All the children’s books I remember from my childhood were speculative stories. I wonder if there are any other kind. Animals talk, or trains. Stuffed animals come to life. Elephants fly. Or have no trunk.

I’ll admit, I don’t remember my first “chapter books.” Back in those dark ages, children’s literature wasn’t so carefully labeled. But I don’t think I was a great reader in those early years either.

Several books which my brother owned, as I recall, were The Adventures of Reddy Fox and perhaps one or two other “Adventures” by Thornton Burgess—definitely speculative stories since they were told from the perspective of various animals.

Another series my dad read to us (and my brother owned) was the Sugar Creek Gang books. We also had some Danny Orlis books by Bernard Palmer, put out by Moody Press, if I remember correctly.

As a teen, I discovered mystery. I loved Nancy Drew but also received copies of a Christian take-off of the Hardy Boys books.

Now these books which I read in my middle grade years and on into my early teens were no longer fantasy. They were largely contemporary, until I discovered Pride and Prejudice and Little Women. Suddenly history opened to me. And adult books, with adult protagonists.

All this reminiscing for a couple reasons. First I don’t think much has changed regarding those first books children receive—they are often infused with elements of fantasy.

Since the Harry Potter books came out, middle grade and young adult books have eagerly followed in its fantasy footsteps, though the type of fantasy has certainly swung—from a brief foray into fairy stories to vampire tales, urban fantasy, and dystopian. A year or so ago, there was a movement toward epic fantasy, but that seems to have been short lived.

But what about Christian books?

Sadly, there seems to be little for young children, and the titles that are in publishers’ catalogs seem to be missing the fantasy of the books I grew up loving or of the classic children’s stories such as Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne or Dr. Seuss’s The Cat in the Hat.

In addition, I don’t see any chapter books—let alone any fantasy stories that will spark the imagination.

Gratefully the publishers are doing a little better with middle grade and young adult fiction, though the number of titles is still small. However, there are some excellent offerings, many in the fantasy genre.

I have to admit, though, that I am troubled by the small amount of fiction offered by Christians for children, as I said recently at A Christian Worldview of Fiction. Because God has given adults the responsibility of passing on the truth about God, and because He said we are to use every opportunity to do so, I think stories offer the perfect opportunity for showing what we believe. I think speculative stories tap into the imagination of children, so the two are a perfect fit.

The problem, as I see it is this: Christian publishers don’t produce much children’s fiction—few board books, few if any chapter books, though some middle grade and young adult books.

Secondly, board books, which rely heavily on the pictures, don’t fit well into the new realities of publishing. The pictures don’t translate particularly well to e-readers and they are expensive to produce in print, making it difficult for self-published writers and illustrators to make any money from their books. Either they price their book low so readers can afford it—in which case, they make virtually no money—or they price the book so that they can make a profit but then sell few copies because of the expensive cover price.

Consequently, it seems traditional publishers need to step up and increase the number of titles they’re producing for children. They say, however, that children’s books don’t sell.

I find that hard to believe in light of the popularity of the Veggie Tales stories. I mean, a talking tomato or cucumber held kids captive. The popularity isn’t because of the graphics, I don’t think. The art work is pretty basic. Rather, I think the writing was imaginative and fun.

So those qualities seems to be the secret to selling children’s books.

Not to mention that women—moms and grandmas and aunts—are, by all reports, the largest number of customers in Christian book stores. How hard should it be to sell a mom a book for her kids?

I have to wonder if we, the consumers, might need to take the matter into our own hands and start pressing our bookstores and Christian publishers for more children’s books.

There are untold number of writers longing to put good books in the hands of children. And there are hundreds of thousands of children in need of good books. I can’t imagine there isn’t a way to bring the two together.

So, what books did you have as a small child? Did they have fantasy elements? What kinds of books would you like to see publishers produce in a larger quantity? What do you think readers can do to convince publishers there is a market for Christian children’s books? Or do you disagree that the market exists?

On The Edge Of The Dark Sea Of Darkness by Andrew Peterson is the first book in the Wingfeather Saga, a series for middle grade and young adults. Book four, The Warden And The Wolf King releases next month.

Book Blurb

Once, in a cottage above the cliffs on the Dark Sea of Darkness, there lived three children and their trusty dog Nugget. Janner Igiby, his brother Tink, their crippled sister Leeli are gifted children as all children are, loved well by a noble mother and ex-pirate grandfather. But they will need all their gifts and all that love to survive the evil pursuit of the venomous Fangs of Dang who have crossed the dark sea to rule the land with malice and pursue the Igibys who hold the secret to the lost legend and jewels of good King Wingfeather of the Shining Isle of Anniera.

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An Introduction to the Igiby Cottage (Very Brief)

Just outside the town of Glipwood, perched near the edge of the cliffs above the Dark Sea, sat a little cottage where lived the Igiby family. The cottage was rather plain, except for how comfortable it was, and how nicely it had been built, and how neatly it was kept in spite of the three children who lived there, and except for the love that glowed from it like firelight from its windows at night.

As for the Igiby family?

Well, except for the way they always sat late into the night beside the hearth telling stories, and when they sang in the garden while they gathered the harvest, and when the grandfather, Podo Helmer, sat on the porch blowing smoke rings, and except for all the good, warm things that filled their days there like cider in a mug on a winter night, they were quite miserable.

Quite miserable indeed, in that land where walked the Fangs of Dang.

1

The Carriage Comes, the Carriage Black

Janner Igiby lay trembling in his bed with his eyes shut tight, listening to the dreadful sound of the Black Carriage rattling along in the moonlight. His younger brother Tink was snoring in the bunk above him, and he could tell from his little sister Leeli’s breathing that she was asleep too. Janner dared to open his eyes and saw the moon, as white as a skull, grinning down on him through the window. As hard as he tried not to think about it, the nursery rhyme that had terrified children in the land of Skree for years sang in his head, and he lay there in the pale moonlight, his lips barely moving.

Lo, beyond the River Blapp
The Carriage comes, the Carriage Black
By shadowed steed with shadowed tack
And shadowed driver driving

Child, pray the Maker let you sleep
When comes the Carriage down your street
Lest all your dreams be dreams of teeth
And Carriages arriving

To wrest you from your berth and bower
In deepest night and darkest hour
Across the sea to frozen tower
Where Gnag the Nameless pounds you

At Castle Throg across the span,
A world away from kith and clan
You’ll weep at how your woes began
The night the shadows bound you

Away, beyond the River Blapp,
The Carriage came, the Carriage Black
By shadowed steed with shadowed tack
The night the Carriage found you

It’s no wonder that Janner had a hard time sleeping once he heard the faint thud of hooves and the jangle of chains. he could see in his mind the forms of the crows circling the Carriage and perched atop it, hear the croaking beaks and the flapping of black wings. he told himself that the sounds were only his imagination. But he knew that somewhere in the countryside that very night, the Black Carriage would stop at some poor soul’s house, and the children there would be taken away, never to be seen again.

Only last week he had overheard his mother crying about the taking of a girl from Torrboro. Sara Cobbler was the same age as Janner, and he remembered meeting her once when her family had passed through Glipwood. But now she was gone forever. One night she lay in bed just as he was now. She had probably kissed her parents good night and said a prayer. And the Black Carriage had come for her.

Had she been awake?

Did she hear the snort of the black horses outside her window or see the steam rising from their nostrils?

Did the Fangs of Dang tie her up?

Had she struggled when they put her into the Carriage, as if she were being fed into the mouth of a monster?

Whatever she had done, it was useless. She had been ripped away from her family, and that was the end of it. Sara’s parents had held a funeral wake for her. Being carried off by the Black Carriage was like dying. It could happen to anyone, at any time, and there was nothing to be done about it but to hope the Carriage kept moving when it rattled down your lane.

The rattles and clinks and hoofbeats echoed through the night. Was the Black Carriage getting closer? Would it make the turn up the lane to the Igiby cottage? Janner prayed to the Maker that it would not.

Nugget, Leeli’s dog, perked his head up at the foot of her bed and growled at the night beyond the window. Janner saw a crow alight on a bony branch outlined by the moon. Janner trembled, gripping his quilt and pulling it up to his chin. The crow turned its head and seemed to peer into Janner’s window, sneering at the boy whose wide eyes reflected back the moonlight. Janner lay there in terror, wishing he could sink deeper into his bed where the crow’s black eyes couldn’t see him. But the bird flapped away. The moon clouded over, and the thump-thump of hoofbeats and the creak-rattle of the Carriage faded, faded, finally into silence.

Janner realized that he’d been holding his breath, and he let it out slowly. He heard Nugget’s tail thump against the wall and felt much less alone knowing that the little dog was awake with him. Soon he was fast asleep, dreaming troubled dreams.

2

Nuggets, Hammers, and Totatoes

In the morning the dreams were gone.

The sun was shining, the cool of morning was losing ground to a hot summer sun, and janner was imagining that he could fly. He was watching the dragonflies float across the pasture, putting his mind into a dragonfly’s mind, to see what it saw and feel what it felt. He imagined the slight turn of a wing that sent it zipping across a meadow, whipping left and right, lifting on the wind up over the treetops, or scaling down the craggy drop to the Dark Sea. he imagined that if he were a dragonfly, he would smile while he flew (though he wasn’t sure that dragonflies could smile), because he wouldn’t have to worry about the ground tripping him up. It seemed to janner that in the last few months he had lost control of his limbs: his fingers were longer, his feet were bigger, and his mother had recently said that he was all elbows and knees.

Janner reached into his pocket and, looking around to be sure no one was watching, pulled out a folded piece of old paper. His stomach fluttered as it had when he found the paper the week before while sweeping his mother’s bedroom. he unfolded it now to brood upon a sketch of a boy standing at the prow of a small sailboat. The boy had dark hair and gangly limbs and looked undeniably like Janner. Big billowy clouds whitened the sky, and the spray of the waves burst up in splashes that looked so real and wet that it seemed to Janner that if he touched them, he would smear the picture. Beneath the drawing was written “My twelfth birthday. Two hours alone on the open sea, and the best day of my life so far.”

There was no name on the picture, but Janner knew in his heart that the boy was his father.

No one ever talked of his father—not his mother, nor his grandfather; Janner knew little about him. But seeing this picture was like opening a window on a dark place deep inside. It confirmed his suspicion that there was more to life than living and dying in the Glipwood Township. janner had never seven seen a boat up close. He had watched them from the cliffs, specks cutting slow paths like ribbons through the distant waves, sailed by a crew on some adventurous errand or other. He imagined himself on his own ship, feeling the wind and the spray like the boy in the picture—

Janner snapped out of his daydream to find himself leaning on a pitchfor, up to his knees in itchy hay. Instead of feeling the ocean wind, he faced a cloud of chaff and dust shaken by Danny the carthorse, impatiently harnessed to a wagon half ful of hay waiting to be carried across the field to the barn. janner had been working since sunrise and had made three trips already, anxious to finish his chores.

Today was Dragon Day Festival and the only day of the year that Janner was glad to be in the quiet town of Glipwood.

The whole village waited all year for Dragon Day, when all of Skree seemed to descend on Glipwood. There would be games and food, strange-looking people from faraway cities, and the dragons themselves rising up out of the Dark Sea of Darkness.

Seven years ago I may have hated Maleficent and would have been nervous about some themes of How to Train Your Dragon.

I would have thought: Why do these stories attempt to show that “evil” isn’t always evil, or what we think is good isn’t always good? Why is mankind seen as bad and nature seen as good? Are these stories trying to subvert traditional concepts of right and wrong?

Some stories do attempt this.¹

But thanks to Biblical theology, I no longer have that objection to all such stories.

How come?

Because I believe that in the real world, between pure good and worst evil lies a third party. If our view of the True Story includes only God (good) and man (bad), we’ll be confused when stories explore how this third party — the creation itself — plays in the story.

‘Maleficent’

In Maleficent, the witch of Sleeping Beauty is recast as an originally good guardian of innocent creation.

On May 30 Disney released its latest live-action fairy-tale adaptation, this one based on the 1959 film Sleeping Beauty and starring another version of that film’s famous villainess.

Movieguide didn’t like it. Spoilers ahead:

The movie will confuse viewers about who the villain is. Although Maleficent has put a curse upon Aurora, her heart is changed, but she still uses magic. Then, toward the end of the movie, the villain becomes Stefan, the father, who wants to take down the forest and kill Maleficent. This leaves viewers confused on who’s the real hero.

Cursed because of man, Maleficent tries to curse the child of man.

Well, this viewer is not always the brightest smartphone screen in a darkened theater, but even I understood who the real heroes were. It sounds like Movieguide’s reviewer expected a retelling of Sleeping Beauty, not a different story with similar characters.

But I can understand not knowing what to “do” with a traditional villainess who suddenly gets a new and more-redemptive journey. What are they trying to pull?

The solution is this: the story recasts Maleficent from a plain witch to a forest guardian. She protects the natural realm of Faerie, a paradise of mostly CG gnomes, tree-beings, and sparkling unknown air-spirits. When a young boy who wanders into the forest and repents of trying to steal a precious stone, Maleficent befriends and later falls in love with him. But the boy becomes a power-seeking man who naturally betrays her love — for reasons many viewers did not get but Christians familiar with “total depravity” will comprehend. And Maleficent, now a strong yet feminine queen (portrayed dazzlingly by Angelina Jolie), wars against the armies of man’s kingdom who seek to despoil the forest.

Or as Movieguide oversimplifies:

There’s an environmentalist message to the movie where mankind is the problem, destroying the forest and bringing in iron, which hurts the fairies.

Does the story imply that man is the problem and nature is good? Not if you pay attention. Yes, Maleficent represents an icon of nature. But in her anger against man she herself turns the forest dark and frightens the gnomes and fairies — and later regrets her vengeful curse on Princess Aurora. The story is more complex. Both man and creation must be redeemed.

‘How to Train Your Dragon’

On Monday Rebecca LuElla Miller posted an updated article about Dreamworks’ smash 2010 hit film, whose sequel will release this Friday. She cautioned viewers not to consider any story “safe.” Amen! If you go into this story expecting binary categories of right and wrong (man is good/bad, dragons are good/bad), you will be confused.

Who is the story’s “bad” — man, shown by the Vikings? If so, why do we love these heroes, especially spunky dragon-trainer Hiccup? Who is the story’s “good” — the dragons? If so, why are the wild dragons genuinely dangerous? And in either case, why does victory come after estranged father Stoick and son Hiccup both admit their human wrongs and reconcile, and when Hiccup rides his new dragon Toothless into a spectacular battle against a gargantuan, fire-breathing, traditionally evil dragon?

In How to Train Your Dragon, man and creation must reconcile. By the story’s end, Vikings and dragons have learned to work together and find redemption. Yet man has not simply become “at one with nature,” as if wild nature is superior. Instead man has stopped sinning against nature and become a better nature-steward. The meaning is right there in the title: it’s not “how to be trained by your dragon,” but “how to train your dragon.”²

Echoes of groaning Earth

Fallen man reconciles with wild creation.

I don’t know the intentions of the Maleficent or How to Train Your Dragon creators. But I do know their subversions of traditional “villains” like an evil fairy-witch or dragons need not be seen as attacks on Biblical morality. In fact, they echo the Biblical truth of creation’s redemption.

1. Mankind sins against God (Gen. 3). It’s man’s fault.
2. God curses the ground (Gen. 3: 17–19). But it’s not creation’s fault.
3. Ever since, mankind has had a love/hate relationship with creation.
4. Jesus Christ comes to redeem His children.
5. And someday even “the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Rom. 8:21).

Until that day, “the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now” (Rom. 8:22). Groaning creation lashes back at mankind. Evil Faerie queens weep with rage at our betrayal. Dragons in ignorance or fear blast our homes and even kill us. But just these stories end in hope — the evil fairy redeemed and reconciled with man’s kingdom, the fearful dragons now friendly and tamed — so Jesus Christ will make His redeemed world where man’s and creation’s groaning turns to singing.

Last week R. L. Copple posted an interesting review of the Christian film God Is Not Dead. Part of his critique concerned how atheists or non-Christians generally would receive the movie (not well).

It left me thinking about how we, as Christians, should receive criticism from the world. How much does it matter? Should we care how they react to our films and books? Do they care how we react to theirs? I don’t recall any atheists or agnostics worrying about how Christians took Noah or The Da Vinci Code.

Because the secular world is culturally dominant, especially in movies and television, Christians are more likely to hear and be affected by their critiques. And our evangelistic mission gives us a reason to look outward.

The Apostle Paul, who became all things to all men, certainly showed regard for what unbelievers think. While laying down regulations for the church service to the Corinthians, he wrote, “So if the whole church comes together and everyone speaks in tongues, and … some unbelievers come in, will they not say that you are out of your mind?” He commanded the Romans, and all Christians, to “do what is right in the eyes of everybody”. He even required that elders have a good reputation with outsiders.

In all these cases, the apostle is addressing what unbelievers think of our conduct, which is infinitely more important than what they think of our art. But he still establishes a principle of caring about the opinions of unbelievers.

Another reason to pay attention to the criticism of the world is that it will, on occasion, be right. C. S. Lewis once warned that a group “can create around it a vacuum across which no voice will carry. … Whatever faults the circle has – and no circle is without them – thus become incurable.” The Christian community must avoid what Lewis, in that same passage, calls “the wholesale deafness which is arrogant and inhuman”.

But on balance, we must retain the “partial deafness which is noble and necessary”. If we cared too much about the opinions of the world we wouldn’t be Christians. The world is not on God’s side. If, by God’s grace, we are, they’re not on our side, either. Paul puts the divide starkly: “What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?”

Christians are often biased in their judgments of art. But so are non-Christians. It’s a human thing. Nobody really enjoys it when a book or film promulgates a viewpoint, political or religious, they disagree with; often people ignore it, but nobody enjoys it.

Beyond this, fundamentally opposed worldviews means a different understanding of reality. In many things, it won’t matter much. A person’s metaphysical beliefs will not much affect his views of what makes for a pleasing writing style or a well-paced film. But the deeper you go, the more apparent the divide will become. If we think we’ve found the pearl of great price, and they think we’ve found cheap imitation pearls, any talk about the matter will run into a wall or, at the least, a mist.

Christians should not shut out the criticism of the world. But neither should we give it more weight than it deserves. We must not look to the world for our validation – not for our lives, our faith, or even (in a kind of cultural cringe) for our art. That’s not the praise we were meant to seek.

BLESSED ARE THE PURE IN HEART FOR THEY SHALL SEE GOD

In the following verse, it would seem Paul is giving believers a pass on avoiding generally accepted no-nos.

Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled. (Titus 1:15)

Some who advocate “grittier” fiction (allowance of cussing and sex) would point to this verse to justify their position. But does it? Let’s take a closer look.

Context

Paul, after some introductory remarks and talking about the requirements in selecting overseers for the new churches in Crete, transitions in verse 9, which talks about overseers need to accurately transmit the faith given to them to the faithful, shifts gears to focus on a specific set of false teachings in verse 10:

For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision:

The rest of Chapter 1 Paul focuses on the false teaching of the circumcision, that is, Jewish Christians who taught that new Gentile converts needed to follow the whole Law of Moses, including all the rules dealing with unclean food, to be in good standing with God. The verse right before 15 is a repeat of last week’s verse, and highlights the fact that verse 15 needs to be understood in this context:

Not giving heed to Jewish fables, and commandments of men, that turn from the truth. (Titus 1:14)

The phrase, “Unto the pure all things are pure,” is specifically a reference to the Jewish teachings on avoiding unclean food. The “all” in that section refers to all food. Not everything under the sun. Paul is instructing Titus to counter that teaching by instructing the faithful that purity and corruption are conditions of the inner man based on faith in Christ, and cannot be changed by what you eat. Downing some pork isn’t going to make the believer filled with the Holy Spirit impure and unclean, nor is eating the right foods going to make the unbeliever clean and pure.

This thought originates with Christ:

Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man. (Matt. 15:11)

Additionally, the concept is confirmed by Peter’s vision in Acts 10:9-16 and the council of Jerusalem in Acts 15:29 refusal to pass on the unclean laws to the Gentiles.

This verse can only apply to other things where the same principle can be applied, but cannot be blindly applied to anything and everything, including sins one might want to justify.

Application

Is entertainment the same as eating food? Can we apply this verse to our entertainment consumption as Paul did to food?

I believe there are valid parallels, but not across the board. There are some key differences between the two.

1. What food one eats, in and of itself, isn’t a sin or directly cause one to sin. There are forms of entertainment that either are sinful in and of themselves, or directly influence people to sin. The wrong entertainment can lead to impurity and corruption.

2. Food operates on the body. Entertainment influences the mind, will, emotions, and heart. As Jesus said, it is from the heart that a man is defiled (Matt. 15:17-20). Food goes into the belly and then is dumped. The wrong food can’t influence your heart like the wrong entertainment can.

3. Food is a necessity. Entertainment, while being important for relaxing, isn’t going to kill you if you don’t get it.

So we can’t make the same blanket statement on entertainment as we can for food, but it is clear that discernment is needed. Paul makes this clearer to the Corinthians:

All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. (1 Cor. 6:12)

To paraphrase, the law of what is unclean no longer applies, but that doesn’t leave discernment behind. There are “lawful” activities that can spiritually harm us, even as what is okay for one might not be for another.

I confess, I like Star Trek. I find it fun and entertaining, plot holes and all. I also recognize its philosophy and worldview are anti-Christian. But I still like it and watch it. I feel I can watch it without discovering one morning that I’ve cashed in the Faith to become secular. I can critique its flaws even as I enjoy it, apply what is beneficial and ignore the rest.

I also confess to liking the Monkees. I have the two seasons of the TV series on DVD, and all their albums. But I’ve yet to adopt their lifestyle or attitude about girls and love.

I’ll confess as well to watching a lot of the Roadrunner and Coyote on the TV growing up. One of the most violent cartoons ever made. Yet, I didn’t grow up to become a serial killer, wife/child beater, or very violent at all. Because I knew as a kid that was not real. I had enough discernment even then to know lighting a bomb tied to the back of my brother would do a lot more than merely turn him black.

In essence, discernment not only involves what we do and don’t consume, but also with what we do take in, discernment acts as a filter. Much like the digestive track does for food, we can learn to separate the needed heart nutrients and dump the rest. As Paul points out in Titus 1:16, it is the fruit produced that determines uncleanness, not what you take in.

But that also means we can’t say to ourselves, “Oh, all is pure. I can feast indiscriminately to my heart’s content,” without fearing being corrupted and led down the wrong path. That should be clear from the context in Titus, who Paul is instructing to not let the circumcision teach their false doctrines. If all things are pure, Paul wouldn’t be concerned that they might be led astray.

Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. (1 Cor. 10:31)

Next time, I’ll look deeper into this verse, a key to developing discernment. Any other verses I should tackle? Mention them in the comments.

A few years ago I saw How to Train Your Dragon, the first installment, as it turns out since How to Train Your Dragon 2 is due out in a few days. The original is a wonderful, fun, well-executed, “safe” production.

The main themes involved parent-child relationships and being true to oneself. Good things, for the most part. There was even a touching moment when the dad tells his son he’s proud of him.

I can see parents happily taking their children to see this movie and its sequel and feeling oh, so good about it. I know I felt uplifted when I walked out of the theater.

But here’s the thing. There are some side issues that parents would be wise to think about and to discuss with their children, yet many may draw the false conclusion about the movie because of its happy ending and the reconciliation achieved, father with son and humans with dragons, that there are no ideas that may need to be questioned.

Here are some of the those issues, most tangential to the main point.

• The decision not to kill a dragon (animal rights?)
• The existence of a “greater evil” than the one the humans saw (big government? big business? God? Satan? Who is the greater evil extorting the “dragons” today?)
• The attitude toward war. (Father: They’re killing hundreds of us. Son: But we’ve killed thousands of them. They’re just defending themselves.)
• Be true to yourself. (No matter that your true self is sinful?)

Am I saying How to Train Your Dragon is a bad movie and people should smash the DVD they bought and boycott HTTYD 2? Hardly! I loved the first movie (and hope to love the second) and would recommend it to anyone. It’s family friendly, but it’s artistic, too. At times I thought I was seeing an animated version of Avatar (an animation of an animation—now if that doesn’t say something about the digital revolution).

What I am saying is that “safe” fiction is the most dangerous kind because people are disarmed, no longer alert to possible ideas that may foster a false worldview.

Ideas, of themselves, are not dangerous. I could, and did, listen to atheist Christopher Hitchens in a debate about the existence of God and was unaffected by his worldview because I was alert to his worldview.

Ideas that float in under the radar, however, are another thing. They enter our minds unchallenged, co-exist with the truth, and someday, after they’ve been fortified, may even challenge the truth to a shootout.

For the last thirty years at least, broadcast media as well as print media has taken this “under the radar” approach as a means to introduce a shift in worldview through “safe” stories. In fact, stories like those depicted in Glee and other “harmless” TV programs validate a belief and lifestyle that contradicts Scripture.

But the reality is, “safe” Christian fiction is no more safe than the media brand of safe.

For example, I read one book put out by a Christian imprint that was all about lust. However, the heroine refused to marry the hero (because he wasn’t a Christian), but she didn’t refuse his kisses and didn’t stop dwelling on them or longing for them or becoming aroused by them. The story came to one titillating climax after another (pun intended). But it was safe since it had no bad words and no bedroom scenes.

That book purposefully stretched the normal boundaries (the author called it “edgy”). What about those stories that are in the Christian fiction sweet spot, Amish romance? Does anyone know or care how Christian the Amish actually are? Are these books addressing legalism? (I’m asking, because I haven’t read any.) Church divisions? (Amish churches have divided over whether a woman’s dress must be double-breasted or not, whether or not a hook-and-eye is acceptable, and many other such particulars.) Or is there an underlying assumption that whatever the Amish do is good because of their safe externals?

More importantly, are readers asking questions about the pastoral culture they lose themselves in? Or are we letting our guard down? Because these stories are about a group of Christians. And Christian companies are publishing them. And Christian bookstores are selling them.

As I see it, if “safe” fiction makes us drop our guard, then it is the most dangerous fiction of all.

– – – – –

This article, not specifically about Christian speculative fiction but applicable to it, first appeared, minus some editorial changes, at A Christian Worldview of Fiction in July 2010.