants to be heroic and works to be heroic and succeeds at being heroic? Must all our heroes be reluctant or all our protagonists be “bad guys”? Have we come to an end of good guy heroes?

Connecticut_ComiCONN_Superhero_Mascot.Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if that were true. We have placed such an emphasis on realism in fiction, and when we look around or look inside, we only see flawed people who don’t consider themselves heroes even when they do something heroic. They aren’t actually out to save the world. There are no actual Superman and Spiderman. The heroes of real life found themselves thrust into the role because of their circumstances, not because of their own choosing. And when the circumstances change, they are happy to return to regular life without the demand of saving other people from evil.

Given that our stories, even our speculative stories, are required to contain a measure of realism, is the truly good hero of old, passé? Will readers care for a hero who isn’t dark or who doesn’t have a “bad guy” tag, who isn’t fighting his inner vampire, who might just as well destroy the earth as save it?

Or is this merely a current trend that will one day soon fade away in light of a newer and “fresher” approach?

Puppies V. Trufans: Civil War

“Turncoat” writer Steve Rzasa: In the Hugo Award fracas, neither “puppies” faction had a very Christian view of conflict.
on Aug 28, 2015 · 29 comments
Science fiction’s civil war had far less excitement.

Science fiction’s civil war had far less excitement.

It’s madness.

That’s my takeaway from the Hugo mess of the past six months.

The best summaries of the fracas—my new favorite word—are at The New York Times and Wired. Of course, the two biggest guns fired off their shots in the aftermath. On one side, John Scalzi summarized his thoughts as eloquently as usual on Monday, after the awards and “No Awards” were announced. On the other, Vox Day reiterated his position with similar subtlety.

Basically, you had two different conservative or libertarian or “right wing” groups advocating several slates of works for the Hugo Awards. As I understand it, this is not a violation of the Hugo rules in the slightest, but—according to many—tramples on the spirit. The other side disagrees.

cover_ridingtheredhorseMy short story Turncoat, set in the Quantum Mortis sci-fi universe and written with a very specific aim, was nominated this way: Last spring, Vox Day approached me about writing a short story for the Riding the Red Horse anthology. He saw it as a successor to Jerry Pournelle’s There Will be War. Since I had a genuinely good time writing the Quantum Mortis books, I agreed. Over the next few months, I brainstormed concepts, and wrote Turncoat in July.

Fast forward to December 2014 and Turncoat was released as part of Riding the Red Horse. The first I learned of the Rabid Puppies thing was when I saw Turncoat on Vox’s slate or list or helpful suggestions round-up — whatever you want to call it — in February. I thought that was nice to be considered for such an award, and vaguely read over what Rabid Puppies’ aim was. Frankly, I didn’t think they had a snowball’s chance. But then again, I knew next to nothing about the Hugos and absolutely zero about the previous Sad Puppies efforts.

Whatever the goals of both Puppy groups are/were, they were not, from my perspective, pursued with Christian views in mind. The campaigning on both sides was, in one word, brutal. Even supposing the Puppy groups were correct that they were persecuted and disregarded when it came to science fiction awards, the whole fracas is in direct violation of Paul’s admonitions in Romans 12: “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them… Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.”

The Puppy vs. Trufan war was not conducted in this fashion. There were some on both sides who conducted themselves well, but name-calling and threats dominated. I’m sure a lot of people outside the debate now think there’s a ton of crazy people reading sci-fi and fantasy.

But don’t kid yourself: this showdown was not about faith. It was about message.

In Christian fiction circles, “preachy” means you talk too much about Christianity in your writing and your characters are too blunt about their faith. It’s considered literary Bible-thumping, if you will.

Preachy writing is not limited to those of evangelical persuasion. In secular walks, there’s a conservative faction concerned that modern sci-fi and fantasy has become too preachy in terms of social issues such as homosexuality, feminism, race, and immigration. They feel the genres should move back toward the classic themes of heroism, adventure, and good triumphing over evil.

cover_themartianAre they correct? My tastes in science fiction tend toward adventure rather than drama, so I’ve missed a lot of this preaching in the new works. Consider this: one of the most popular sci-fi books in recent years, The Martian, is going to be turned into a major movie. It is free of most preaching, except for one thing: the lone survivor triumphing over a hostile environment. It’s also not up for any major awards.

There are some who irately point out that the Puppy slates included works that are message fiction, broadcasting a social or religious point of view, and slammed the Puppies for being hypocritical. What they failed to understand is that the Puppies never said they were against message fiction in general, but rather against a certain message, one that promotes a more liberal viewpoint at the expense of story. I won’t pinpoint any examples, but there was grumbling against stories that were romance with a thin veneer of science fiction.

Of course, this may all be tilting at windmills. Why? Consider science fiction’s share of the sales market these days. According the annual analysis of genres by Publishers Weekly, science-fiction’s sales in 2014 for the adult market (and I’ll ignore young adult because the Hugos tend toward more literary grown-up types) was 4.1 million. That’s out of the total adult fiction market of 138.7 million.

So science-fiction sales were 2.98 percent of the year’s total. This of course only deals with print, not e-books, so the percentage could be greater, but even if sci-fi e-books at double or triple that percentage, that’s still less than 10 percent. I found it all exhausting and at times ludicrous.

My point? This is a very small corner of our lives. Our faith should be the focus, with we should enjoy stories and write stories to honor God. Whether you choose to honor God by reaching to those who are lost with inspiring stories, or by delivering the reassurance of the Gospel to those who are found, is up to you.

Evangelical Vs. Progressivist Content Warnings 103

Content warnings can temporarily keep us from temptations to sin or traumatic flashbacks, but they cannot help us find final healing.
on Aug 27, 2015 · 6 comments
· Series:

Evangelical vs. Progressivist Content WarningsBy now you have likely heard about “content warnings,” sometimes also called “trigger warnings.”1 And as we explored in part 101 and part 102 of this miniseries, these content warnings are often intended to prevent people from being exposed to content—such as images or words—that would presumably cause them harm.

We’ve already talked about the fact that content warnings occur in two major religions:

  • In progressivism, the idea is that victims of certain sins—such as racism or other kinds of abuse—should be protected from references or endorsements of this same sin.
  • In evangelicalism, the idea is also that victims of sin—such as sexual content, violence, or swear words—must be protected from references or endorsements of these sins.

We’ve also explored how people who establish content warnings, the “protectors,” can have corrupt motivations.2 But now let’s discuss the folks who demand to benefit from content warnings—that is, the “protected.” These may ask secular college professors to shelter them from offensive words and ideas, or ask church leaders to shelter them from sin-temptations.

Whether among progressivist religion or evangelicalism, the assumption is this: “If I am protected from content, I will be safer.” From that comes a logical conclusion: “If I have been protected once and that helped me, then being protected a second time ought to be twice as helpful. And if I am being protected ten times more, that is ten times better.”3

And so on, until the content-warning becomes an indefinite process.

Such advocates may sincerely want protection. In some cases, they may struggle with real trauma or temptations. But they often miss one crucial problem: the warnings are at best temporary measures. They do not and cannot ultimately protect anyone from harm.

Here’s a personal example of “protection” from one type of trigger—personal temptation.

Stephen vs. the fantasy fearmongers

Some months ago a friend loaned my wife and me a DVD about how Harry Potter is evil, of the devil, and a corruption of innocent youth into actual witchcraft. I view this belief as not only unbiblical and nonsensical, but often harmful (and itself an example of “Christian” superstitious beliefs). I’m convinced of this viewpoint. But I don’t want to watch the DVD.

Why not?

cover_hiddendangersinharrypotter

Hulk smash puny Christian fantasy critic.

Because it’s a trigger. Even though I’m convinced of my viewpoint, it would take a lot of “working myself up to” the task of viewing this DVD and then getting ready, if necessary, to rebut the nonsense that’s in it. More likely by the end I would be hitting the ceiling and/or being tempted to head onto some social network somewhere to tell this Christian DVD maker, should he care to listen, exactly what I think of his mystical fantasy-fearful rhetoric.

Unbiblical, superstitious opposition to fantasy stories can be a “trigger” that makes me sin.

So how should I deal with this?

For now I’m dealing with it by not watching the DVD. (I don’t really have cause to watch it, anyway.) In other words, I’m content-warning myself. “Don’t watch it. It will only set you off and possibly make you commit sin.” But should I do that all the rest of my life? No. This measure should only be temporary. Even if the DVD teacher is teaching superstition as truth, if I can’t view this calmly and confidently and respond in that way, I’m the one who is sinning.4

Content warnings at best keep out infection; they cannot heal wounds

The example is not perfect. Here I’m speaking of a sin-causing “trigger,” a thing that makes me want to punch rhetorical walls. I haven’t yet spoken of the other kind of “trigger,” which may best be described as a post-traumatic stress trigger. This is an involuntary response to something you remember from sin-trauma, such as abuse or violence. We might think of military veterans who famously have trouble hearing fireworks or loud sounds without feeling either the unavoidable impulses to panic, find cover, or fight something back. Or we might consider blog posts about abuse by a spiritual leader.5

But without going into much detail about those sensitive issues, I can say this: I believe a biblical perspective of wholeness and resurrection will show that we ought to pursue similar healing for both triggers—both temptations to sin and PTSD-style responses.

Honestly, I don’t see a lot of that in the news reports and anecdotes about “trigger warning” activism on college campuses and such. Instead I see self-righteousness. I also see a lot of whining and first-world-problem-style laments. Among professing progressivists I see the same attitude I’ve seen from some fantasy-critical Christians. And when they do have trauma “trigger” issues with certain words or images or beliefs, they don’t seem to want to heal from them. They seem to want to cling to these weaknesses as if they were the same (in every case) as actual causes of temptations or severe post-traumatic stress reactions.

Such “victims” don’t want to heal. They want to pick at their actual scabs out of fun or idleness. Some of them may want even to cut themselves to bleed, form scabs, and then pick at them. Perhaps they may enjoy getting sympathy and even control over other people. Some evangelicals have called this the “tyranny of the weaker brother.”6

So how can Christians use content warnings in biblical perspective? The best Scriptural outline for content warnings may be in texts such as Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8-10. These actually do address not the “weaker brother,” a uniform crowd, but “the one” who is weak, an individual who may need loving content-warning based on wisdom in a situation.

Apart from the Bible, we will veer into overprotectiveness or carelessness about “content” and sin-struggles. That’s where I’ll pick up for the next, and likely last, entry in this series.

  1. However, the term “trigger” could make people think about guns, which could itself be a trigger. In similar extreme cases, the very notion of a “content warning” or confronting a “microaggression” is itself seen as offensive or a microaggression. This was the case in one strange scenario at Brandeis University, according to Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt in The Atlantic. ↩
  2. Some content warning “protectors” want to use these warnings to gain personal power or act out their own messiah complex. But responses to them are beyond the scope of this series. If someone believes or acts according to a belief like, “Other people are weaker than I am, so I will be the moral hero, and I will absorb the sinful content and protect them from themselves,” that’s a worse problem: pretending you are a fake “Jesus.” ↩
  3. At The Atlantic, Lukianoff and Haidt track several colliding social trends that produce growing adults who are trained to desire this kind of constant childlike overprotectiveness over themselves. However, they do not explore the inherent religious impulses—such as potential desires to manipulate others and stay “weak”—that can lead a person not only to tolerate his/her own sheltering, but to actively and even angrily demand more sheltering. ↩
  4. Note that I am trying to personalize the issue. This is SpecFaith and here I have a friendly audience. But even if someone attempts to “content warn” against Harry Potter and fantasy in general, we should not attempt to use the dark side of The Force to defeat our enemies by “content warning” against them and their corrupt poisonous influence. ↩
  5. In some cases, even Bible texts can unavoidably remind us of hurtful times. I still have trouble with Proverbs. ↩
  6. See for example The Tyranny of the Weaker Brother, sermon by R.C. Sproul at Ligonier Ministries. ↩

Throwing In The Towel

Despite what we see and read, a zombie apocalypse would not be fun. At all.
on Aug 26, 2015 · 10 comments

Ahhh…the fall season is almost here. Temperatures are cooling off, the kids are back in school, pumpkin spice-flavored everything is right around the corner, football fans are getting their jerseys out of mothballs…and zombies. Yep, it’s that time of year again when the zombies come home to roost and feast on our brains.

19969-3The modern staple of zombie season is The Walking Dead, the series that just won’t die (heh heh). A cheap-looking knock-off on the SyFy Channel called Z Nation apparently received healthy enough ratings to merit a second season, and this year, we’re treated to some early preseason action in The Walking Dead prequel, the not-very-well-named Fear the Walking Dead. I watched the pilot episode this past weekend and I wasn’t terribly impressed. I’m not a big zombie fan to begin with, but I have been following The Walking Dead since the beginning and it’s held my attention through the years. Fear the Walking Dead, on the other hand, seems over-engineered and badly acted, at least as far as the first episode goes. It’s still too early to tell how the show will fare, and I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt for the time being.

Zombies have stuck around after the vampire craze died down (can I get an “Amen!”) and even that wave has crested on the big screen. The Walking Dead has carried the torch, becoming one of TV’s biggest shows and keeping the public enthralled with the undead. Zombie runs and survivalist obstacle courses are bigger than ever, and with Halloween being only a couple of months away, millions of people are starting to brush up on their prosthetic and makeup skills.

I’ve read a few zombie novels of varying quality, but what often strikes me is how wildly fanciful and cathartic the stories are. Average people, thrown together by a world descending into chaos, become butt-kicking warriors of the apocalypse, mowing down their re-animated neighbors while the weaklings get feasted upon. (Simple truth: unless you’re law enforcement, the military, a sportsman, or a hoarding survivalist, you’re dead meat in a zombie apocalypse). I see this with fans as well: there are a lot of people that actually WANT a zombie invasion to sweep the land, to cleanse the world of credit card debt, mortgage payments, humdrum jobs, and general malaise, and make each day an adventure pregnant with purpose. Bear in mind that these people are usually living relatively comfortable lives in developed countries; ask someone who actually lives in a stricken land if fighting for your life every day is exciting and fun.

I’m currently working on a book set in medieval Europe during the Black Death plague. From the historical accounts that I’ve read, that period was as close to an actual apocalypse as we’ve gotten, minus the zombies. Populations were decimated, cities and villages left in ruins, the worst of human nature was laid bare, and even the land itself was gripped by misery and decay. People were running for their lives from an enemy they couldn’t see or understand, and civilization crumbled.

There have been some fairly realistic cinematic portrayals of pestilence (Outbreak, Contagion) but simply fighting a disease is no fun. Slaughtering sick people is odious but slaughtering walking corpses is not only acceptable; it’s good sport. You can have the thrill of the kill without the moral guilt. In fact, you’d be doing the living world a favor by exterminating the pests. It’s all just in the realms of imagination of course, but the eagerness with which many people yearn for this sort of worldwide clean slate speaks to the unfortunate fact that society seems to have just thrown in the towel.postapocalyptic

Science fiction hasn’t been very optimistic for decades but it’s pretty weird to see people actually craving an apocalypse. The obvious question is: what comes next? In the zombie stories that I’ve read, if there is actually an end to the plague, the world that remains is brutal, tribal, and barbaric, and that seems hardly like a better alternative to what we have today. The book of Revelation informs us that a devastating apocalypse is indeed coming, but there is hope for redemption during and after the chaos and madness.

This sentiment is strong among Christians as well, especially as the world seems to be falling deeper and deeper into a downward spiral. To just throw up our hands and say, “You know what? I’m done with all this crap!” is a petty and immature way to view our lost and dying world. A zombie apocalypse, or any apocalypse for that matter, can be fun and even cathartic on the page and on screen, but it should never be taken too seriously. As believers, we are here to be a light in this world, not pray for fire and brimstone.

Realm Makers 2015: Response Roundup

Here’s a roundup of 12 reactions from guests of the 2015 Realm Makers conference.
on Aug 25, 2015 · 4 comments
From the Realm Makers debut conference, 2013 (Stephen Burnett)

From the Realm Makers debut conference, 2013 (Stephen Burnett)

I don’t always attend Realm Makers.

But when I don’t, I share the topics I would have sneaked into conversations that I believe can help Christian-fantastical-fiction advocacy grow and mature.

Also when I don’t, I also love reading the responses of those who did attend the recent con.

Ralene Burke and other Realm Makers conference organizers:

From Robert Liparulo’s inspiring keynote to the array of informative and motivational workshops taught by some amazing teachers to the costume banquet and Zombie Apocalypse Nerf War, the weekend was jam-packed full of a little something for just about everyone who has a love of speculative fiction. 1

Linda Burklin:

If you’re an aspiring writer of speculative fiction, and if you’re a Christian, Realm Makers is the only writers conference that is aimed at you. It’s the only conference where you will be surrounded by “your people,” people as nerdy and quirky and creative as you are. At other Christian conferences you will be part of a tiny minority at best, and you may even feel a little excluded.2

Morgan Busse:

This year was a different year for me. Instead of going as an attendee, I was one of the teachers and mentors. And I loved it! I loved meeting one-on-one with budding writers and brainstorming with them, helping them with their character development or story arc, or just encouraging them on their writing journey.3

Mike Duran:

Sure, we can rage against “the industry” all we want. We can dig our heels in and call for a place at the table. But despite the negatives, this reality has forced a creative, vocal community to evolve.

  1. It has forced Christian spec writers to “leave the nest.”
  2. It has forced Christian spec writers to stretch their entrepreneurial legs.
  3. It has forced Christian spec writers to seek out new opportunities, new models, and unreached audiences.
  4. It has forced Christian spec writers to put their money where their mouths are.4

Josh Hardt:

Here’s where it gets all guts-on-the-page-y:

My identity has been worthless since age eleven. That’s been twenty-four years of me not knowing my identity in Him.

So what did I learn on my trip to St. Louis? All sorts of incredible writing advice that I’ll be unpacking – and sharing – in the coming weeks.5

Janeen Ippolito:

I’ve gone to a number of conferences over the course of my writing and teaching career. This was one of the most encouraging I have ever been to. From the faculty to the agents to my fellow conferees, everyone had a spirit of goodwill and sharing. It was a real blessing to be around such awesome geeks!6

Kat Heckenbach:

Realm Makers was awesome, so I stayed awake far too late every night and woke up far too early every day, which meant I was basically a zombie coming home yesterday. I think I may have enough brain power to post about my adventure now.

Some of my fellow Realm Makers attendees have already posted on their blogs–lovely recaps and great photos. I think I’m going to take a bit of a different twist….

This is going to be sort of a “most of” post.7

Jason C. Joyner:

If you look for posts from other attendees, you’ll see them rave about the fun, the great books and authors, the study of craft, and being fired up to keep writing.

I can say “ditto” to all of those, but Realm Makers stood out to me for a different reason.

They were the quiet moments.

Like meeting my new friend Herbert. He’s not a writer. He’s a homeless Vietnam veteran who I met on the train after arrival. We got caught in a downpour together, and we ended up sharing pizza and prayers the first night. I could’ve caught a group going to dinner if I’d gone right to the dorm. Instead, I had a cool moment with a guy in need, and with God.8

J.L. Mbewe:

It was so awesome to finally connect with so many people who I’ve only met online. And to meet many more who share the same love for speculative fiction. The classes and the keynote speaker’s messages were all spot on for me. No burning bushes, but quiet confirmation and encouragement. Seeds were planted, and I am excited to see how they will grow in the months and years to come. I hope to be able to go to Realm Makers 2016. We shall see.9

Rebecca Minor, Realm Makers conference organizer:

Let your voice be heard! Your feedback is important to us and will help us to create an even more fantastic conference next year. We want Realm Makers to be like walking into a home away from home where you can learn, socialize, and grow as a writer. Help us make this experience the best it can be!

So . . .

  1. Follow the link. http://beckyminor.polldaddy.com/s/realm-makers-2015-feedback
  2. Fill out the 12-question survey.
  3. Leave a comment here so we know you filled out the survey.
  4. You’re now entered to win a t-shirt!10

Kristen Stieffel:

Even though I know comparison is bad—as Chip Ingram has said, “comparison always leads to carnality”—I can’t help it. I look around Realm Makers (any conference, really, but for some reason this one hit me particularly hard) and it’s all I can do to suppress my envy.

I know we’re supposed to rejoice with those who rejoice, yadda yadda, and on the face of it I try, I really do. And do you know, in public, I even mean it. But in the dark of my room, alone, I wallow in the envy for just a minute or two…or thirty…before I remember to pray to have that feeling taken away from me. I don’t want it.11

Brittany Valentine:

  1. Likeminded People: When I walked into the conference room on Thursday night and saw Jeff Gerke as Luke Skywalker and Adrienne Niceley as Princess Leia, my first thought was, wow, these really are my kind of people.
  2. Unique Sessions: Where else would I get the chance hear about Lord of the Rings and Star Wars in the same session? One thing that really struck me was Jeff Gerke’s early bird session. It was so freeing when he talked about story being first. I tend to focus so much on making sure that it’s technically correct that I lose the sense of story. I can’t wait to go back over my manuscript with this in mind.

[…]

  1. The Coffee: Let’s just say we drank it anyway. Maybe next year I’ll bring a small coffee pot.12

Other Realm Makers blog responses certainly outnumber this even-dozen excerpts. Feel free to share yours below! And perhaps next year I will be able to add my own.

  1. Ralene Burke, Realm Makers Highlights, Aug. 14, 2015. ↩
  2. Linda Burlkin, About Realm Makers, Aug. 14, 2015. ↩
  3. Morgan Busse, Realm Makers 2015 Recap, Aug. 10, 2015. ↩
  4. Mike Duran, The Little Spec-Fic Conference That Could, Aug. 24, 2015. ↩
  5. Josh Hardt, Warning! Guts on Page Two., Aug. 9, 2015. ↩
  6. Janeen Ippolito, R-E-A-L-M = Awesome! (A Realm Makers Recap), Aug. 11, 2015. ↩
  7. Kat Heckenbach, Realm Makers 2015: “Most of” Awards, the unofficial list by Kat Heckenbach, Aug. 10, 2015. ↩
  8. Jason C. Joyner, The Quiet Moments, Aug. 13, 2015. ↩
  9. J.L. Mbewe, Cosplay in Action, Aug. 17, 2015. ↩
  10. Rebecca Minor, Realm Makers 2015 Survey, Aug. 21, 2015. ↩
  11. Kristen Stieffel, The Dark Side of Realm Makers, Aug. 14, 2015. ↩
  12. Brittany Valentine, Fifteen Reasons why I fell in love with Realm Makers, Aug. 12, 2015. ↩

Beauty And Function

So does beauty exist for beauty’s sake? Are evangelical Christians wrong to think art can and should do more than just be beautiful?
on Aug 24, 2015 · 12 comments

LaPieta-MichelAnge_detalleFrom time to time Christian evangelicals are criticized for our view of the arts. The critics believe something that is truly artistic can exist for no other purpose than to be truthful and beautiful. A song, a poem, a painting, a novel–none of those has to serve a greater purpose than to shine as art. In contrast, Christian evangelicals always want art to be functional–especially if the function is to declare something about God.

The ironic thing is, this criticism often comes from other Christians, and the next plank in their argument is to point out that God made beautiful things in the deepest parts of space which no human eye has seen until modern science captured these glories on film. Same with things growing at the bottom of the ocean. What function does the beauty of those objects hold?

Add to that argument, the one from the Old Testament about the beauty of the objects connected with worship—the priestly garments with the gem-studded breastpiece; the ark overlaid in gold and covered by the carefully crafted mercy seat with its gold cheribium; the perfumed incense; the curtains made of fine twisted linen and blue and purple and scarlet material, with embroidered cherubim.

God wanted all these things to be beautiful. He specifically picked out two craftsmen to “make artistic designs” though many of the objects would not be seen by the public but only by the high priest once a year.

So does beauty exist for beauty’s sake? Are evangelical Christians wrong to think art can and should do more than just be beautiful?

It’s a much more complex question than it appears on the surface. First, the “just be beautiful” argument neglects the twin arm of art–truthfulness. Real art is more than a picture of an angel of light because Satan himself walks around in that guise. He is not truthful, so regardless of his outward appearance, he is far from “art.”

Self-portrait_as_an_artist,_1888If someone painted his portrait showing him as an angel of light, no matter how skillful the painting, it would still not be good art because it didn’t reveal truth.

There’s another principle to consider, though, besides the definition of art. That is the idea of an integrated life. When a person becomes a Christian, Scripture says we are made new. We have a new self. In other words, Christianity isn’t tacked on. It isn’t layered over top our existent lives. We’re not adding on a little religion like we might add on a hobby or a new friend.

Rather, Christianity gives a person a new core that ought to have radical implications all the way out to our fingertips. In other words, art is simply an extension of our Christianity in the same way that driving should be an extension of our Christianity or Facebook commenting should be an extension of our Christianity or getting our job done at work should be an extension of our Christianity.

In this view, all of life is “functional” in the sense that all of life should be a reflection of our relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

Denver Broncos Tim_Tebow_TebowingTim Tebow comes to mind as an example of a man who is intentional in this regard. He wants others to know that at his core is this relationship with God that changes every other aspect of who he is.

Some people hate that Tim talks about his faith so openly and so repetitively. Other people are attracted to the reality they see, whether he’s leading the Broncos to a playoff win, getting cut loose by the Patriots, or trying to catch on with the Eagles.

In many respects, Tim represents Christian fiction that is overt. Reporters who interview Tim know that there will be a point where he will talk about his faith in Jesus Christ. So, too, in some Christian fiction, there will be Christianity front and center at some point in the story.

Other Christians, even those in the limelight, are less verbal about their faith. A. C. Green who played for the Lakers alongside Magic Johnson comes to mind. His faith and his moral compass were the same as Tim’s, but he didn’t use every interview to draw attention to his relationship with God. Same with Clayton Kershaw, current pitcher with the Dodgers.

Is A. C. Green’s life or Clayton Kershaw’s more “artistic” because it is more subtle? Is Tim’s more “artistic” because the truth is front and center?

In my way of thinking, both are living integrated lives. Their Christianity comes out of their pores, but that doesn’t mean their lives must look exactly the same or that they handle all circumstances alike.

So, too, with art. Some beauty has a function. Male birds have more colorful plumage than their female counterparts for a functional purpose–to attract said females. The design of some animals camouflages them from predators. The sweet scent of flowers attracts insects that spread their pollen, and so on. God gave function to some beautiful things, including those Old Testament items involved in worship.

Because a piece of writing or a painting or a song carries an overt theme does not disqualify it from being artistically great. If the opposite were true, no great art existed in Europe until the twentieth century. Michelangelo wasn’t a great artist, Milton wasn’t a great writer, Handel wasn’t a great musician, Charles Wesley wasn’t a great hymn writer.

On the other hand, absence of truth does disqualify something from being great art, though not all truth is represented in any one piece of art. The function of some great art, then, is to depict something sinful–the crucifixion, Humankind’s rebellion against God or mistreatment of each other. These may have poignant beauty and gut-wrenching truth and be some of the best art of all time.

But function? As I see it, function does not qualify or disqualify a work from being artistic–and certainly not the function of declaring God’s glory or His work in the world or in the hearts of men and women. What could be a more truthful, more beautiful event than the change that takes place when “The Lord my God illumines my darkness”?

Originally posted, minus some slight revisions, in 2013 at A Christian Worldview Of Fiction

The Faces Of Evil

If we know depraved humans hide or destroy faces in fiction, why do we not face this truth in reality?
on Aug 21, 2015 · 4 comments

The Faces of Evil

In reality, depraved humans hide or destroy their faces while trying to steal and destroy the faces of the innocent.

But often we act like we don’t believe this.

Either we cannot believe such a horror exists, or we insist that such evil is not really evil. Sometimes we even claim such horrors are necessary to prevent other evils. And among these greater evils we may list either real evils, such as abuse, or else made-up evils, such as the cultural victory of a despised group—a group whose members either hurt them personally, or whose members remind them of people who hurt them personally.

Either way, the effect is the same.

People born with real faces exercise their choice to turn their faces away from this evil.

Maybe we act as I do. Maybe we try to hide our faces. Maybe we turn from reality and turn toward stories. Among these stories may be old and new classics of fantasy, science fiction, or paranormal/horror. The face-hider believes that in these stories lie new faces, friendly and distracting imaginary faces, who can make them laugh and swoon and cry. And forget.

But I’m afraid that if we turn their faces here, we will not find any escape.

For in fiction as in reality, depraved humans also hide or mutilate their true faces even as they try to steal and destroy the faces of the innocent.

Try to hide from evil by enjoying The Dark Knight films or other Batman stories that are even darker. But what will you find? The Joker, a madman whose story inspired a real-life mass shooting, has both hidden and mutilated his real face. His scars and makeup hide a farce that this is all a terrific distraction, a joke. “Why so serious?” As in many other Batman stories, The Joker lives to spread his mutilation and hiding. He slices the faces of his victims. He sets in motion events that split the face, and the soul, of district attorney Harvey Dent.

Too dark? We may opt for post-2005 Doctor Who stories. But from the Ninth Doctor’s first story onward, evil faces keep coming. They are wrapped in plastic, secreted within slimy brainy tentacles, or concealed behind the metallic masks of stomping upgraded zombies. One villain, The Wire, even thrives upon literally stealing the faces of others. And though the Doctor changes his face as a result of his regeneration, archvillain The Master uses his abilities to hide his face. He even creates a paradox machine to aid a horde of flying spheres that hide—what else?—the faces of mutilated humans that are no longer human.

Live-action stories let us down. Let’s try some animated fare, such as Avatar: The Last Airbender. I’m afraid the trend continues. Before the first season is over we have learned about Zuko, the Fire Prince wounded and cast out by his own father, who mutilated Zuko’s face. We also meet an evil spirit, Koh the Face-Stealer, who magically steals others’ faces.

Perhaps film and television, with their emphases on appearance, will constantly repeat the theme we would rather not face. Perhaps we should instead turn to notable fantasy books.

No solace here. Lord Voldemort hides his face on the back of another man’s face, then fake-resurrects himself only to bear the “face” of a serpent. The titular Lord of the Rings has no face but has been reduced to a single flaming Eye at the edge of consciousness. And his servants have also been hidden and mutilated: Ringwraiths, Orcs, the Mouth of Sauron.

But wait. Sometimes it’s not only villains but heroes who hide their faces. Like Black Riders, Strider wore a hood; Sam and Frodo wore Orc disguises to infiltrate Mordor. Superman, Batman and Spider-Man famously hide their faces and keep their identities secret.

But none of their faces are mutilated—and the stories constantly challenge their decisions. Why else is every Marvel Cinematic Universe hero so far without a secret identity?

It’s a fair question, one rightly asked often in superhero stories: Do heroes wear masks?

The answer: Yes, sometimes they do.

But heroes in masks usually long and work for a day when they can remove their masks.

Villains do not. They live to hide and mutilate their faces.

Then they do worse.

Because villains are themselves victims—of self-inflicted pain from their own choices—they must do two things. They must self-justify their own choices. And they must also make others “follow” in their hiding and mutilation. Just as a Creator wants to create beings who can themselves create, destroyers want to create devices for more destruction.

We can face this truth in fantastical fiction. We don’t look away. We may call it “realistic.”

So why would we refuse to face this truth in reality?

The True Form Of Fairy-Tale

J. R. R. Tolkien appealed to reality in justifying joy in fairy stories. It’s revealing as to what he thought of fairy tales – and of reality.
on Aug 19, 2015 · 6 comments

If [a writer] indeed achieves a quality that can fairly be described by the dictionary definition: “inner consistency of reality,” it is girl-reading-fairy-talesdifficult to conceive how this can be, if the work does not in some way partake of reality. The peculiar quality of the “joy” in successful Fantasy can thus be explained as a sudden glimpse of the underlying reality or truth. It is not only a “consolation” for the sorrow of this world, but a satisfaction, and an answer to that question, “Is it true?”
  – J.R.R. Tolkien, “On Fairy Stories”

What most impresses me about this brief passage is that here, Tolkien appeals to reality in justifying joy in fairy stories. Usually, when people start talking about reality and fiction, it’s to justify the “grit”. The difference is revealing as to what Tolkien thought of fairy tales – and of reality.

In his essay “On Fairy Stories”, Tolkien’s last point was his most important point. To present his views most clearly, I find I have to present them in almost the reverse order of how he did – a strange but tenable position.

Tolkien believed in what he called the eucatastrophe – the “good catastrophe”, the opposite of Tragedy. He called the Gospel the Great Eucatastrophe, and wrote: “The Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man’s history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. The story begins and ends in joy.”

And because Tolkien regarded the Gospel as the only true fairy tale, he naturally believed that the “eucatastrophic tale is the true form of fairy-tale”. He wrote with eloquence of the “imaginative satisfaction of ancient desires” found in fairy tales, and then added, “Far more important is the Consolation of the Happy Ending. Almost I would venture to assert that all complete fairy-stories must have it.”

This belief in the utter rightness – almost the necessity – of happy endings to fairy tales is almost surprising. Professor Tolkien would, I think, find himself crosswise with most sophisticated opinion. Fairy tales were once very dark, and they are now growing darker again. Even Christian writers and readers are trafficking more in darkness, not always without a sense of superiority. Happiness is too simple for sophisticated taste.

I wonder about the discrepancy between one viewpoint that holds joy the true greatness of Fantasy and another viewpoint that does not find it necessary at all. What causes such a difference?

One large reason, I think, is that many people don’t believe in the Great Eucatastrophe. Tolkien said that the joy of the happy ending denied “universal final defeat”, but some spiritual worldviews – and all merely materialist ones – confirm it. Tolkien thought eucatastrophe, happy endings, were true to reality; others regard unhappy endings as truer.

There are also people who believe the Gospels but do not, for whatever reason, connect them to fairy tales (or fiction generally) in the way that Tolkien did; they do not believe that the Great Eucatastrophe has “hallowed” happy endings.

I don’t hold Tolkien’s view of fairy tales to be absolutely correct, though I like it better than any other I’ve heard. It seeks an echo of the Gospel in fairy tales, and reminds us – it is something all too easy to forget – that the ultimate reality is not defeat but joy.

The Future Of Christian Speculative Fiction

We’re at a crossroads, I believe. Are Christian speculative stories going to speak to our culture, or not?
on Aug 17, 2015 · 18 comments

ReadingRealm Makers, the conference for Christian speculative writers, was a huge success, by all reports. For one thing, it created a good deal of buzz about the genre, but there may have been a more important effect.

First, as Christian publishing houses, small to begin with in comparison to general market publishers and the number of books they release, concentrate on the tried and true—either genre or author—the ever-expanding number of speculative authors must look elsewhere for publication.

In response to this trend, more small presses have joined the likes of Enclave and Splashdown Books, focusing primarily, if not exclusively, on speculative fiction from a Christian worldview. In addition, self-publishing as an option is no longer cost prohibitive. Finally, we can’t forget about the possibility of publishing in the general market.

In other words, Christian speculative writers have options like we’ve never had before. While some of us still feel stuck in the in between—not “Christian” enough for the Christian market and not fantastic enough or scientific enough or dark enough or violent enough for the general market—we no longer are dependent upon those two options.

But here’s were Realm Makers and any other writers’ conference come into play again. One conferee at last week’s event tweeted this: “Writing conferences: the place you go to realize you need to rewrite everything. But strangely also be inspired….” (Jesse Koepke ‏@jessekoepke)

Conferences show writers what we can’t find out on our own—what other people think of our ideas, what professionals consider when deciding which manuscripts to publish, how our writing stacks up against the writing book buyers are paying to read. In other words, writers get schooled.

How well we learn our lessons, I believe, determines how successful we’re going to be in reaching the public with our stories in this new publishing paradigm.

As a freelance editor, I’ve seen all kinds. Some writers are so confident in their work, they don’t feel they need editing, or even revision. In contrast, some multi-piblished writers send their work through critique groups, hire an editor, and still send their work to Beta readers. In other words, they are working hard to polish their story to a shine, not according to their own standards alone, but according to the feedback they receive.

In some ways, the more a writer learns, the more he finds out what he needs to learn.

But what does all this mean for the future of Christian speculative fiction?

I think we’re right where we need to be. As atheism grows and books reflect the depravity of our society, Christian speculative fiction, like Christ Himself and those of us who follow Him, have the opportunity of presenting truth to counter the lies filling bleak books that offer no hope.

Diversity_1Rather than bemoaning the state of publishing, we should pull up our socks and go to work. Yes, work! Good writing takes work, and we must not settle for mediocre. Proper marketing and promotion takes work, too.

Essentially, the future of Christian speculative fiction is in the hands of those of us who are passionate about speculative stories and more passionate about pointing to God through what we write.

It’s an exciting time. We can create quality stories, draw attention to the best of our genre, support and encourage readers in their efforts to find good books—and no gatekeepers stand in our way. The readers themselves are the gatekeepers.

We as readers can play an active role and help advance the cause of Christian speculative fiction—not by giving meaningless 5-star reviews or by voting for books in contests based on how popular the author is. We can also do the hard work of telling the truth about books—the good and the not so good.

In reality, honest feedback is the only helpful feedback. If someone buys a book because the last twenty people gave it five stars, only to discover that it has holes in the plot and weakly developed characters, not only has that author lost a reader, perhaps the whole genre has lost a reader.

We’re at a crossroads, I believe. Are Christian speculative stories going to speak to our culture, or not?

By God’s help we can use speculative fiction to show who God is and what difference He makes in the world. We can show to a world floundering without purpose why we’re here. We can show the value of life to a world devaluing humans. We can show what it means to love our neighbor or to embrace absolute truth. We can paint a picture that shows our eternal destiny, not annihilation.

There are so many ways our stories can show God’s truth to a dying world hungry to sort through the morass of false teaching flooding our schools and movies and TV programs.

We Christian speculative writers and readers may be no more numerous or powerful than Gideon’s army, but should God choose to use us for His glory, we can make a lasting impact on our culture. If we will.

It’s Alive!

Why do our creations always seem to turn on us? Don’t they know we just want to love them and make them do our chores?
on Aug 12, 2015 · 3 comments

One of the most common tropes in science fiction is the creation of some sort of autonomous being. With the invention of the computer, sentient rits_alive2obots and artificial intelligence pop up quite frequently, but even more than a century ago, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein played with the notion of life being created from non-life (or in that case, dead flesh).

Another trope that often follows: it rarely ends well.

I recently watched Alex Garland’s emotional android film Ex Machina. It is a brooding, philosophical tale, but if you’ve seen the trailers, you know things get weird and violent. It was a bit of an unsettling film and it definitely engaged my mind and heart, though it is not the masterpiece it thinks it is. This article is not a film review so I’ll stick to the main point. In the movie, a hip, bearded CEO of a Google-like company creates an android with human-like thoughts, emotions, and the ability to communicate. A worker from the software company is brought in to “test” the robot to see if he can come to think of it as more than a robot. By extrapolation, that means if a human can regard a machine as human on some level, then that’s what it is.

This idea was explored i1401x788-ExMachina_Alicia-Vikandern Isaac Asimov’s The Bicentennial Man (let’s just pretend that the Robin Williams film adaptation never existed). In that story, a robot goes to court to fight for its recognition as a human. This is one example of AI sci-fi where robots aren’t trying to kill us. Hollywood apparently wasn’t satisfied and took Asimov’s I, Robot series (of which The Bicentennial Man is a part) and made a movie about seemingly innocuous robots ganging up on Will Smith. Literary and cinematic science fiction is filled with similar stories and plots. To borrow from Jeff Goldblum: God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates robots. Robots destroy man.

The creation of life is the pinnacle of scientific ambition. To create life is to be God in some sense, and wanting to be like God has been humanity’s downfall since the Garden. In the largely atheistic realm of science fiction, one would expect to see these fantasies cultivated and applauded, since it is only possible in the realm of imagination anyway. So why all the bummers, dude?

I won’t pretend to have the answer, but I suspect that deep in our souls, we know that it is a goal that we will never reach. We have tried and failed on numerous occasions, and even our grandest attempts have been quite comical (a tower to Heaven? Really?). We are confronted with our own mortality and frailty on a daily basis, and being God is not a job for lightweights. The staggering responsibility of such a title terrifies us, despite how much we may crave it.

We also know how little power we truly possess, and this is why it is so easy for our creations to turn on us in books and movies. We have seen it in our world already – nuclear weapons that could annihilate all life on Earth stand ready for launch at the push of a button. We are totally in over our heads and we know it. What makes us think we could control intelligent machines that are already physically superior to us? Skynet and Judgment Day don’t seem like such far-fetched ideas anymore.

Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking, and other prominent geniuses have speculated on the real possibility of “killer AI.” They have the foresight to see what Hollywood toys with. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t try to create intelligent programs and machines that can mimic emotions, but that all it will ever be: mimicry. Will Smith’s jaded policeman character in I, Robot mocks the sentient robots as being “nothing but lights and clockwork… An imitation of life.”

Only God can truly create life. And unlike us, He has nothing to fear from His creation. That is another characteristic that makes Him God. We can coddle ourselves with self-affirmations, but in our hearts, we know the truth. It already bubbles up to the surface in our art, which is often the place where we find the truths that we don’t like to admit.

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