Frank Peretti’s fourth novel, Prophet, released in 1992. But its themes about Truth in our world are just as timely today.

Unlike its famous predecessors, Prophet has no visible angels or demons. But its spiritual battles are just as real.

John clicked off his computer, his way of clicking off the whole cussed day, the whole miserable mess, the whole circus that made him the clown. He just wanted to get out of there.

Leslie pulled up a chair and sank into it, looking very tired. She’d stuck around almost three hours longer than she had to, watching the entire outcome.

“Was that Max [on the phone]?” she asked.

“Hoo boy, was it ever. Forget the dark alley — I wouldn’t want to meet him in broad daylight right now.”

She nodded. “I would guess we’ve exhausted our friendship with the Brewers. We’ve blown the whole wad.” She added a thought she wasn’t too excited about. “I could probably call Deanne tomorrow and try to explain this to her.” Then she just sighed through her nose and shook her head despondently. “But how good an explanation am I going to have? Right now I don’t like the explanation myself.” She glanced across the newsroom. “I had it out with Marian and I talked to Rush too and . . . I knew what they were going to say.”

John supplied the answer. “It was news. It was happening . . .”

Leslie prompted, “And . . .”

“And . . . everything in the story was true, factual.”

“And . . .”

“And they got reacts from both sides.”

Leslie threw up her hands, rested back in her chair, and said, “And I am quitting.”

John stopped short upon hearing that. He shouldn’t have been surprised, but he was. “You sure?”

She wanted to answer right away, but then hesitated. “I’m not sure about anything anymore. No, I take that back. I know one thing for sure: I’ve let down my friends, I’ve compromised my ideals, I’ve gone with the flow, but . . . at least I saved my precious little rear. Leslie Albright the reporter is safe.” She stopped to brood about that.

John suggested, “Well, really, did you have any choice?”

She leaned forward and spoke intensely. “You better believe I did! Surprised? Well, it dawned on me today — no, actually I’ve known it all along, but it’s been so easy, so handy to forget — I have a choice. I can choose right from wrong — we all can. The problem is, it’s this beast, John. We’re in the fish’s belly and it’s swimming away with us, remember? Once you get inside this workplace and you get so used to going with the flow and protecting your rear, you don’t even think you have a choice, and you don’t even consider choosing the right thing over the wrong thing, you just do what the machine tells you to do. Sure, you gripe about it in the news care or at the lunch table; you talk about the blind producers sitting in the windowless rooms forcing their reality on your, telling you what they want to see whether it’s really there or not — but you do it. Even for the dumbest reasons, you do it. I let Tina walk all over me because I was afraid for my job, and you let Ben Oliver crack the whip over you and make you do your tricks because you’re afraid for your job, and when it comes to keeping our jobs, our important, hard-to-get, major-market jobs, we have to be professionals, so right and wrong don’t even enter the formula because we think we don’t have a choice!”

John was getting uncomfortable with this. “Leslie, come on, you’re not being fair — not to the business, not to yourself. You . . . you can’t bring morals into it when there’s news to report —”

She didn’t raise her voice, but just whispered so hard she hissed. “John, don’t we get to be people? Who are we anyway? I don’t know who I am — or who I’m supposed to be. I don’t know who you are!” She stole a glance around the room, hoping no one was overhearing them. “John, what were we when we talked to the Brewers? Who was I, what was I when I spent all that time with Deanne? Was I just a news gathering machine or did I really care, did I really feel for Annie Brewer? What do you do, John? Hang up your humanity when you come into the newsroom? Does John Barrett ever feel anything?” She swallowed her emotion and ventured, “You intro’d a story that betrayed people who trusted us, and you did it so well! You were so . . . so professional!

“Well, I can’t do that. John, the Brewers have been through the machine; they’ve had their two-minute spot on television and now they’re gone; they’ll probably never come across that assignment desk again, but you know what, the Brewers, the real-live, breathing, feeling Brewers, are still out there, still living in that little house with one less daughter, and I can’t just crumple them up, toss them, and go on to the next story.”

“Leslie . . .” John had to make sure she knew. “I felt something.”

Leslie was pained as she grappled with that. “Then . . . John, in God’s name, why did we let this happen?”

John couldn’t fight it anymore. His head, his professionalism, told him one thing, but his heart kept listening to Leslie and to what he knew deep inside. He had to give in. He leaned his elbows on his desk and rested his forehead in his hands. For a moment he said nothing, but then, as if confessing, he spoke in a weak, barely audible voice, forcing himself to say it. “Tina Lewis called the Women’s Medical Center right after you talked to her on Thursday. She told them all about the Request for Medical Records, and she told them about Annie’s code name, Judy Medford. She even spelled it for them. She told Alena Spurr that you and Deanne were going to be there the next morning, and Alena Spurr told Tina about Max Brewer being arrested and his jail time, the whole thing. That’s how Tina knew about it this afternoon.

“Last night Alena Spurr went through all the records and purged Judy Medford’s name out. She even rewrote the daily schedule by hand so she could omit Annie’s code name.”

Leslie was speechless. Sure, it’s what she’d thought, and yet . . . this sounded so direct, as if John really knew, as if he’d been there.

John continued in the same quiet voice, as if he were spilling his guts, confessing secrets he’d been hiding. “Tina is a deeply wounded woman . . . She’s scared, and she’s running, and when she fights and pushes like she does, it’s because she’s trapped, she’s trying to defend herself.”

Leslie leaned closer to hear him better, his voice was getting so quiet.

John stopped to gather strength and then continued. “Three years ago . . . September 16th . . . Tina had an abortion. It was a boy. The only child she ever had. The anniversary was just two weeks ago, and I heard her screaming.”

“Screaming?” Leslie whispered.

John held his hand up. “I heard her screaming . . . Screaming inside. She’s still thinking of him, and every time an abortion story comes along, it reminds her, and so she had to fight it off. She has to show herself, show the world, that what she did was all right, that she had the right to do it, that she isn’t guilty of anything. Leslie . . . when you pitched the story idea to her, you came too close to the wounds.”

For the first time John looked at her. “It’s not you or me she hates. She’s not fighting against us. It’s the Truth she hates. The Truth won’t let her alone, and she hates it.” He stopped as another thought came to his mind. “And . . . I don’t know who they are, but . . . Annie isn’t the only one. Some other girls have died there.”

Leslie believed him. “John . . . how do you know all this?”

He looked as if he would break into tears and shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Tomorrow begins the world’s only real-world conference for Christian fans of fantastical worlds, Realm Makers.

Because of time and other limitations, I cannot go to this world.

However, I was able to attend the 2013 inaugural conference and represent SpecFaith, and I look forward to a return to Realm Makers. There it’s likely I would meet many of you.

It’s also likely I would find ways to sneak several favorite themes into conversations with people. This includes variations on ideas we explore at SpecFaith that, I believe, could help revolutionize this little effort to explore fantastical stories for God’s glory, and to promote more of these stories by Christian authors who can do things other storytellers cannot.

1. Christian-made stories should exist to glorify God.

Every time I say this some folks get nervous and twitchy. I get that.

Maybe we assume “glorify God” means only activities such as Bible reading and prayer.

Maybe we forget that the apostle Paul highly regards these activities yet also says they are means to us enjoying “everything that God created,” things that are “good” but must be “sanctified” for our enjoyment by Scripture and prayer (1 Tim. 4:1-5).¹

Let’s explore this truth however we can.

2. Only if storytellers first glorify God can they meet other goals.

Related: If I say, “Christians’ stories should exist to glorify God,” folks who enjoy the Craft of Writing may think of secondary goals: the Industry, readers’ expectations, and even other spiritual goals such as moral instruction and evangelism.

In reply I bounce off a quote by the Patron Saint of Christian Fantastical Fiction, C.S. Lewis: “Aim for Heaven and you will get Earth thrown in; aim for Earth and you will get neither.”

The variation is: Aim your story for God’s glory and you will get other goals thrown in—excellent craft, biblical truth, meaningful themes, honest images of humanity (including any necessary Gritty Parts), and evangelism and moral reflection and all that. But aim for any of those things, and you will (very likely) get none of that—or get them only despite yourself.

3. Join a local church and share fantastical stories within it.

Are you a Christian fantastical story fan who wants to share stories with others?

Do you also want to find more readers for Christian-written fantastical stories?

Then here is no better way to fulfill this desire than by participating in God’s visible Kingdom embassies on Earth—your visible, biblical local church.

Internet websites won’t cut it. Not even real-life extra-church conferences would cut it.

Your umpteenth irritated social-network comment about how too many Christians read Amish historical oozy cozy sentimental wuv novels and not enough sci-fi won’t cut it.

If you can², find a biblical local church and join it. Or if you already have a church, consider growing in confidence about your love of fantastical fiction and confirming this enjoyment from Scripture (see no. 5 in this article).

Then practice going beyond any temptations to keep your fandom as a “guilty pleasure.” ³

Be bold about your enjoyments of excellent fantastical stories for God’s glory. Bring them up in conversation. (People may ask “how was your day?” and that is a perfect lead-in.)

Or go further. Loan people books. Share websites. Start a formal or informal story group.

Go beyond the blogs. Think incarnationally, in the real world, about your fantastical worlds.

4. Let’s not use Christian-made fantastical stories as a ‘gateway drug.’

Soon I must write about this temptation in myself, and surely in others.

It’s a temptation to think back on Christian-authored fantastical novels you enjoy(ed) as merely the first stories you got hold of on the way to better and secular stories.

For example, if you have a culturally conservative background, you might look back on Frank Peretti angel/demon warfare novels as your means to getting hold of Star Wars.⁴

We can resist the temptation and value popular fandoms—The Lord of the Rings, the two Stars, Doctor Who, superhero franchises, and so on—just as much as the less-popular culture we still enjoy. In fact, Peretti novels are still more special to me than is Star Wars.

5. Fantastical stories foreshadow fantastical eternity.

No matter your position on whether manmade stories will last for eternity⁵, there’s no denying that fantasy, science fiction and more reflect the eternal dimensions of biblical faith in way that other fiction genres—as great as they can be—simply can’t reflect.

Jesus seems clear that human marriage will be fulfilled in eternity. So Christian novels that are only about human romance at best only partly reflect that eternal fulfillment.

But eternity is and will be filled with fantastical wonders—creatures, places, adventures, miracles, angels, very likely God-exalting technologies and science, and above all, God Himself. And these are the very realities reflected, however flawed, in fantastical stories.

In this age, the magic, places, and tech of fantastical stories reflect exaggerated reality.

But if these stories were to last for eternity, they would be contemporary fiction.

What topics would you sneak into con conversations?

What would you say about these?

One distinctly Christian subgrene of speculative fiction is angel fiction, of which Frank Peretti’s This Present Darkness is the archetype. Other Christian SF novels, while not angel fiction, also feature angels. Given the immovable, and perhaps inevitable, place of angels in speculative fiction, I thought it would be interesting to examine what the Bible says concerning them.

The presence of angels in the Bible is strong, but elliptical. We see them in Scripture, but only in the corner of our eyes. Their fall, beginning, and history are mysteries; we have no idea of what passes for “normal life” among angels, or what kind of relationships they enjoy with each other or with God. Of their work we have some idea, but none of their rest or their play – if they have anything we would recognize as rest or play, which we also don’t know.

Blurry as the details are, a general portrait does emerge from the Bible. Probably most important, good angels are absolutely good – “the holy angels”, Jesus called them, unfallen and sinless. They are also “stronger and more powerful” than human beings (2 Peter 2), and are sometimes called by certain elements of nature: flames of fire, winds, morning stars. Certainly angels are far impressive, far more terrifying, than popular art would lead us to believe. “Don’t be afraid” was how they tended to begin friendly visits. (Unfriendly visits were usually fatal.)

Angels in the Bible often seem to move through what strikes me – conditioned by sci-fi – as a kind of fourth dimension, in which they can intervene at will in our world without our awareness. Their power over matter and nature is obviously much greater than our own: causing chains to fall off and gates to open of themselves, inflicting plagues, closing the mouths of lions, striking people with blindness …

They are also capable of assuming physical bodies. Jesus, when He wanted to prove to His disciples that He wasn’t a ghost, ate in their presence and told them to touch Him: “A ghost does not have flesh and bones.” (Luke 24) By these tests, the angels who visited Abraham and Lot also proved they were, however temporarily, flesh and blood. Hebrews’ famous declaration that some people entertain angels without knowing it means that there have been similar angelic visits, albeit with far less dramatic endings.

Angels relate to humanity as agents of God’s will: as messengers, “ministering spirits”, protectors, executioners. The notion of guardian angels – so widespread, so sentimental that it seems like it ought not to be true – actually is. Although the phrase never appears in the Bible, the concept does. The archangel Michael is “the great prince who protects” Daniel’s people, and Jesus warned us not to “look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels always see the face of my Father in heaven.”

What form this guardianship takes, and with what thoughts or emotion it is carried out, we don’t know. So little is known of angels that all angel fiction inevitably involves a lot of invention, even at the most basic levels of what they are and how they live. Even granting this, you would think that Christian authors would follow Christian teaching as far as it goes, and strictly confine their invention to adding, not subtracting or altering.

And I think that most authors do, or at least try to. The portrayals of angels I’ve read in Christian novels generally conform to the biblical portrait, even if they rarely achieve the sense of holiness or fearfulness angels possess in the Bible. One little thing, though, has come to stand out as very doubtful to me: Everybody calls Satan Lucifer, and I think people believe – really believe – that that was his original name. (I used to believe it, too, until I spent a few minutes with a concordance and realized that whether the name Lucifer appears at all in the Bible is a matter of translation, and whether it applies to Satan is a matter of interpretation.)

What about you? How do you think angel fiction, published by and for Christians, stands up to the Bible’s view of angels?

There’s been much in the news the last few days about a “beloved” lion which was shot and killed by a rich American big game hunter. I have a number of thoughts about this.

First of all, does naming a lion insulate it from predators? Second, is a lion which is treated in some ways like a pet different from lions in zoos? Third, is the problem really the killing of this one lion or is it all trophy killing? Fourth, how is it that western society (or is it only those of us here in the US?) become so exercised about the death of a lion but not the deaths of countless unborn babies, even when their body parts are being harvested and sold for research? Not so long ago animal rights groups decried research on animals. But research on humans is OK instead?

But Spec Faith is devoted to a discussion of fiction and faith, so rather than camping on the political implications inherent in those questions, I wonder if we can explore the ramifications of the Christian faith on our attitude toward animals and their place in the world—and how an author have integrated that into fiction.

First, as most people familiar with the Bible know, God gave Adam and Eve jurisdiction—the responsibility to rule the earth and all that is in it—before sin infected creation:

God blessed [Adam and Eve]; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Gen. 1:28)

Apparently both man and animals were vegetarian at that time, but after the flood the situation changed, as did an apparent companionableness between humans and animals. Before the flood, Noah had no problem rounding up the animals to take on the ark. For a year, they accepting their food from his hand. When he wanted to know if the earth was drying up, he sent out various birds.

But after the flood, that harmony was forever changed.

The fear of you and the terror of you will be on every beast of the earth and on every bird of the sky; with everything that creeps on the ground, and all the fish of the sea, into your hand they are given. Every moving thing that is alive shall be food for you; I give all to you, as I gave the green plant. (Gen. 9:2-3)

This alienation, of course, does not mean that man couldn’t tame animals or control them. Job had flocks and herds and camels, as did Abraham and his descendants. The unfaithful prophet Balaam had a donkey. King David had horses he used to pull his chariots.

Clearly humankind was in charge of animals.

Balaam and his donkey show another aspect of animal involvement with humans and what God expects from the men and women He created to rule. Balaam, who’d been hired to curse God’s people, set out to fulfill his assignment, but the angel of the Lord sought to strike him down. The donkey Balaam rode, however, veered away from the angel (an interesting sidelight because the donkey had a spiritual awareness the man didn’t have—was this an anomaly?) In response, Balaam beat his donkey to get him moving forward again.

After the third such occurrence, the Lord opened the mouth of the donkey, ad his first statement was, Why have you beaten me these three times? When Balaam’s eyes were opened and he saw the angel, the first thing the angel said was, Why did you beat your donkey? She saved your life:

The angel of the LORD said to him, “Why have you struck your donkey these three times? Behold, I have come out as an adversary, because your way was contrary to me. But the donkey saw me and turned aside from me these three times. If she had not turned aside from me, I would surely have killed you just now, and let her live.”

Balaam said to the angel of the LORD, “I have sinned, for I did not know that you were standing in the way against me. (Num. 22:32-34a)

What was the sin Balaam was confessing—that he was going when the angel was standing in his way, or that he’d struck his donkey? Or both? Or that perhaps he should have seen what the donkey saw?

Scripture isn’t clear on this point, but it is quite apparent that striking the donkey was wrong.

When God gave Israel the Law, He included specifics about caring for animals. Oxen, for example, were not to be muzzled while they threshed. If someone came upon an animal that fell into a pit, he was supposed to pull him out, even on the Sabbath, and so one.

Jesus mentioned the birds of the air as cared for by the Father. No sparrow falls without God knowing. Of course He added a rhetorical question: Aren’t you worth much more than a sparrow.

Without a doubt, the Bible makes a distinction between humans and animals. It was Man only that God made in His image and into which He breathed the breath of life, which many believe signifies the human soul.

God ordained sacrifice, including animal sacrifice, after Adam sinned. In fact, God first killed animals in order to clothe Adam and Eve in their skins. As part of the Law, He gave specific rules about sacrifices, including which animals were to be offered and in what quantity. In addition, these clean animals were the ones the Jews were allowed to eat.

Later in the New Testament, God lifted the restriction on eating the meat of only certain animals. He declared all to be clean, though He never sanctioned human sacrifice and forbade the taking of human life for any purpose, let alone for food.

In short, the Bible is “animal friendly” in that humankind, as rulers, are to be benevolent in the exercise of our authority. But clearly, humans and animals are not equal. This position is one of the ways the Christian worldview differs from the way of secular society. But, I submit, it also differs from the extremist view that respects and promotes trophy killing of animals.

Some Christians are uncomfortable with that last statement, believing that “rule” means “do whatever you want.” Such a position has never been God’s perspective.

So here’s the question. How are animals depicted in Christian speculative fiction? Are they allies of the hero? Obstacles or adversaries? Are they sentient such as the talking animals of Narnia or the dragons of Donita K. Paul’s worlds? If so, how are they different from humans? Are they? Should they be?

What are some of your favorite speculative stories depicting either a Biblical or non-Biblical view of animals? Did the part the animals played affect your attitude toward the story?

Draven’s Light (Rooglewood Press)

From The Tales Of Goldstone Wood
By Anne Elisabeth Stengl

Introduction

In the Darkness of the Pit the Light Shines Brightest

Drums summon the chieftain’s powerful son to slay a man in cold blood and thereby earn his place among the warriors. But instead of glory, he earns the name Draven, “Coward.” When the men of his tribe march off to war, Draven remains behind with the women and his shame. Only fearless but crippled Ita values her brother’s honor.

The warriors return from battle victorious yet trailing a curse in their wake. One by one the strong and the weak of the tribe fall prey to an illness of supernatural power. The secret source of this evil can be found and destroyed by only the bravest heart.

But when the curse attacks the one Draven loves most, can this coward find the courage he needs to face the darkness?

Excerpt

Each step dragging more than the last, the girl climbed the winding track up the hill. She progressed so slowly, with such hesitation, that one might have thought she bore a terrible weight. But no; her arms clutched the water skin to her thin breast without apparent strain. She had carried far heavier burdens often enough in her short life. Nevertheless, her pace dragged, and her gaze, darting up the path and down again to stare at her feet, was filled with apprehension.

“I need you to make the run for me today,” her mother had told her but a short while ago. “I have no time, and it is the least we owe them. Hurry, child.”

“Cannot Grandmother go with me?” the girl had protested, her eyes rounding even as her mother placed the waterskin in her hands. The outer hide was slippery, and the gir was obliged to hold it close so as not to drop it.

“Certainly not!” her mother had replied. “You hurry along now, and don’t be bothering your grandmother. She needs her rest and can’t spend her days holding your hand anymore.”

But the girl hadn’t moved. She had stood quite still, the waterskin dampening the front of her rough=fibered gown, staring up at her mother. Then, very softly, she said, “I’m afraid.”

But her mother had no patience. “Afraid of what?” she cried and, without waiting for an answer, turned her daughter around and gave her a firm push toward the hill-winding track. “Don’t be a coward. Go on! It’s wrong to keep those poor men waiting all day. I can’t be expected to run every errand, and you are quite a big girl now.”

She didn’t feel quite a big girl. She felt small. She always felt small when she walked this track, but never so small as she did now, climbing it alone for the first time. Always before she had gone in company with someone: her father, sometimes her busy mother, even one of her aunts or older cousins. Always before she had held onto someone’s hand and gathered courage from a stronger grasp.

But not today. Today she must face the enormity of the Great House on her own. The Great House . . . and the Brothers who built it.

As long as the girl could remember, the Brothers had worked on the top of the hill, going about their endless labor. As long as she could remember, she had watched from Kallias Village down below as, day by day, month by month, year by year, the great walls had risen up from the tree line to tower on that promontory above the river. In winter the labor ceased for a time, and the Brothers went away to far-off quarries (or so her father told her), there to mine and shape enormous blocks of stone.

But as soon as the binding of winter gave way to the freedom of spring, the Brothers would return, accompanied by strange, fierce folk and stranger, fiercer animals, hauling the new stone up the track—which was quite wide by now after many years of this cyclical process—up to the very top of the hill. The strange folk and the fierce animals always left soon after, never speaking to the men or women of the village.

But the Brothers remained. And throughout the rest of the year the ringing song of hammers upon stone echoed down from the promontory, as much a part of each day’s music as birdsong or the voice of the river itself.

The girl heard the hammer song now—Clang! Clang! Clang! Only one hammer singing a lonely melody, she thought. Slow and rhythmic, without haste but with great patience. She matched her stride to that beat.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Step. Step. Step.

Though her pace was reluctant, her heart beat like mad in her breast. She could feel it thudding against the waterskin. Would the Brothers speak to her? They never had before, though the Kind One had smiled at her upon occasion. His was a nice smile . . . but still! She dreaded the very thought of his speaking and, worse, expecting her to answer.

The walk up the hill was a long one, but the late-spring day was fair, and the girl’s going, slow. She should not have felt so winded. But as the trees gave way at last to the large clear space at the crown of the hill and she looked out upon the rising stone walls of the Great House, she gasped and could hardly catch her breath.

To compare the Great House to even the largest structures of Kallias Village would be like comparing the wingspan of the northern eagles to that of the little chaffinches living down in the brier. The difference was so vast that no comparison could be justly made! The Great House, even unfinished as it was, could have held all of Kallias in its main hall and many of the fields surrounding in its courtyard. The doors themselves, newly carved and hung by the hand of the Kind One, were each as large as the entire floor space of her father’s house. The stones comprising the walls—so carefully cut in those fabled, far-off quarries and shaped upon arrival to fit seamlessly one against another—were shot with blue and gold, unlike any mined in any quarry within a hundred miles, perhaps within a thousand. Indeed, these stones were so otherworldly in their beauty, they did not seem as though they could come from this world at all. The gold in them caught the light of the sun and held it, warm and glowing and alive.

But while this was enough to overwhelm the girl, it was not enough to make her afraid. No, she trembled because, through the open door, she could see inside the hall. And it was dark. Dark like the fall of night. Dark like the mouth of a yawning mine. Dark like the beginning and the end of the world. Though the walls were lined with tall windows and the roof above was as yet incomplete, its rafters etched against the sky like the ribcage of some giant beast, no light seemed able to penetrate down into the shadows cast within.

So the girl stood on the edge of the tree line, staring up at the Great House and unable to make her feet move. She saw, high above on a wooden scaffolding, a tiny figure moving. The figure was tiny only from distance, and even at that distance she knew the form at once fro one of the
Brothers. The Strong One, as she always thought of him.

The singing hammer stopped. The figure of the Strogn One stood and stretched. She knew that he had seen her, and she knew that she must proceed. They were expecting her, after all.

SpecFaith staff explorers E. Stephen Burnett and Austin Gunderson share their month-long conversation about Man of Steel and how the film flies over many critics’ heads. See part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, or read the the whole Badfan v Superman series.

E. Stephen Burnett: I am thrilled that, by all indications, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is even attempting to tackle the issue of serious super-consequences.

Austin Gunderson: Thanks, Stephen, for this stimulating discussion. I think it’s an important one to have, and not just for genre fans.

When Alan Moore (author of such comics classics as “Watchmen,” “Batman: The Killing Joke,” and “V for Vendetta”) in 2014 referred to superheroes as “children’s characters” who enable “a retreat from the admittedly overwhelming complexities of modern existence” — a phenomenon he described as “potentially culturally catastrophic” — I think the pop-negativity surrounding Zack Snyder’s Superman is part and parcel of what he was addressing. For if our heroes inhabit a separate moral universe, how can their decisions possibly inform our lives?

While much of the backlash against the violence in Man of Steel purported to chastise the film for flippancy, I think what was really at issue for many people was the fact that it wasn’t sufficiently flippant to qualify as pure escapism. Of course, the film is escapist — no story whose hero leaps tall buildings in a single bound can really claim otherwise — but it’s an escapism with consequences in a universe of functional moral physics. When a genocidal superhuman tries to purge the planet, he cannot simply be insta-converted or banished or extinguished off-screen. He must be deliberately slain.

The Avengers manages to avoid this hard truth via the usual means: our heroes kill a bunch of faceless minions no one cares about, then merely exile the sympathetic villain. Easy-peasy. The metropolitan destruction they wreak in the process is forgiven them to the extent it’s treated as the result of a playful tussle. After all, it’s just a movie, guys, and look at Hulk punch Thor! See, it’s all in good fun. LOL!

But Man of Steel doesn’t break for comedic relief. It’s not interested in cushioning the blow of collapsing skyscrapers, or in using the imagery of destruction as an exciting backdrop for feel-good fun. When the towers fall in Metropolis, we’re reminded of September 11th, not Independence Day. And we don’t like that. This is supposed to be a superhero movie, dang it, not a serious movie! I came here to relax, not to grapple with the personal implications of Just War Theory!

Whether such an attitude is healthy for society as a whole, time will tell. I certainly don’t think it’s healthy for storytelling. If in our stories we aren’t willing to examine our own responses to evil by pairing consequences with actions, we’ll have created a dangerous rift between fiction and reality: the rift of fictional morals. A world in which evil just isn’t that serious a problem is a delusion, not a fantasy. And if it’s there that we live our imaginative lives, we’ll be left dangerously unprepared for real evil in the real world.

It’s for this reason, Stephen, that I share your excitement for Batman v Superman. I anticipated great things even before I saw the recent extended trailer, but now that we know for certain that the fallout from Supes’ battle with Zod will be a major plot point, I’m ecstatic. A Superman who appears in court is a Superman prepared to confront the implications of “collateral damage,” vigilante justice, and public ingratitude. More than that, a Batman willing to actually take action on the premise that “absolute power corrupts absolutely” is a Batman who operates on principle, rather than the insipid pragmatism so common in superhero stories.

I mean, let’s think this through. Superman, as an indestructible alien willing to take the law into his own hands, represents an existential threat to all human liberty. He cannot be controlled by anyone but himself. In embodying the spirit of security — “Superman will save us!” — he’s positioned himself as a potential tyrant without equal. Can a man of principle like Batman really afford to wait around to see whether Supes’ dictatorship will turn out to be benevolent? Especially when, at least in Bats’ mind, he’s already caused plenty of harm?

But many people, it seems, aren’t interested in such a conflict. “That’s dumb,” I often read. “They’re on the same side. Why can’t they just get along?” One might as well ask, “Who gave them permission to take leave of their fictional moral universe?”

In the real world, people don’t extend you trust just because you claim the symbol on your chest means “hope.” In the real world, we instinctively distrust those who wield unfettered power — whether they be generals or politicians or the ever-nebulous Rich, no matter what their stated purpose. In the real world, someone’s ability to watch over you doesn’t automatically elicit goodwill. If it did, everyone would love the NSA.

So the reason many people dismiss the Batman-Superman showdown is ultimately the same reason people complained about Man of Steel: they prefer heroes who inhabit a separate moral universe. Batman should trust Superman “because he’s Superman, dagnabbit!” If we’re forced to watch Batman develop that trust, then we’ll have to grapple with whether we would trust Superman, too. Much easier for such dynamics to be offered up pre-cooked and pre-chewed — axiomatic assumptions that allow us to cut straight to consequence-free slugfests with villains we can all agree we’re supposed to hate. We want our heroes nonthreatening and our victories cheap.

It’s my hope and expectation that Batman v Superman will aspire to a weightier ideal. By examining the painful consequences of superhero-scale destruction, and by exploring the power dynamics introduced to Earth by the coming of the Last Son of Krypton, the film seems poised to transcend Alan Moore’s gloomy dismissal of the genre he spent his career enriching. Far from catering to childish sensibilities, it appears that DC has graduated to solid food.

Read the complete Badfan v. Superman series.

THE CROSSOVER ALLIANCE is now officially open for business! The doors were thrown wide open yesterday, and all of us that are involved are quite giddy at this point. It’s been nearly two years since the seeds of this endeavor were planted, and there was a lot of uncertainty along the way as to whether that seed would actually take root. Now it’s finally here and ready for action.

I’ve written about The Crossover Alliance before so I’m not going to go into detail about its mission and purpose (you can find my previous article here and you can see for yourself what it is all about here). To summarize: The Crossover Alliance is an online publisher of edgy Christian speculative fiction, with the intention of releasing edgy, hard-hitting books with a solid Christian foundation. Don’t expect any quaint Amish romances or Chicken Soup for the Soul. There’s nothing wrong with the current crop of books on the shelves of Christian bookstores, but we know that there is also a whole market out there of readers looking for something more intense and gritty without compromising Christian values.

Edgy Christian fiction isn’t anything new. Authors like Frank Peretti, Ted Dekker, and Stephen Lawhead, to name a few, have made names for themselves as they tread darker waters. But The Crossover Alliance is taking it even further. Let me use a musical analogy: say that Twila Paris or Hillsong isn’t your cup of tea, so you migrate over to something heavier, perhaps Skillet or Red or Disciple. But even that seems a bit soft. You dig around online and are thrilled to discover hordes of Christian bands with Bible-based lyrics and imagery, and their sound is as wild and thrashy as their secular counterparts.

The Crossover Alliance seeks to put to rest the “too Christian for the secular market, too secular for the Christian market” conundrum that frustrates readers and writers. It wants books that rest on a strong Biblical foundation but aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty. I would be lying if there isn’t a bit of a “fed up” attitude in all of this, so let me just lay it out there. This is for everyone who is fed up with timid Christian publishers who won’t release anything with a swear word or suggestive scene, fed up with secular publishers who back away at even a hint of the Gospel, fed up with unimaginative readers who want books that fulfill their Christianized fantasies, fed up with being caught in limbo after writing a story from their heart and soul. We don’t have anyone to impress or anyone to pander to. We’re taking matters into our own hands, and we’ll sink or swim on our own terms.

The books that The Crossover Alliance will release do not glorify or revel in sin, blasphemy, or carnality, but it won’t hide its head in the sand, either. If readers can’t handle it, then they are free to look elsewhere, but if you are one of those hungry book lovers who is looking for something meatier than what you’ll find at the Christian bookstore, or if you’re a writer who feels forced into self-publishing because you know that your work is too edgy for the sanitized Christian fiction market, then this might be the answer you’ve been looking for.

Philippians 4:8 admonishes believers to dwell on what is good, noble, pure, and lovely. This does not mean we should ignore everything that isn’t. Rather, we should recognize the darkness for what it is and use it to turn our hearts towards the light. The Crossover Alliance is for fearless readers and writers who aren’t afraid to confront the darkness head-on.

Its first year catalog will be rolling out in the coming months, but the first short story anthology is already here! You’ll find nine hard-hitting stories from myself and other authors, and it is available for Kindle and in paperback. To celebrate its grand opening, The Crossover Alliance is giving away a digital subscription to its first-year catalog (more than half a dozen books!). Click here to enter the giveaway.

Since this is truly an alliance of authors and readers, those of us who have been involved in its creation will be posting our thoughts and hopes about what this adventure means to us. Head over to these homepages to hear from each of us: David N. Alderman, Nathan James Norman, Jess Hanna, Peter Younghusband, and myself.

Of course, a publishing company is always looking for new talent, so if you are a writer of edgy Christian speculative fiction, consider this your invitation to submit your work for consideration. It doesn’t have to be strictly sci-fi or fantasy – the edgy Christian speculative fiction genre encompasses numerous styles. Even if you’re not sure if your story will fit the parameters, send it along anyway. No harm in trying, right?

The Crossover Alliance has no grand illusions about changing the world of books, but it does want to change the way people think of Christian fiction. Something like this is long overdue and we’re hoping that you’ll join our alliance!

The Crossover Alliance website

The Crossover Alliance on Facebook

The Crossover Alliance on Twitter

See part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, or read the the whole Badfan v Superman series so far.

Austin Gunderson: We want Superman to come and save us without even bloodying his hands. But it’s Man of Steel’s refusal to step outside reality that makes the film so moving and so very moral.

E. Stephen Burnett: Now as we draw to the end of this series, I’m remembering how I felt when I left the theater after seeing Man of Steel. I was not sure this was a film I “enjoyed.” Rather than feeling uplifted and entertained, I felt shell-shocked.¹ Instead of thinking, “yay, Superman!” I was thinking, “Whoa … Superman …” I didn’t walk out with a smile as much as a shiver.

Did that make the film bad? I wasn’t sure. Then I began reading the Man of Steel criticism.

People were lambasting the scenes of the super-destruction of Metropolis and Superman’s killing of General Zod. They were acting like the film was at fault for being so careless about the horrors. And yet … why? This may sound like a criticism, but no one felt the same after The Avengers either in-universe² or among fans. No one has insisted on seeing consequences.

What was happening? Fans were criticizing the “desensitization” of Man of Steel when in fact that story was re-sensitizing them to the horror of actual cinematic city-destruction and death. And meanwhile, fans—who don’t know any better—were giving a pass to other onscreen superhero stories that arguably do treat citywide destruction and death as par for the course (it’s just a movie, folks!) and arguably do desensitize viewers.

The real-world criticism of Man of Steel may be a microcosm of how we also respond to real death and destruction. We don’t want to see real horror. It makes us uncomfortable—because then we might have to make hard choices, even compromises. We might be asked to condemn or even fight real horrors beyond the ones we’re familiar with. ³. Or we might find ourselves being shoved off the “high ground” we believe we own simply because it’s a safe distance from the real-world challenges. Or (here’s a tough one) we might find ourselves distracted from the “gritty” and “realistic” stories we make up to persuade ourselves that no, we actually are acquainted with all these horrible things, and we’re not like those other people who want a pre-sanitized reality in which they needn’t get their own hands dirty.

Like I said, it’s a microcosm. The analogy is not exact—especially when not even Man of Steel, which is rated PG-13 in the U.S., showed people jumping from those falling buildings or being pommeled by world-engine gravity pulses. But then again, with stories we can only get approximate simulations of reality. That’s the point of stories in the first place.

And this is exactly why I am thrilled that, by all indications, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is even attempting to tackle the issue of serious super-consequences.

I wouldn’t have done it any other way. In fact, days after Man of Steel when I was still busy thinking about the story—usually a mark of a good story—I realized exactly what would make all that shell-shocking destruction worth it: Serious consequences in the sequel. It would prove that the super-knockdown had a goal—to re-sensitize audiences, get them thinking, get them asking questions, get them seriously engaging the story rather than just clapping.⁴

Then as we were writing this series, the second Batman v Superman trailer released and proved (so far) that my expectations were justified. “Today is a day for truth,” pronounces the character of a U.S. senator, portrayed by Holly “Elastigirl” Hunter. “Let the record show that this committee holds [Superman] responsible,” for the destruction of Metropolis.

To me it seems the trailer reveals that Superman, though surely tempted to embrace the “grimdark” hero and shy back from his own powers, persists in striving to become that symbol of hope that Jor-El, and his Earthly mother, have encouraged him to be.

But meanwhile Bruce Wayne is out there, having already been that grimdark hero, who has personally suffered the consequences of that citywide destruction. Wayne Enterprises employees perished in that attack and Bruce will surely feel that, as one anonymous note-writer accuses, “YOU LET YOUR FAMILY DIE.” Imagine that kind of burden, especially on a “retired” Bat-vigilante driven to crime-fight after a criminal killed his original family.

And when Batman is possibly encouraged by power players (such as Lex Luthor) with their own envy/villainy against Superman, we have here a reasonable and realistic basis for Batman to face off against Superman. It’s not just clashing egos, e.g. The Avengers, but more like what Man of Steel director and co. have promised: an honest clash of philosophies.

If, as Hunter in the first teaser somewhat predictably quotes, “absolute power [tends to] corrupt absolutely,” what happens to Superman? Does he have “absolute power”? Or does he have a weakness along with (or perhaps symbolized by) kryptonite? How will Superman fight to be that symbol of hope—e.g. to live up himself to the ideal of the Superman? What would persuade Batman that Superman is actually a true hero, when given the chance to become that ideal and not be feared as an alien? How would Wonder Woman and Aquaman and all the other heroes fit in? How would this lead to the titular Dawn of Justice [League]?

This superfan can’t wait. Let’s keep speculating below—and then, over to Austin for the conclusion of our month-long Badfan v Superman series!

Read Badfan v Superman 8: A Moral Cinematic Universe. Or see the entire Badfan v Superman series.

If you haven’t heard of Realm Makers, where have you been?

Just kidding.

In truth, Realm Makers, a conference for speculative writers with a Christian worldview, is still in its infancy. This year marks only the third annual event. But clearly, word is out. Enrollment in 2015 has doubled, an amazing accomplishment in such a short period of time.

One reason for the growth, I suspect, is the quality of the faculty presenters who organizer Becky Minor has lined up. Last year, you may recall, the keynote speaker was Tosca Lee, a highly-touted novelist known for such works as Demon: A Memoir, Havah, and Iscariot along with the Book Of Mortals series she co-authored with Ted Dekker.

This year’s line-up is no less impressive, starting with keynote speaker Robert Liparulo, an author of such books as Comes a Horseman, Germ, and The 13th Tribe, as well as a number of young adult titles.

In addition, Realm Makers will take on the format which seems to work for so many other conferences: a concentrated study of one particular topic throughout the conference in addition to a variety of interspersed workshops.

This year’s Intensive Workshops are Worldbuilding, taught by the queen of Christian speculative fiction, Donita Paul and her daughter, Evangelina Denmark, a speculative author in her own right; Editing to Greatness, taught by acclaimed author and teacher David Farland; Marketing For Authors, taught by the experienced team of Suzanne and Shawn Kuhn, Julie Gwinn, and Amanda Luedeke.

The single-session workshop teachers include writers such as Jill Williamson, Robert Treskillard, and Mike Duran, and other writing professionals such as agent/publisher Steve Laube, magazine publisher Ben Wolfe, and artist Kirk DouPonce (see the entire list of faculty at the Realm Maker’s site).

Along with writing and marketing instruction, the conference offers some additional opportunities. On the first day there will be an editor/agent panel and an award’s dinner where the winner of the Clive Staples Award and of the Escape short story contest will be named. The conference closes on day two with a Fight Panel/Zombie Apocalypse/Game Tables—all sounding very speculative indeed!

All of these shenanigans and serious moments of instruction take place in St. Louis, MO, on the campus of the University of Missouri in less than two weeks. The actual conference is scheduled for Friday and Saturday, August 7-8, but there are also a few “early bird” activities Thursday afternoon and evening, most notably a workshop on the Irresistible Novel taught by Jeff Gerke.

Another factor which I believe makes Realm Makers such an attractive writers’ event is that it is so affordable. Those who signed up early received a whopping $100 discount, paying only $299 for the entire two day conference (the inexpensive, $25-a-night housing at the university not included).

Of course the other big draw is that the other conferees will be like-minded writers who love God and love speculative fiction. What’s not to like about a conference like this?

So who all is going?

Who all wants to start making plans now for next year’s Realm Makers conference? (Put me down on that list!)