Six years ago a group of Christian speculative writers started talking about creating an award for Christian speculative fiction, and the Clive Staples Award was born. For two years we operated as a readers’ choice award and had modest success. However, for various reasons, the award went dark after 2010. We at Spec Faith would like to see it continue, and even to see it grow.

The “growing” part is still largely in the dream stage–with the goal to acquire corporate sponsors willing to offer a significant monetary prize. We’d also like to add a second round of judging, bringing in professionals to make the final selection of the winner while still retaining the readers choice format to select the finalists. But all that’s down the road.

What’s in front of us today is a second start, this time hosted here at Spec Faith. Starting next week we’ll open up nominations, then readers will have a chance to read books they haven’t read yet, and in a month or so, vote for the winner.

There are some requirements, both for the books that are eligible and for the voters who can vote. Here’s what you need to know.

Clive Staples Award for Christian Speculative Fiction

Recognizing the best in Christian Speculative Fiction

The books that are eligible must be all of the following:

• Christian—either overtly or because of a Christian worldview

•  published in English

• published by a publisher which has no direct affiliation with the author and which pays a royalty (i.e. not self-published, even through any of the services offered by publishing companies)

• published between January 1, 2012 and December 31, 2012

•  in the science fiction/fantasy/allegory/futuristic/supernatural/supernatural suspense/horror category

Readers will nominate and will vote on the books they believe to be the best in the category.

Nomination guidelines

• Authors, agents, and publishers may not nominate books with which they are affiliated.

• Those wishing to nominate a book must leave a comment including the title, author, and publisher.

Readers’ Choice Voting

Voters will be eligible only if they have read two or more of the books nominated. We want this to be a selection by readers of Christian speculative fiction, not just the fans of particular authors.

Below are standards to consider.

Standards for Clive Staples Award books:

I. Writing Style/Mechanics

Does the quality of the author’s prose (syntax, tone, voice, pacing etc.) enhance the story?

Is there a both showing and telling?

Are there errors in word use, spelling, grammar, paragraphing, and punctuation?

II. Setting

Is the setting well established and realistic?

Are the speculative elements believable and necessary to the story?

III. Characterization

Does the main character have clear internal and external goals?

Are the characters complex, with both strengths and weaknesses?

Are the characters believably and realistically motivated?

Is dialogue natural?

Does dialogue make each person seem unique?

Is there logical and appropriate character development?

IV. Plot

Is the story structured with a clearly recognizable arc of conflict, crisis, and resolution?

Does the narrative flow, or does it tend toward the disjointed?

Are the obstacles to be overcome sufficiently challenging to the main character?

Are the events in the plot unpredictable?

Is the resolution something new or unexpected?

Was it credible?

Did it seem believable?

V. Theme

Does the story contain a central or dominating idea?

Does the theme arise from the characters and events of the story?

Is the theme consistent with a Christian worldview?

Does the theme overwhelm the story, or is it well integrated into the story?

Watch for the announcement about the special Clive Staples Award page where you will leave your nominations.

So what does Philippians 2:12-13 have to say about perseverance?  And how does that fit in with Christian speculative fiction?

To be truthful, almost no one understands this verse as having anything to do with perseverance, and many aren’t quite sure what to make of it at all. Here it is from the NIV:

Therefore my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.

The confusing phrase is “work out your salvation.” What in the galaxy does that mean?

Does it mean that we must “work” for our salvation?  Does this mean that we are under “law” and not under grace?  Am I responsible for my own salvation?  Is my salvation contingent upon my behavior?

This verse can be even more troubling if you look at a cross-reference using “fear and trembling”:

Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling.  Kiss the Son, lest he be angry and you be destroyed in your way, for his wrath can flare up in a moment…

Psalm 2:11-12

Talk about problematic cross-references!  It is no wonder that people begin to worry about their salvation when they read such verses.

Is this what Paul had in mind when God inspired him to write Philippians 2:12-13?  Surely not!  For also from the quill of Paul came the most startling message ever given to mankind—that forgiveness is freely offered to all by God through Jesus Christ.  Paul’s declares this as such:

This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.  There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

 Romans 3:22-24

But if Philippians 2:12-13 does not mean that we are responsible for our salvation, then how do we understand this difficult passage?  What does it mean, and how can we apply it to our lives?

In order to understand this passage, two words/phrases need to be looked at in more detail—“work out,” and “salvation.”  These words will hold the key to understanding what Paul meant.

Note that I am proposing a different translation of this verse than what you are used to. Yes, this is a bit radical, but it is also fun to dig beneath the surface and discover keys that unlock a treasure chest of knowledge. So hang on for the ride!

The First Piece To the Puzzle—Understanding “Work Out”

When translating from the New Testament Greek language, it is important, first of all, to understand that a Greek word rarely has a “single” English word equivalent.  This is especially true for the Greek word typically translated “work out” in Philippians 2:12-13.

The Greek word here is (when transcribed to English letters) katergazesthe.  This word is a contraction of the preposition kata, and an imperative (or command) form of the verb ergazomai, which means “to work.”

The verb ergazomai, used in this context, is a second person plural command.  In other words, Paul is commanding “you all” to work.  Not only this, but the verb also is of a form in the Greek indicating Paul intends us to continue to work, and not just for a moment.  In other words, Paul is not saying “work for a little while,” or “work just for today,” but rather “you all continue to work.”

The kata is where many translators get the word “out” in the “work out” phrase.  However, this is not the best translation in this context.

Understanding How “Kata” Modifies A Verb

To begin with, the preposition kata has many meanings, mostly dependent on the context. I’m not going to bore you with all of the possibilities here, but know that whenever a preposition is merged with a verb in a language, it changes the meaning of the verb.  This is true in English as well as in Greek.  In this case, kata changes the simple meaning of ergazomai.  This is very important, as this can greatly affect our understanding of Philippians 2:12-13.

But how does kata affect a verb?

Generally speaking, it has a “completion” effect upon the verb.  It changes the verb so that the verb is to be understood as being taken “to its limit” or natural conclusion.  Consider some other Greek examples:

This same idea of kata modifying a word so that it is taken to its “completion” can be seen even in English words today.  For example:

If this is true, then how does this modify our understanding of katergazesthe as used in Philippians 2:12-13?

How “Kata” Modifies The Verb “Work”

Using the understanding that we have just gained, katergazomai could be translated as any of the following:

• work completely
• work thoroughly
• work until the end
• produces in the end
• brings about in the end

To understand this, one can look at all the other places in the New Testament where this Greek word is used.  In these verses, take special care to “see” (behind the verse and into the Greek) how kata changes the verb “work” to bring out a nuance of completion or thoroughness to the verse.

Romans 1:27, Romans 2:9, Romans 4:15, Romans 5:3-4, Romans 7:8, Romans 7:13, Romans 7:15, 17, 18b, 20, Romans 15:18, 1 Corinthians 5:3, 2 Corinthians 4:17, 2 Corinthians 5:5, 2 Corinthians 7:10, 11, 2 Corinthians 9:11, 2 Corinthians 12:12, Ephesians 6:13, Philippians 2:12, James 1:3, and 1 Peter 4:3

With this information, we will turn in Part 2 to understanding the word “salvation.”

– – – – –

Robert Treskillard is a Celtic enthusiast who holds a B.A. in Biblical & Theological Studies from Bethel University, Minnesota.  He has been crafting stories from his early youth, is a software developer, graphic artist, and sometime bladesmith.  He and his wife have three children and are still homeschooling their youngest. They live in the country outside St. Louis, Missouri.

It all began when Robert’s son wanted to learn blacksmithing and sword-making.  The two set out to learn the crafts and in the process were told by a relative that they were descended from a Cornish blacksmith.  This lit the fire of Robert’s imagination, and so welding his Celtic research to his love of the legends of King Arthur, a book was forged—Merlin’s Blade, book one of The Merlin Spiral, coming April 2013 from Zondervan.

More information about Robert can be found through his blog, on Facebook, and on Twitter.

“This world is not my home”; “When he dies he’ll go home”; “That body isn’t him, it’s just the shell”; “You don’t have a soul, you are a soul, you have a body” — if you’ve heard any of these lines, or read them in a Christian novel, you’ve just been attacked by a spiritoid.

I define “spiritoid” as that amorphous existence most Christians suspect will be our eternal final form in Heaven, as opposed to living on New Earth (Rev. 21) in resurrected bodies like Christ’s (Phil. 3:20-21). Like most spiritoids, this notion is hard to catch. Yet it’s one of the worst alien beliefs found among multiple species of Fiction Christians From Another Planet(!). In one novel I read, it took the form of a paraphrase of this “quote”:

You don’t have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.

Of course C. S. Lewis said that.

Yes, C.S. Lewis absolutely said that, if you’re referencing The Book C.S. Lewis Didn’t Write, or the C.S. Lewis from the Mirror Universe who sports a goatee as scholar-in-residence at the First University of the Terran Empire. But! seriously, Lewis never wrote that line, and it’s perplexing why so many assume he did, because it doesn’t even make a lot of sense.

What do so many people find comforting about that phrase? Why else would they repeat it?

Maybe for the same reason many other FCFAP(!) tropes spread: they sound so spiritual.

Unlike other alien notions in Christian fiction and broad Christian-speculative genres, the spiritoid beliefs seem prevalent in particular genres. Here I will break my own series rules and, instead of vague allusions or parody fiction, refer to specific novels by name for these reasons: a) I enjoy these novels and heartily recommend them; b) these authors often include resurrection-body truths alongside spiritoid notions, proving that these beliefs are usually “caught” and not taught because they’ve long been default among us.

1. Spiritual-warfare fiction.

Frank Peretti is boss. This can’t be denied. Still, his pioneer spiritual-warfare-thriller novels from the 1980s also pioneered other notions, since established in spiritual-warfare genres:

1. We must open our eyes to the Unseen Reality all around us.
2. It turns out the Real Battle is not really what we see, but in the spiritual dimensions.

Absolutely there’s truth in that — after all, from where did Peretti get his most famous novel title but Ephesians 6:12? Yet in one sense the truth that “the real battle is unseen” can easily become a much more questionable notion, that “only unseen realities matter.”

Ah, but what are all those muscular fiery angelic warriors and goblin-like sulfur-spewing demons fighting over? The physical world. Who controls it. Who “possesses” it. (The Devil has previously claimed he owns the planet, as in Matt. 4:9, but “the Earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof,” as in Psalm 24:1, also quoted amidst applications in 1 Cor. 10:26.)

Earth and our bodies, not only “spiritual” realms, are the battleground. Spiritual-warfare fiction should explore this tension. Otherwise we miss exploring how people’s physical conditions interface with their spiritual states. For example, is that person easily diagnosed as “demon possessed” or mentally ill? I suggest fiction can’t give the answers, but it can explore them — explore beyond “that’s easy, this character is under demonic influence.”

2. End-times fiction.

This one featured such trendy news events as a meteor striking Earth, and a disabled cruise ship, both in one episode.

This is fresher in my mind, thanks to my recent resumption of unapologetic Left Behind series fandom. Actually I’ve been re-listening to the fantastic dramatized audio series, and while I remain a fan — who recognizes how God worked in my life through this overall well-written pop thriller series — I also see some of the Gnostic, spiritoid impulses therein:

1. Biblically, the Resurrection comes simultaneous with Christ’s return (1 Cor. 15, 1 Thess. 4:3-18). Splitting the two apart, separated by a seven-year Tribulation and perhaps even a 1,000-year kingdom on Earth before the New Earth, now seems odd.
2. Left Behind could imply, likely counter to its own creators’ views, that the present-day Church and its work on Earth won’t really matter all that much. Rather, the real action begins when Jesus evacuates the Church in time for a seven-year Tribulation, during which it’s the Jews, not the Church, that do all the significant work, aided by Gentile “Tribulation saints” who are like Church II: The Much Improved Sequel.
3. In the final prequel/“simulquel,” The Rapture, the narrative actually follows several characters on the way up at the titular apocryphal event. In Heaven, which is always hard to describe in fiction, characters are able to see the literal mansions where they will live forever. I’m not sure what to make of this, for it seems to reinforce the idea that Christians’ final eternal home is anywhere-else-but-a-resurrected-planet-Earth. Maybe the authors meant this as an advance vision? I do recall New Earth making a cameo appearance at the end of the otherwise plodding and plotless Kingdom Come.

God used Left Behind to change my life. I likely would not love speculative stories so much if not for that series. (Soon I’ll also begin a new blog series based on listening to Left Behind.) Yet I now wonder if even “pre-trib” end-times fiction could emphasize the Resurrection instead of evacuation-of-souls-from-an-inevitably-doomed-to-be-nuked-from-orbit-Earth.

Spiritoid solutions

One can’t go wrong in studying more in Scripture about Christ’s own resurrection and ours, starting with the above-referenced passages, along with Isaiah 60, Romans 8, and Rev. 21.

Stories that emphasize the goodness of the physical world do exist. In fact, that’s the default view of great fantasy novels, which spend much of their time not only referring to spiritual realities, but taking characters on long journeys through wild lands where by day they find plants and animals, and by night campfires gaze up to the sky in wonder. As we’re learning more to anticipate our resurrected life after the afterlife, let’s find such stories, delight in them for God’s glory, recommend them to friends, and perhaps even write more ourselves.

What other ways might we swat away attacking spiritoids in Christian speculative stories?

We can debate the reasons at length—the innate longing for a redeemer, to see good triumph over evil, or to be freed from our feelings of impotence; a belief there must be more to this life than our humdrum existence—but no one can argue that superheroes have long captured the human imagination.

From the halls of Odin to the exploits of Beowulf, the graphic-art mythos of Superman, the school day victories of colorful Power Rangers—even the near-magical brilliance of Sherlock’s intelligence and the brave new world of scientific discovery—superheros are super!

It’s straight-up fun with no collateral damage. The only ones getting clubbed by Thor’s hammer or Ka-POWed by Batman’s fist are the most villainous of villains, most hideous of mutants, most craven of the fallen. The good and the innocent, the folks with honest faces like ours, are defended. And, of course, the prettiest are gallantly rescued, because beauty is its own reward.

Some years back, a co-worker related the time she asked her four-year-old grandson what he wanted to be when he grew up. “A Ninja Turtle,” he declared. Granted, he may have interpreted the question in terms of Halloween costumes. But still… How many boys aspire to be a real hero—say, an Elijah, or the Apostle Paul? We’re more likely to see girls emulate Jezebel than Hannah. And who on earth daydreams about the glories of living in Hebrews 11?

The qualities that earn hero status—determination, wealth, pride, sexual powers—are, to one degree or another, attainable goals to anyone who tries hard enough. Superheroes are Ego’s mirror. The mild-mannered Clark Kent embodies Everyman’s potential given the right combination of luck and asteroids.

Heaven forbid heroism be too unattainable. Be holy, for God is holy? Walk by faith not by sight? Move mountains through prayer? Don’t be ridiculous; I live in the real world.

Maybe the real world isn’t what we’d like to think. And maybe, neither is redemption. Could it be that the real Redeemer will tear off our honest-faced masks and force us to see the evil within? Please, no—that’s a little too real.

Nadab and Abihu mistook Jehovah God for a genie in a bottle. They performed the spell they’d seen work before, chanting what they thought were the magic words. But the fire they summoned from heaven wasn’t what they had in mind. The missing ingredient for them—and for us—was the dreaded humble obedience.

We can’t do God’s thing our way and expect to come out a hero. Rather, when we obey God with slave-like submission (ouch! did Paul really mean that?), God will accept that offering. He’ll use it as a tool, to do His thing His way. Sometimes the result’s flashy and sometimes it’s not. But whatever it looks like, it’s superpowered.

What if we really believed what God says with the kind of faith that brings fundamental change to our lives? What if we honestly believed these lives to be no longer our own, but the exclusive property of the Sovereign God? What if we consciously, deliberately, and actually put aside our old fleshly attitudes and habits and put on the humility of Christ?

We’d be superheroes.

Bulging biceps aren’t required. Neither are Wonderwoman legs. The only prerequisite for super heroism is what God has already given us. Just that… but all of that. The good, the bad, and the ugly.

Imagine what a church might be like with superheroes in the pews. A home, if mom and dad were superheroes. A community, with a few superhero citizens.

Imagine what fiction might look like if superheroes were writing it.

Magic – just the mention of it can cause many a “good Christian” to draw dividing lines, take sides and ready for attack. Magic – what poison hides in this simple word that causes such a commotion and brings some to cast judgement of damnation on those who employ its use in their fiction? Are we being discerning or just overreacting?

My brother and I host an online community wherein thousands of teens interact daily in discussion forums about our books, life in general, entertainment, current events and topics of faith. Recently the topic of Narnia’s use of magic has risen to the surface for many of our young readers and the arguments on both sides of the conversation has our membership debating the value and dangers of magic. While we do not take nearly as many liberties with magic in our stories as C.S. Lewis has, the discussion has led us to start drafting our response to the growing concern over what is okay to engage in when it comes to the marriage of faith and magic.

Magic in the Story is a series of blog posts targeted at exploring the various uses of magic in fiction over the next few weeks. We’ll be heavily using references from Chronicle of Narnia series as an example because…well…it’s likely the most visible, liberally executed and well-known example of “Christian magic” in the genre. (There we go applying the label “Christian” to something again in hopes of making it sound more holy. Can I get a Grilled Cheesus anyone?)

To that end, I invite you on the journey with me.

Part 1: What’s the Big Deal?  <—you are here
Part 2: The Two Faces of Magic   (next week)

C.S. Lewis’ use of “magic” in his books is, perhaps, one of the most well known and hotly debated topics of fiction within Christian circles. To say that some Christian readers don’t like the Chronicles of Narnia because characters in his stories employ the aid of magic, astrology, mythical gods in their adventures would not be anything new or shocking. I’m sure you’ve heard the arguments before, but here are a handful of some of the bigger ones.

1) Story magic is wrong because “magic is witchcraft” and witchcraft is strongly condemned by the Bible. “You shall not permit a sorceress to live.” (Exodus 22:18)  How can followers of Christ/Aslan performing magic spells be okay?

2) Astrology or at the very least, medieval cosmology, is a form of idol worship and the Bible is very clear about the dangers of consulting the stars. Isaiah 47:13 – “All the counsel you have received has only worn you out! Let your astrologers come forward, those stargazers who make predictions month by month, let them save you from what is coming upon you. Surely they are like stubble; the fire will burn them up. They cannot even save themselves from the power of the flame. Here are no coals to warm anyone; here is no fire to sit by.”  So how is it that Christians should go along with children reading about Prince Caspian’s mentor who predicts the conjunction of two ‘noble planets’ Tarva and Alambil and says: ‘Look well upon them. Their meeting is fortunate and means some great good for the sad realm of Narnia.”?

3) Pagan mythology and deities are mixed with allegory of faith thereby blurring the lines between true faith and mere myth. “…Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. …Understand what the will of the Lord is.” (Ephesians 5:6-17)   So, should we be comfortable to mix the “Christ figure” of Aslan with Bacchus? Surely these elements are incompatible, for ‘what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial?’ (2 Corinthians 6:14).

4) The appearance is evil and anything that defies God and/or the Bible or contradicts them or anything like that is, in essence, an appearance of evil.  “Abstain from all appearance of evil.” 1 Thessalonians 5:22

To be sure, these are are very strong and valid points, backed by very direct and clear scripture. There is no doubt that the occult and its magic are not to be taken lightly in our world. It is a very real evil and a sin that God abhors. There is no middle ground on that. But before diving into the specific use of magic in Narnia (our running example for all of fiction) we must first ask ourselves a larger question about the use of story magic and the differences between it and the magic of real life (if there are any).

Is Story-Magic Safe in Fantasy Fiction?

For starters, we would do well to consider the genre in which the story is being written. The fantasy/fairy-tale genre, is one in which a variety of magic elements play an integral role in the mechanics of the storytelling. For example, the magic by which a goose might lay a golden egg in a land of giants is clearly a storytelling device employed by Aesop’s fables that causes us to think about our own foolish desires and the greater lesson of greed that comes from the tale. While we might all be pleased to discover a goose laying a golden egg on our doorstep, none of us expect to actually find one. Why? Because we realize it is merely a story – a fable. I contend that this kind of story-magic is not the same at all as the real-life occult magic or sorcery against which the Bible warns. The two “magics” have no common ground with each other any more than the magic of walking through a doorway to another world is possible in our world.

The lesson the magic allows us to teach may, in fact, be very real, but the means by which the lesson is learned is quickly dismissed by the reader as quickly as it is consumed. Why? Because the very definition of the title “fantasy fiction” is “an unrealistic or improbable supposition”. With this in mind, the reader of such fiction should know going into the story that the words on the page bear no actual parallel to our own world at all. To be sure, the lines between fiction and reality are often blurred in these stories. What is real and what is not is not always clearly defined. But this is no different that the God-given imagination at work in a child’s mind when they are at play. In the end, the imaginary worlds are put away and we are left to live and breath in this one. The only reality by which we are judged. No explanation can be given – nor need it be.

By now we must realize that the role of magic in story is primarily symbolic. It is symbolic of power. It is a means of seeing what might be if. It is the joy of childlike wonder and imagination. These are all good things to employ when designed to shed light on truth. Christ certainly sparked the imagination and wonder of children as he told them stories.

There is also another form of magic at work in Narnia and implied in many other fictional tales. It is the magic of the unknown natural laws of God’s world. In the medieval world there was often overlap between science, medicine, faith and magic. Much of what was considered magic was merely natural cause and effect reactions of the natural world applied. What we call alchemy and astrology were actually the early precursors to modern day chemistry and astronomy. Even then, both of these disciplines of “magic” were grounded in the medieval Christian theology of the cosmos which believed the universe to be natural and supernatural forces which were held together by God.

In Narnia, as in many fantasy worlds, the “magic” is often part of the fabric of the world. It is the laws by which the worlds are held together.  Without this magic, life itself would not exist, and there is so much more to it than we will ever know. We are continually discovering new elements of this magic.

Perhaps it is better to think of it as music. The sound of music is a magic of sorts. If we were to dissect what makes music work, it would be rather difficult to do. For starters, the actual source of well written music appears to the untrained eye as little more than a confusing arrangement of  black and white dots on the on paper. To those who have mastered music, the ones who hold the key to deciphering its message, they can conjure these dots (which they know to be notes) into a melody that can uplift the spirit in a way that makes us smile. And yet, why music should even make us smile or frown is still a mystery. Even the greatest scientists in the world have never been able to understand this magic. Yes, there is much magic in the fabric of our world that is not understood.

By placing Narnia (or any other fantasy fiction world) in a medieval context, one could easily make the case that the author is able to draw on the symbolic richness of the old world without endorsing its limited knowledge of science or its checkered theology.

That is all for today’s post.

I invite you to join in the discussion and to come back next week when I further unpack “The Two Faces of Magic”

I have a number of thought-threads running around in my head, and they all seem to be part of a tapestry, but I’m not sure I can see how they weave together.

First, I recently read an article entitled “Virgins and Vampire Worship: The Religion of Twilight” by Linda Kay Klein in which she claims that the “Twi-hard fan movement . . . is part of a widespread American trend away from organized religion and toward the sacralization of pop culture.”

She explains that statistics reveal people abandoning organized religion but not abandoning belief. Not all belief is directed toward God, however.

Religion scholar David Chidester has famously argued that baseball, Coca-Cola, rock ‘n’ roll, Tupperware—and even the Human Genome Project—serve, for their biggest fans, as “religious fakes,” meaning they play the role of religion, though they aren’t the real thing.

“Religious fakes” used to be called idols.

Certainly in the last half of the twentieth century and the opening decade-plus of the twenty-first, we’ve seen an inordinate fascination with and loyalty to an increasing number of people and things. We have Trekkies and Tea Partiers, the Raider Nation and cream-over-cookie Oreo lovers. The latter, a replacement of the “tastes great/less filling” beer wars of an earlier generation, may be tongue-in-cheek, but the close-minded devotion it depicts is serious.

Over the years we’ve seen the growth of celebrity worship, but of late we also see an increase in celebrity defamation as paparazzi chase the good, the bad, and the ugly in the lives of those whom fans venerate.

Perhaps this reality–that the people we would worship are human and not always admirable–has led to the worship of that which seems less fallible. Ideas such as freedom, tolerance, and peace now have some people’s ultimate devotion. Other people devote themselves to a sport or a team or a job.

Recently my pastor, Mike Erre, preached about this very subject. He defined worship as devotion and affection, whatever you prioritize as most important. With that understanding, everyone is a worshiper–elevating either the Creator to the place of highest priority or some part of creation.

You may recall that Spec Faith’s own Stephen Burnett did a series this past fall on Reading is Worship which I understood to mean reading is an act of worship. Fitted together with what my pastor said, then, reading is a reflection of that to which we are devoted.

One last thread: along with the many other people and things about which our culture has become fanatic, we now have fictitious characters–Harry Potter, Edward, Bella, Katniss–and stories.

The frightening thing is, Scripture tells us we will become like that which we idolize.

Their idols are silver and gold,
The work of man’s hands.
They have mouths, but they cannot speak;
They have eyes, but they cannot see;
They have ears, but they cannot hear;
They have noses, but they cannot smell;
They have hands, but they cannot feel;
They have feet, but they cannot walk;
They cannot make a sound with their throat.
Those who make them will become like them,
Everyone who trusts in them. (Psalm 115:4-8 – emphasis mine)

If we idolize money (or the rich and famous), we become greedy. If we idolized sex (or the sexy), we become lustful, and so on.

Isaiah 44:9a adds another sobering caution:

Those who fashion a graven image are all of them futile, and their precious things are of no profit (emphasis mine)

In bringing this discussion back to reading, I’m trying to imagine a fan cult growing up around the characters of the classic fantasy stories. Would we ever see a Team Gandalf square off against a Team Aragon? Or a Team Frodo versus a Team Samwise Gamgee? How about a Team Lucy facing a Team Peter?

The idea seems absurd to me because Lord of the Rings and Narnia were bigger than the flawed and frail characters roaming through their pages. The characters don’t lend themselves to the kind of devotion we’ve seen in recent years–an ephemeral devotion that is white hot one day, then swept aside for the Next Big Thing.

Yet, I think I understand why fans gravitate to fictitious characters. No one is going to dig up dirt about them. No one is going to snap a picture of them yelling at their three-year-old. They aren’t going to age or get fat. They can remain in our thinking as wonderful as we want them to be. They are, in fact, the idealization of a friend (Harry Potter) or lover (the Twilight trio) or advocate (Katniss).

The problem is, we are idolizing the creature–and a fictitious creature, at that–not the Creator.

How easy it is to get caught up in Pop Culture trends. Yet the Christian is to be uniquely devoted to God. Can the two co-exist, and if so, what would that look like? Or must we resist being swept up in the frenzy of fanhood? I’m curious what you think.

“There you go, more negative waves!”

– Oddball, Kelley’s Heroes

Anyone notice the glut of dystopian fiction these days?

“Now wait a minute there, tech-boy,” you say. “Haven’t you written a few dystopian novels yourself?”

Um…well…yes, I have. A total of four, actually. But even if I wasn’t writing them, I’d still have to notice the trend. As a Vine reviewer for Amazon, four out of the last five sci-fi books I’ve reviewed have been straight dystopia. Or, to quote the Webster’s definition, they were all novels that featured “an imaginary place where people lead dehumanized and often fearful lives.”

Given all the dystopian novels out there, one might think that publishers were actively seeking such stories.  Well, they are! In fact, according to an author friend even larger CBA publishers are looking for novels with a dystopian slant.

Part of that is doubtless do to the film and book juggernaut that is “The Hunger Games.”  But even the worlds of our superheroes (Superman and Batman, for instance) have a markedly dystopian feel now. So why is that? Why, when by most secular measures—human longevity, general prosperity, amount of leisure time—this present world is most utopian of any generation, do we find ourselves, in literature, so invested in future shadows?

Let me offer three suggestions as to why…

History

Those of us who grew up in the sixties and seventies, were exposed to a wealth of dystopian novels and films. There’s the bubble cities of Logan’s Run where one’s life is literally “in the palm of their hands,” and the overpopulated world of Soylent Green. There’s the totalitarian government of Orwell’s classic 1984 and the overstimulated population of Huxley’s Brave New World.

And let’s not forget the firemen of Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 or the simian rule of The Planet of the Apes!

Such dystopian seeds can’t help but be expressed in the literary preferences of today. We grew up reading and watching it, and now not only are many of us still reading it, but some are writing it too. My novel Mask pays homage to some of those sci-fi classics.

Literary usefulness

Another reason I think dystopian novels have such a renewed interest is due to their literary usefulness. Dystopias are a great way to put ideas in a test kitchen. Just take a popular trend or fear, extrapolate it out to its extreme (and sometimes logical) conclusion, and you have a dystopia.

People censoring books today? Hmm…so what if all books were censored tomorrow? Wa-poof. Fahrenheit 451.

What if the earth became overpopulated? Solyent Green.

What if the earth became overpopulated, and there was a massive war? Logan’s Run.

What if today’s commercialism and selfishness one day dominates society? Brave New World.

And a couple personal favorites:

What if the whole world was under sharia law? The DarkTrench Saga.

What if people could vote on anything or anyone? Mask.

See how easy that was? Ray Bradbury once said: “I write not to predict the future, but to prevent it.” For an author, dystopias are an excellent way to explore relevant issues while preserving a level of abstraction that makes the subject approachable to everyone. A way to raise a warning flag about a potential danger ahead without preaching. (Show of hands, how many people think freedom of speech and the press are safer for Bradbury’s having shown what life would be like if they were not?)

For the reader, dystopian novels provide a forum to examine worst case scenarios. A magnifying glass he can hold up to the real world to see if there is something there to be truly wary of. Will we ever see children fighting to the death in an arena, a la The Hunger Games? Probably not. But is the value of children and childhood being diminished before our eyes? Absolutely.  Now, what can we do about it?

Our collective dread

The last reason I think dystopian novels are so popular is because, regardless of whether life today is better than it was centuries ago, we also sense—collectively—that a free society is a very fragile thing. History proves it. There were few steps between the federal republic of Weimar, and the totalitarian regime of Hitler. Only two isolated revolutions were enough to end the dynasty of the Czars and spur the beginning of the Soviet Union. Whatever freedoms we enjoy, whatever blessings, need to be diligently protected and preserved. Because is the totality of history, they are but a whisper.

In addition, I think we all sense that no matter how good things are here, they aren’t as good as they should be. This is a manifestation of the longing for Heaven that humans innately have. We seek comfort, we seek happiness. We find ourselves upset over the smallest detail — the simplest event that didn’t go our way.

Doesn’t that suggest that we’re all living in a dystopia now?

Well, in respects to Heaven, yes we are.

Now it’s your turn. Why do you think dystopias are so popular?

Based on many Christian novels, you’d think their authors were chronically, willfully single midlife-crisis adults who had never once experienced or committed lifelong to true love. But that’s not the case. Almost every Christian author been happily married for years.

So how come many authors’ fictionalized love stories are so bleeding-heart terrible?

I don’t like standalone romance. It’s coarse, and rough, and irritating, and it gets ehverywhere.

Certainly this applies to the dominant “romance” genres on Christian bookstore shelves (cozy romance, historical romance, contemporary romance, short-story romance, overly-angst-ridden romance, love-triangle romance, contemporary cozy historical romance, etc.).

Let’s briefly address all those dominant adjective-romance genres. Yes, this is Speculative Faith, and not a mainstream-fiction site. But it also helps to survey our (friendly) enemy.

First you might of course join me in opposing the very notion of romance as a separate genre. No one writes or publishes fiction focusing only on how one joins a local church, has children, or advances in careers; we don’t have “cozy motherhood” novels or “historical local church” genres. All these are subsets of real life — our greater stories. So is romance.

Second, what about all those classic works too often viewed as “romance”? Start with, of course, Pride and Prejudice. Anyone who applies a “historical romance” label to that classic deserves a two-hour lecture from a dry literature professor. That classic is not romance. It includes many other facets: then-contemporary social criticism, human relationships and conflicts, family cultures (and cults), and much more. Yes, there’s romance in it, and a fine romance too, but that along with other “genres” are means to other ends. Just as in real life.

There, genre criticism done. Now what if romance-as-genre were abolished? I fear we’d still have the same problems of badly written love stories. Why? Because I have endured them in many Christian speculative novels as well. No, not romance-alone books, not mainstream stuff — and not in badly written books. These are otherwise fine, upstanding stories that I did enjoy reading and may recommend. But their love-story subplots are simply strange.

No, I can’t name names here; I’ll get in trouble.

This bizarre species of Christian-fiction alien love slaves comes in two mutations:

• Fatalistic romance. Two characters are so obviously “meant for each other” that the fictional universe itself favors that axiom. So fate arranges “coincidental” events such as mutual quests, chance meetings, and perhaps the ever-popular “stuck in a cabin during a snowstorm” setup. It’s a whimsical concept that makes for great animated shorts. But when this forms the music of fiction, much more so every love-story fiction, it’s dull and discordant. Here we find no element of surprise, no free choice, nothing like true love.
• Free-willie romance. Against every clear fact, authors keep trying to pretend that two characters so clearly can’t Be Together, and are silly enough to think readers will accept the farce. Thus characters make stupid free-will decisions that make no sense for real human beings (even stupid ones). Their only goal is to draw out the story needlessly. So here there’s not even a hidden sense of the clarity that does often accompany true love.

Why these two absurdist approaches to romantic subplots, especially from novelists who have been married for a while and should presumably know better? I’ve given a great big hint for the first possible diagnosis in those two emboldened terms above:

1. Authors misunderstand the character of God and nature of His love.

This is the prime divine mover behind all bad romance: if you don’t believe in Biblical truth about God and His love, you’ll have skewed views of all love. And mutilating the truth that “God is love” is a cottage industry among many evangelicals. No, I’m not only talking about Rob Bell and other universalist authors. Popular and otherwise good teachers have already wrongly taught of “God’s love” far past the point of parody. I don’t believe they think God’s love does not mean that He isn’t holy, hateful of sin, or willing to pour His wrath on Christ in our place. But many do prefer simply not to talk about such things very often. And of course, “we don’t talk about that truth” soon becomes “we don’t really believe that truth.”

That’s how we get both romance extremes, the fatalistic and free-willie strains.

The free-willie strain is easier to explain: most evangelicals posit a loving God Who, they must conclude, is ultimately overruled (of His own volition) when it comes to our free will. Why then should a fictional romance have any direction, clarity, or maturity in Christ?

People’s desperation for some kind of sovereignty (even fatalism) is also why the anti-Biblical “no rules, just freedom” approach will inevitably lead people right back into legalistic slavery.

So what could lead to the fatalism? Because people instinctively suspect that they somehow must “make up for” a lack of teaching about God’s sovereignty. Instead of basing belief in Scripture, though, they grab for humanistic notions of “fate.” They miss the equally Biblical truth that humans make meaningful choices, and within the parameters of our natures.

2. Authors draw from romantic clichés rather than their own stories.

This part confuses me. Everyone knows the slogan “write what you know,” which applies to writing about the kinds of people authors know even if they’ve never been to, say, Neptune. So why do romantic authors redirect that into “write what you know about other people’s romantic fiction” rather than “write what you know about your story”? That’s how we get the absurd stuff: overblown love triangles, needless angst, and choreographed situations.

If you’re an author and aren’t convinced, I’ll clinch the argument: this is what George “I Don’t Like Sand” Lucas did. Do you really want to follow in his footsteps?

So why might authors do that?

3. For some reason, authors may assume their own romances are abnormal.

What if you didn’t “wait”? Can God not redeem your real-life love story?

Maybe some writers’ stories are abnormal — which is why we get major-motion-picture-style revisionist “romance.” But what about a Christian author who’s been happily married for years? Surely her love story is relatively rational, but she’s somehow concluded it was not worth using as a reference foundation for fiction. I can only suggest a few reasons why:

1. Another evangelical cottage industry is the “you only know your true love after God fatalistically guides you to him/her” school. (See also: Voices From Beyond.) This is often mixed with the “true love waits” ideal. Many, perhaps wrongly, assume that ideal means “do it right the first time, or else your romance is subpar.” Might some Christian authors feel their own love-story experiences don’t conform to those idealistic notions?
2. With or without that suspicion, authors simply assume their own love stories are just not as sexy as the fatalistic or free-willie clichéd stuff we get on the movies and TV. So real-life relationships, confusions, and even clarity are thrown out for the clichés.

For those reasons and others, the romantic myths continue. Characters act in unsurprising and dull ways as they fatalistically “fall in love,” or else make absurd free choices foreign to reality and only home to “pop romance” storylines meant to prolong the Agonizing Angst.

That stinks, and I don’t like it.

Solutions?

These are simple, so my list is limited.

1. Everyone: let’s base our beliefs about any love first in Biblical truth of God’s love.
2. Readers: find stories that don’t commit the above sins. Authors: write more of them.

One of the things I’ve gotten used to, being a Lutheran in an industry filled with . . . well, mostly not-Lutherans, is that there are times when I’ll reference a belief or practice of my denomination, only to have the person I’m speaking to give me a blank look. For example, this happens when I try to explain why we baptize infants or what we believe about Communion. Today might be one of those days, because according to my calendar, today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent.

For those of you not in the know, Lent is a period of 40 days that lead up to the celebration of Easter. Technically, Sundays don’t count in those 40 days, but that’s not really important. Lent is a somber time for those of us who observe it. It’s a time of contemplation, self-sacrifice, and repentance, a time to reflect on our sin and our need for a Savior.

Now you may be somewhat familiar with the practice of “giving something up for Lent.” Some Christians practice this, some don’t. For example, most Catholics give up eating meat on Fridays during Lent. Personally, I usually give up caffeine during the season of Lent. There’s also a tradition in some churches of giving up the world “Alleluia” or “Hallelujah” during Lent. They will not sing or say that word, “burying” it, if you will, so that it can be resurrected on Easter morning. The reason why we give stuff up is not to somehow earn favor with God. Instead, it’s a way to remind ourselves of how much God gave up for us.

But there is one tradition that I’ve always associate with Lent, and it’s the practice that gives Ash Wednesday its name. During tonight’s worship service, my congregation will observe a ritual known as “The Imposition of Ashes.” During the service, people will be called forward so that one of the elders or I, using ashes of palm fronds, can draw the shape of a cross on their foreheads. As we do that, we remind them, “Remember: you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” It’s a visible reminder of our own mortality, the punishment our sins deserve, and what was ultimately done to rescue us from that fate.

Am I sharing this information just to educate you? No, not really. Instead, I see it as a call for all of us, whether we observe Lent or not, whether we will wear an ash cross on our foreheads today or not, to remember and reflect on what we are: we are but dust and ashes to whom God has given life. Our sins would condemn us to remain only that. But thanks be to God, His grace, poured out through Jesus Christ, makes us more than just dust. We are forgiven. We are redeemed. We are called to be His children.