I am NOT the next C. S. Lewis. What a shocker. The thing is, I can name at least four writers who are—or who have been told they are by a fan, a reviewer, a publisher, or an endorser. I actually had an agent who doesn’t represent fantasy say to me, “I may be passing up the next C. S. Lewis.” Well, said agent can be assured. I am NOT the next C. S. Lewis.

It dawned on me today, as I read yet another C. S. Lewis comparison—this one a glowing review saying the style of the work in question was “reminiscent of C.S. Lewis,” (the author had the sense to distance himself from that statement)—that I don’t want to be the next C. S. Lewis.

It also dawned on me that I’ve heard these kinds of comparisons before. I’m a basketball fan, and those who’ve watched the pro game for any length of time know all about the comparisons.

When Michael Jordan was beginning to make a splash, reporters started talking about him being the next Dr. J. That’s Julius Erving for those who might not know—one who made the list of 50 greatest NBA players.

But before long, young stars were coming into the league, and they were being touted as the next Michael Jordan. First there was Grant Hill, then Vince Carter, and eventually Kobe Bryant.

It’s inevitable. One day Kobe will retire, and another great player will come along with the tag that he is the next Kobe Bryant.

But a rare group of the top players seem to be beyond comparison. I don’t hear people saying, Here comes the next Magic Johnson. He’s one of a kind, a rare athlete with physical gifts, intelligence, diligence, and a love for the game that can’t be matched. There was no 6’9″ point guard before him pulling down one triple-double after another, and it’s unlikely there will be another one any time soon.

What does this basketball analogy have to do with C. S. Lewis? Simply this: Wouldn’t it be better to be yourself, in all the uniqueness God has gifted you with, than to be the next version of someone else?

I understand, whether in basketball or in writing, the comparison is a marketing ploy. But too often the athlete being compared to the great who went before is a disappointment. The fans expect something he doesn’t deliver. But when he does excel, the comparisons fade. No one is saying Kobe is the next MJ anymore, though I occasionally hear the question, Which is the better?

Here’s where I’m going with this. I do not want to set up my readers (should I one day have any ) to expect something I won’t deliver. I can promise you, I am not, nor do I aspire to be, the next C. S. Lewis. I want to be the best Rebecca LuElla Miller God has gifted me to be. That could mean I’ll spend my writing life as a “journeyman” blogger. I’m happy with that. I’ll work to fill that role to the best of my ability.

But wouldn’t it be a shame if I promoted my blog as the next Mere Christianity? As if!

Chances are, readers would approach each of my posts with a healthy dose of skepticism. It’s hard enough hooking and holding an audience as it is, but to have to meet those high expectations would be next to impossible. I can see readers leaving in droves (assuming that droves even showed up ) after the opening paragraph.

What kind of a stunt is this, one might ask. She doesn’t write anything like C. S. Lewis.

The funny thing is, if I did write like him, I’d certainly be accused of being derivative.

So here’s my plea: authors, be yourself and be happy when someone recognizes a piece you’ve written as yours. Reviewers, endorsers, back cover copywriters, knock off the comparisons because you’re doing more harm than good. Let writers be who God made them to be.

There was and will be for all time one and only one C. S. Lewis.

Originally posted at A Christian Worldview of Fiction as “Fantasy Friday: The Next C.S. Lewis,”  Jan. 14, 2011.

Folks, the sad truth of today is that traditional science fiction—the space opera—is dying. For over 200 years, the imaginations of men like H.G. Wells, Frank Herbert, George Lucas, and Gene Roddenberry have been supplying us with hopes of alien races, light-sabers, faster-than-light travel, jet packs, and meals in pill-form. Some hopes have been realized, and we find ourselves operating handheld computers that are smaller that Star Trek tricorders and they’ve arrived about 250 years early. For the greatest part, however, we aren’t living in a technological utopia, and what devices we have invented aren’t taking us in the direction we were anticipating. We’re exploring microscopic organisms instead of some macrocosm and digging into the lives of our neighbors instead of boring tunnels through the center of the earth. On the other hand, we did happen to miss out on the predicted 1992 eugenics war between ourselves and our genetically enhanced cousins, so it isn’t all bad news.

If the terminology sticklers will grant me a bit of leeway, the term “space opera” is a mostly forgotten term that was used to describe those grand, planetary stories that gave very little importance to the hard physics of things like space travel and teleportation. The likes of Star Wars, Star Trek, Dune, and Battlestar Galactica are what are in view here. These storylines had their heyday from the dawn of the atomic age, until recently. While these big budget plotlines still make it to the screen, at some point in the last decade, people just stopped reading so much science fiction.

Most professionals with any vested interest in speculative fiction have attributed the decline of science fiction to the dawning distance between reality and the future that those stories promised. When the year 2000 came and went without so much as a jetpack, science fiction began to show signs of the sniffles. A decade later, the science fiction section is being swallowed by greater amounts of fantasy, alongside the paranormal romance novels which have finally been pulled out of the horror section, urban fantasy, and the growing collection of steampunk. Science fiction is taking its last breaths, while other genres are just learning to walk.

The hope for scientific, digital, genetic, electronic, and cybernetic innovation has been replaced in urban fantasy with magical means, and in steampunk, with the admittedly impossible mad scientist creations that kicked science fiction off in the first place.

In the end, it’s all about where we place our hope.

The early Christians saw a greater, grander version of the same thing we’re seeing now in 10-point Times New Roman. They read the same prophecies of Isaiah and Jeremiah that we read today. They mined those scriptures for every ounce of worth they could find. They established an immense and detailed eschatology (the study of end times) based on how they saw the words of David and Daniel being fulfilled. The Messiah was coming. He would be a King to end all Kings, a Lord to end all other Lordships. He would unify the Jewish nation and drop an iron fist on the Iron Empire. In a single stroke, he would set himself as the Ruler of the planet and her nations. Then the Jews would stand at his side as he looked over the horizon with golden flaming eyes.

They got a baby in a barn who grew up to train twelve guys and then he died.

I imagine as they watched this would-be King breathe his last breath, the Jewish disciples of Jesus were wondering where their jetpacks were, theologically speaking. They had been promised the stars and instead, were left with only a dry-rotting pair of sandals.

Oh, and a hole in the ground.

This grown-up barn-baby’s empty grave was a promise for something new, and the disappointed disciples went back to their roots. This Jesus hadn’t missed their expectations. Their expectations had been fictitious. And just as some of these new genres are finding many fans more ravenous and rabid than the space opera ever saw, Christ has promised that his second coming won’t be a step down from our original guesses. In fact, in the same manner that many steampunks are turning back to Wells, Verne and Poe, the disciples’ theological disappointment drove them, and us, back to reality and a less baggage-laden view of our Messiah.

Jeremy McNabb is a steampunk author, youth director, and speaker. His novel Joy & Carnage, and steampunk novellas, Gravesight and City Sidewalks are both available on the Amazon Kindle. New releases are announced on his Facebook page and Twitter account.

The third week of Advent is upon us. Just as our faith in God’s love, and the hope He promised, begins to waver, we light another candle, and its flickering glow reveals a parade of scruffy-looking nerfherders shepherds trotting toward Bethlehem, their voices brimming with joy and excitement.

Hmm. I wonder why they’re so happy?

Charles Dickens...sort of.

This week, I’d like to turn your attention to one of the oldest old-school works of speculative fiction: A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens. It’s the tale of Ebenezer Scrooge, a man who’s lost his joy, though we don’t understand that at the beginning of the story. All we see is “a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster.”

Most of you are probably well-familiar with this story. As I was thinking about it today, I realized it also follows the pattern of the Advent wreath.

You don’t believe me?

Come along. Today, I’m the Ghost of Speculative Christmas. Rise, and walk with me.

Marley’s Ghost: the Prophecy Candle and voice of Hope

He's not seeing double. This is called "dramatic license."

One Christmas Eve, after a long, hard day of evicting widows and orphans and counting his gold sovereigns, Scrooge retires to his drafty apartments with a bowl of gruel, and he’s confronted by the horrifying spectre of his old business partner, Jacob Marley. Marley is doomed to an eternity of wandering about the world, without the power to intervene for good, and he’s burdened by an enormous length of ectoplasmic chain—the weight of his sin. He warns Scrooge that a similar fate awaits him if he does not change his ways, but a fragile hope remains. To that end, Marley has arranged for Scrooge to be haunted on three successive nights by three spirits, who will lead him down the path to righteousness.

The Ghost of Christmas Past: the Bethlehem Candle and voice of Love

"Flying's easy. Landing is more difficult."

The first spirit takes Scrooge on a whirlwind tour of his youth, where we learn how he came to be the decrepit, penny-pinching miser we know. To our surprise, we discover that Scrooge’s early life was lonely at times, but not miserable. His older sister loved and cared for him. He was intelligent and hardworking, and enjoyed the example of a generous employer. He wooed and won the heart of a beautiful young lady, but lost her when his lust for the power and security of wealth led him astray and accelerated his descent into hard-hearted bitterness. The spirit’s travelogue of self-examination leaves Scrooge shaken and overwhelmed: “Leave me! Take me back! Haunt me no longer!”

The Ghost of Christmas Present: the Shepherds’ Candle and voice of Joy

"Sing it, Ebenezer! Five...goooolden...riiiings!"

An evening with the jolly Ghost of Christmas Present, passing invisibly among the merrymakers of London and the countryside beyond, reminds Scrooge of the abandoned joys of his early life and reveals that wealth is irrelevant to true happiness. His eyes are also opened to the plight of his poor clerk, Bob Cratchit, whose family celebrates Christmas with gusto despite their privation and the illness of their youngest child, Tiny Tim. That brave little boy moves Scrooge to a novel emotion—compassion. As the spirit ages and dwindles, he reminds Scrooge that there are many others he has denied his sympathy and mocks him with his own callous words: “Are there no prisons?…Are there no workhouses?'”

The Ghost of Christmas Future: the Angels’ Candle and voice of Peace

He's the strong, silent type.

Peace seems an odd theme for Dickens’ final spirit, but by the time he appears, Scrooge is beginning to understand the purpose and value of these strange visitations and accepts the spirit’s guidance without protest. He has come to terms with the reality of his plight and his role in creating his own misery. However, he learns that merely acquiescing to the truth isn’t enough—the shadows of the future still forecast his ultimate despair and doom. Scrooge’s soul will never experience peace without a change of heart. He must repent. The shattering revelation of his own mortality, near at hand, inscribed upon a tombstone, provides the crisis that prompts his transformation. He awakens to a brilliant Christmas morning, amazed to discover his journeys have taken only a single night, and grateful he still has time to make good on his promise to reform: I am here — the shadows of the things that would have been, may be dispelled. They will be. I know they will!

"I'd like to make a large donation to charity...and offer you this cozy scarf."

In the aftermath of his travels through the unseen world, we see the fruits of new life in Scrooge. He falls to his knees and offers glory to Heaven. He’s inundated with joy, a baptism that leaves him “giddy as a drunken man.” He leaves his dank, musty lair to gaze in wonder at a city full of people he’d hardly noticed before. He goes to church. He begins to reconnect broken family ties and makes the welfare of Bob Cratchit and his brood his personal responsibility. Most significant of all, the changes stick. His changed heart and newfound generosity, both emotional and material, characterize him forever after, despite the skepticism of a few acquainted with the old Scrooge:

He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.

May our own journey through Advent bring us joy and transformation in like measure, and as Tiny Tim observed, “God bless us, every one!”

Tidings of comfort and joy.

I wonder what J. R. R. Tolkien would think about Harry Potter. Or Twilight. Or dystopian fantasies like Veronica Roth’s Divergent or urban fantasies like The Black Sun’s Daughter series by M.L.N. Hanover. Would the author of “On Fairy-Stories” be a fan of the darker forms fantasy has taken in the last decade or so? These are interesting questions.

Tolkien believed that fairy stories were a means to three particular desirable conditions: recovery, escape, and consolation. Many speculative writers are familiar with his thoughts on escape. I myself have written a number of posts on the subject here at Spec Faith (see for example “What to Make of Dragons, Part 7 – Escapism”). We probably know less about his thoughts on recovery and consolation, however. In exploring what he wrote about the former, I find ideas that suggest how he might react to today’s fantasy.

First, what exactly did Tolkien mean by “recovery”?

Recovery (which includes return and renewal of health) is a re-gaining — regaining of a clear view . . . We need, in any case, to clean our windows; so that the things seen clearly may be freed from the drab blur of triteness or familiarity — from possessiveness. Of all faces those of our familiares are the ones both most difficult to play fantastic tricks with, and most difficult really to see with fresh attention, perceiving their likeness and unlikeness: that they are faces, and yet unique faces. This triteness is really the penalty of “appropriation”: the things that are trite, or (in a bad sense) familiar, are the things that we have appropriated, legally or mentally. We say we know them. They have become like the things which once attracted us by their glitter, or their colour, or their shape, and we laid hands on them, and then locked them in our hoard, acquired them, and acquiring ceased to look at them.

I wonder if this familiarity might not be a serious problem for Christian writers, explaining why our fiction, even our fantasies, seem to lack a freshness. We know the rudiments of our faith, and it is these elemental principles that we realize the rest of the world needs to embrace, so we convey them over and over until they lose some of their power and potency, even for us.

God is a God of grace. Jesus died for our sins. Ho-hum, Christmas again, a celebration of the Incarnation. Familiar terms trip off our tongues with ease, but with less and less meaning. And the concepts find their way into our fiction, but with less and less force.

The need, Tolkien suggests, is recovery, but many writers despair:

Who can design a new leaf? The patterns from bud to unfolding, and the colours from spring to autumn were all discovered by men long ago. But that is not true. The seed of the tree can be replanted in almost any soil . . . Spring is, of course, not really less beautiful because we have seen or heard of other like events: like events, never from world’s beginning to world’s end the same event. Each leaf, of oak and ash and thorn, is a unique embodiment of the pattern, and for some this very year may be the embodiment, the first ever seen and recognized, though oaks have put forth leaves for countless generations of men.

We do not, or need not, despair of drawing because all lines must be either curved or straight, nor of painting because there are only three “primary” colours.

In the same way, Christian writers need not despair because there is only one way to salvation, because there is only one begotten Son of God, because by grace alone may we be reconciled to God. In other words, Truth is not limiting to the writer since it impacts people in different ways. Christians, however, seem to tell the Old, Old Story in an old, old way.

A writer who recognizes weariness of The Same, will inevitably try to break free:

there may be a danger of boredom or of anxiety to be original, and that may lead to a distaste for fine drawing, delicate pattern, and “pretty” colours, or else to mere manipulation and over-elaboration of old material, clever and heartless. But the true road of escape from such weariness is not to be found in the wilfully awkward, clumsy, or misshapen, not in making all things dark or unremittingly violent; nor in the mixing of colours on through subtlety to drabness, and the fantastical complication of shapes to the point of silliness and on towards delirium. (Emphasis mine.)

So Tolkien apparently saw no answer in exploring to the edges (or beyond) of Truth and Beauty. Rather, the great need is Recovery.

Before we reach such states we need recovery. We should look at green again, and be startled anew (but not blinded) by blue and yellow and red.

Being “startled anew” by God’s love, for example, a Christian writer is freed to make old truth shine like a new beacon:

Creative fantasy, because it is mainly trying to do something else (make something new), may open your hoard and let all the locked things fly away like cage-birds. The gems all turn into flowers or flames, and you will be warned that all you had (or knew) was dangerous and potent, not really effectively chained, free and wild; no more yours than they were you.

So what do you think? Would Tolkien believe that gems turned into flowers or flames in Harry Potter? In Twilight? In dystopian fiction or urban fantasy? Or would he think these things “dark or unremittingly violent” or “mixing of colours on through subtlety to drabness, and the fantastical complication of shapes to the point of silliness and on towards delirium”?

My guess? He’d see a few gems but a lot of drabness and maybe even some delirium.

I recently wrote a book titled The Harry Potter Bible Study: Enjoying God Through the Final Four Harry Potter Movies. The writing of such a Bible study poses a question: “Why would a conservative Christian pastor write a Bible study intertwined with a book and movie series that obviously contain evil elements?” This is the question I hope to answer here.

To summarize, I wrote The Harry Potter Bible Study because I’m trying to encourage Christians to approach their cultures with the same method of interpretation they use when reading Scripture. I believe Christians should be consistent. Please allow me to explain.

The Bible, even though it is God’s perfect Word, contains evil elements. These elements are recorded so that readers and hearers will know the definition of evil and how God’s wrath is kindled against it. In other words, these evil elements are provided so readers will know that man has a sin problem which makes him God’s enemy (Rom. 3:23; James 4:4); and yet, God reveals His love for His enemies by sending His only Son to redeem sinners from His own wrath (John 3:16; 1 John 4:9-10). In most cases in Scripture, God provides the discernment for the reader by judging evil immediately or by speaking of its coming judgment.

My point is that just because various forms of media contain evil elements, doesn’t mean that they are entirely evil. If the Bible can contain evil elements without being evil, then other forms of media can contain evil elements without being entirely evil as well. The mere presence of evil doesn’t make something evil, for evil is clearly present in Scripture. It’s the reaction to evil that determines whether a form of media is entirely evil or not. Whenever evil is argued as good or acceptable, then media is making an evil argument that directly violates Scripture. But, if Christians recognize this argument as evil, then they still may participate in media unto the glory of God by exposing and rejecting this evil argument.

Furthermore, whenever media presents something that is evil and calls it evil, Christians can recognize God’s fingerprints, for evil can only be rightly called evil in light of His perfect goodness/holiness. The Light of the world exposes the darkness (2 Cor. 4:4-7). Christians know the “Why” (God), the Reason why certain acts are evil and certain acts are good. Therefore, when we participate in media we can enjoy God because we know media presents evil as evil and good as good because there is a moral law pressing down on all humanity from the Law Giver (Gen. 1:1; John 1:3-4). Moreover, even when media presents evil as good and good as evil, Christians can recognize the fingerprints of the Fall, the fingerprints of Satan, and reject them; which is exactly what God does throughout the Scriptures as He judges evil.

Before we continue, let me be clear, I AM NOT saying that other forms of media are equally God’s Word with Scripture. The Bible is the only special revelation Christians possess. Of course, God reveals Himself through conscience and creation as well, but these are not infallible or inerrant (John 1:3-4; Rom. 1). What I AM saying is that some evil does not necessarily corrupt the whole form of media; for if the Bible can contain evil elements and not be evil, then other forms of media can contain evil elements and not be entirely evil as well.

The difference between Scripture and other forms of media is that in Scripture God has largely provided the discernment for us. He doesn’t merely tell us that David committed adultery and murder, He also records His sending of the prophet Nathan to rebuke David (2 Sam. 11:1-12:23). He also records His own direct judgment against David in taking His son’s life, as well as, prophesying of His future judgment concerning the sword being active in David’s kingdom among his children (2 Sam. 12:10-23).

On the other hand, when it comes to Christians participating in media, we must provide the discernment. No one will provide the discernment for us. This is true of all of our participation in this evil world, not just in our participation in media. We therefore must bring Scripture to bear on all aspects of culture: our jobs, education, media participation, politics, morality, family, etc. My contention is that if we bring Scripture to bear on media as we participate, it’s no different than God bringing His Word to bear on the various evils in Scripture. In other words, if Christians approach evil and good in their cultures the same way God does in Scripture, they will participate in media unto the glory of God.

Like God has revealed in His Word, we must hate evil, love good, and connect truth to its Author: the Triune God of Christianity (Gen. 1:1; John 1:1; Rom. 8:9; Col. 1:16-17). All truth is God’s truth and all lies are Satan’s lies. Therefore, Christians must reject Satan’s lies while connecting all truth to God through Christ in light of the Spirit of Truth.

As Christians participate in Harry Potter and other forms of media, they must ask three questions: 1) What must I reject because it goes against God’s Word? 2) What must I accept because it is in full agreement with God’s Word, including its connection of all truth to God through Christ? 3) What truths are presented that are hanging in midair that I must extract and connect to God through Christ in light of the Spirit’s work through the Word of God? If Christians answer these three questions in light of Scripture, they will participate in their cultures in a distinctly Christian manner. I wrote The Harry Potter Bible Study to train Christians to approach all forms of media in this distinctly Christian manner.

My question for those who are against participating in Harry Potter is “If a Christian rejects the lies and connects the truth to God through Christ, why can’t they participate in Harry Potter?” I ask you this because it is possible to even read Scripture in a way that doesn’t honor God. For example, in reading the story of David, it would be displeasing to God if you read about David’s adultery and contemplated how gratifying it must have been for his flesh when he committed adultery with Bathsheba, and thus how gratifying adultery would be to your flesh as well. To dwell on such things from Scripture as if they are meant to be enjoyed is evil. If you reject the evil, you can enjoy God’s holiness in light of David’s poor example. Thus, I’m contending that you should participate in media the same way. You should reject the evil, extract the truth, and connect it to God through Christ.

My final question(s) for those who believe Harry Potter should not be participated in is this: “If you and I approach Harry Potter the same way God approached David’s sin, what’s the difference?” If we agree with God concerning evil while also agreeing with God concerning good, and we seek to understand these truths in light of Christ’s creating, sustaining, and redeeming work (Col. 1:16-17), why shouldn’t we participate in media that contains evil elements? If we reject the evil, just like we reject David’s evil acts, and we qualify the good with Christ’s creating, sustaining, and redeeming work just like we qualify David’s good with Christ’s work, why shouldn’t we participate in Harry Potter and other forms of non-Christian media?

Jared Moore has served in ministry for 11 years and is currently the pastor of New Salem Baptist Church in Hustonville, Ky. He has an M.A.R. in Biblical Studies from Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary, an M.Div. in Christian Ministry from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and is currently completing a Th.M. in Systematic Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He and his wife, Amber, reside in Hustonville, Ky., with their two children. If you have any questions or if you are interested in inviting Jared to speak, you may contact him through his website. Jared writes at http://jaredmoore.exaltchrist.com. He is also a contributor at www.sbcvoices.com and www.servantsofgrace.org.

Whump. Just like that, my car had a new cute little dimple, right in its front bumper.

Its old front Texas license plate — the only remaining outward sign that this vehicle was a foreign import, and not of this world — was now crunched. And in the moments that followed, in the cold and drizzling rain, while a friendly police officer took my and the other driver’s information, I as a citizen of this old world had at least four options:

1. Swear, pound the wheel, later pound other things in my imagination, and rail against the universe, which is really a rail against its Creator, for this misfortune. This was my car, after all — even if I sort of inherited it from my Texan wife — and the universe (read: its Creator) had no right to do that to my stuff.
2. Peacefully acknowledge that in the grand scheme of things, this car really did not matter. It belongs to God, and in the end its parts are destined to burn anyway.
3. After initial sin, and repentance, thank God that I’m perfectly fine, and no one got hurt, and that the car took it on the chin. Meanwhile, this car is God’s car, not my own; I’m only its steward. It is indeed only a God-given thing, to be used for His glory. My wife and I began reading The Fellowship of the Ring in this car. On the way to our honeymoon. So if those memories, or anything else, involving this car would remind me of Him — as an act of Christ-worship — nothing would keep Him from resurrecting it, even a dented-up Mercury Sable, on the New Earth.
4. Take solace in the fact that material objects can be used for good or evil, such as cars, money, or creative works such as stories — and then, if God removes them or decides never having them is best for us, resenting Him for that divine choice. If you really loved me, Jesus, you’d let me keep that Thing. Yes, I know you could bring it back later, to glorify Yourself, but I “don’t! care! how — I want it nowww.”

Worship with things, not of things

As you may have guessed, I had a hard time writing number 4. Not only does it violate Scripture, of course, it just doesn’t make sense. That’s because materialism ultimately makes no sense. God owns everything. This is His world, where He keeps His stuff.

Those who believe that Things, such as human creations like stories, will last beyond this world — based on their New-Earth study, or even extra-Biblical speculation about the After-world — will find no greater justification for selfish materialism than they would find with another view that is similar to “let’s just leave all those topics alone.”

That’s not to say that pondering the New Earth will resolve all materialism. Of course it won’t. After all, following the car crash, I went through option 1 almost verbatim, before arriving (mostly!) at option 3. Sin came up from within and whispered, Hey, that’s your car, and you don’t deserve this wrong. In this life I doubt we’ll ever defeat all temptations to think of Things as our own stuff, not God’s (they’re not even “on loan” from Him!).

So how to fight materialism, specifically in regards to the stories we love. Might we love them too much? In one respect, yes, but if we mean “love” by God’s definition — His love, through which we can love great stories only because they remind us of Him — that is an impossible question. One cannot righteously “love” anything too much.

It seems that we have two possible solutions to keeping our story-love in perspective:

1. Enjoy stories, but think that there’s no need to ask if they’ll last beyond this life.
2. Enjoy stories, and recognize that if God wants to preserve them forever, He will.

Differences between these views — based on the broader underlying beliefs — has led to some friendly disagreements throughout this series! In my view, though, either set of beliefs is vulnerable to being hijacked by materialism.

For no. 1, materialism could take this guise: stories won’t really matter in eternity, so make sure you get what you can in this life.

For no. 2, materialism could sneak in this way: if material things and creations are good, then hang onto them as much as you can — God would never take them from you!

Either way, sin never creeps in unless it has some existing truth to twist. And any truth can be twisted into some kind of sin, such as materialism — whether the goodness of stories, the love of God, the wrath of God, the need to study apologetics, the need to feed or care for the poor, the need to warn against materialism, or the need to study what Scripture has clearly promised us about the New Heavens and New Earth.

If someone sins while studying those particular Biblical truths, and basing speculations upon them, the sin is not in the studying, or even the speculating. Similarly, readers here may know that one cannot rightly or reasonably blame speculative stories just because someone else wrongly used them to justify “escapism” or other wrong beliefs.

God’s Word, and truth, do not cause sinful behavior. Nor does anyone’s sin, or potential sin, mean we must ignore what it says about a particular topic.

Rather, sin abuses truth to justify materialism, or asceticism, or whatever.

Those are sins we must avoid. Yet as we’re doing that, we also worship God, in this Old Earth, in many different ways — and one of those ways is our speculative stories.

Will this form of worship expire in the New Earth?

Nothing in Scripture suggests it will, and in fact many texts endorse ancient and modern things, such as ships, trade, precious metals, trees and nature, continuing as means by which we enjoy and worship (they are the same task!) our wonderful Savior.

Last week, I overviewed four reasons to support eternal stories, based on Scripture — most in the Old Testament — and suggested further reading. Now let’s go forward, and also finish this series. Why else we can anticipate that our good God, if He wanted, could preserve stories for His glory?

Fifth: because our God is a God not of eternal annihilation, especially of good things that would continue to honor Him, but of resurrection.

5. God is a God of resurrection.

1. Christ died. His body, the same one in which He died, rose again. That means that actual atoms, DNA, cells, torn muscles and skin (save for a few exceptions, in His hands, feet, and side!), whisked back together, repaired, reversed their decay. Maybe they were supplemented — not 100 percent replaced! — with new material or powers. Then in that body, He departed the tomb. He visited others. He walked, ate, and drank. Later, he ascended. And He is still in that resurrected body. “There is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (2 Tim. 2:5). Note the present tense: is. He is still a Man, still flesh and blood — not the corrupt “flesh and blood” (an idiom for fallen flesh) in 1 Cor. 15:50  that can’t inherit the Kingdom, but an imperishable, redeemed flesh and blood.
2. 

   Perhaps the most beautiful image of resurrection in all of the Old Testament.

   We will die (barring Christ’s return first). Our souls will then be present with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:8), for a temporary separation. Though we’ll be joyful, we’ll also await being “further clothed” (2 Cor. 5:4) with an immortal body, a “spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15:44), supernatural, powered by the Spirit. At that resurrection, will all those bodily components — molecules, cells, skin particles — be pulled up in supernaturally flown streams from the earth, to reassemble? We don’t know, but we do know that there will be some kind of continuity. The old body died, like a seed in the ground. The old body was mortal, perishable. From it will come the new body, immortal, imperishable, and of the Spirit. “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,” Paul says (1 Cor. 15:50, then clarifies with a parallel: “nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.” Corrupt, perishable flesh and blood will become imperishable, redeemed flesh and blood.

3. Creation will die. At present it’s groaning (Romans 8: 18-25), and waiting “with eager longing” for God’s people to be revealed, in hope “that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (verse 21). (Note the contradiction to annihilation or replacement!) The “creation itself,” this same planet, will first die (2 Peter 3:10), then be resurrected. Very much like Christ. And very much like us.

If we in our resurrected bodies will not only worship Christ in some vague fashion, that is, a “beatific vision” of only gazing at His face in wonder or singing, but also in “earthly” things like trade, farming, or other jobs (as in Isaiah 60) — we find even more support for anticipating newer and even better stories in the After-world, alongside the ones we now enjoy in our worship of Christ.

6. “Resting” from real-world wonders on New Earth to enjoy stories would be little different from resting to enjoy Scripture.

Now comes some of the practical questions, based in resurrection truth, but also based in some extra-Biblical speculation. The first of these goes something like this:

Why would we want to “stay inside all day,” reading stories, when there’s an amazing world to explore and other things to do in our worship of Christ?

The same question could be asked about Scripture itself, the Word that God has clearly promised to preserve forever (as discussed in part 3). Why would we want to read that? I suggest: for the same reason we want to read the Old Testament now. Yes, that first Covenant is fulfilled, but we still find new truths, embedded in its words, which we had not seen before. It also reminds us of what wonders God did. The fact that He works wonders in the present doesn’t (or shouldn’t!) make us bored with Him in the past.

Thus, surely we’ll find time in New Earth for varying levels and forms of worship. One day, or over several hours, we might design a building, or feast with friends, or go on some incredible journey, in worship. Then another day, or another series of hours, we might “rest” (though it’s all a rest!) and relax. We might read His Word. Or another great story, about our present world, or imagined worlds, or Old-Earth battles and victories.

Let’s get more specific. Imagine the most vivid, fantastic, yet Biblically allowed picture of New Earth you can imagine. I’m talking here new creatures, exciting missions, and uncharted frontiers on other planets or galaxies. Now, is there no possible way that God, our infinite God, could create even more wonders beyond our wildest imaginations?

We’ll keep trying to imagine what He could come up with next. He’ll keep blowing us away. And for eons upon eons, in the redeemed universe with its capital planet, we’ll keep worshiping Him for it, even as we reflect His role as Creator in our subcreations.

7. If we assume any evil echoes or reminders couldn’t belong in eternity, that would also apply to the Bible.

Stories require conflict. The New Earth won’t have any. How would stories even work?

First, I’d question that New Earth will have no conflict, that is, disagreement. What we know it won’t have is sin that results from it. For example, author Randy Alcorn offers:

Because we’re finite and unique and because we’ll never know everything, we may not agree about everything in Heaven. […] Some of us will have insights others don’t. Some will have a  better understanding in one area, others in a different area. Our beliefs can be accurate but incomplete, since we’ll not be omniscient. […] C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and other friends in their group called The Inklings often argued ideas with each other. […] Could they even say, “Let’s think and talk to the King, approach an angel or two, bounce our ideas off Paul, Luther, and Augustine, and then meet again and share what we’ve learned”?

[…] Even though Christ’s insights would be absolutely accurate, that doesn’t mean we’ll always fully understand them. God has made us learners. That’s part of being finite.

^{From Heaven, pages 348-349}

That will make things interesting — and delightful! Even now, though, we might picture some of what that could be like, because in Christ, Christians can have disagreements about issues, and lovingly agree to disagree, and mean it.

So what about our stories? Those would seem to require antagonists who don’t disagree agreeably, at least, so we think, from our limited Old-Earth perspective. But could some genius author create a new genre that doesn’t require traditional villains or opposing causes, which is still just as entertaining and honoring to the God who had long since defeated all real-life villains? With renewed minds, could we more easily appreciate a story for its Christ-exalting truths and beauties, even without action, conflict, or battles?

That was my secondary argument, put first. My primary reminder is that, again, we’ll have God’s Word on the New Earth — a Word that not only reminds us how we got there, but of sin, violence, or untruth. Therefore, one can’t consistently claim that even Old-Earth-style stories that do have evil elements would automatically make us sin. The Bible won’t do that, and we know it will last forever. And again, we also know that Scripture, and manmade stories with evil reminders, don’t even always make us sin here. How much more, in that redeemed universe, will we see the sin in glorious God-given perspective, recalling what it was like, and praise God for His deliverance?

8. Imagine the possibilities.

Now comes the end of this series, and this column (which I admit is extended-length, due to the Christmas season and other ideas, coming up!).

I’m curious about your thoughts throughout; your beliefs, past and present, about the After-world; and your hopes for how we may honor and praise our perfect, magnificent Savior after He brings His New Heavens to New Earth, to dwell with mankind (Rev. 21).

With what speculative stories do you worship Christ now?

Which speculative stories would you love Him to resurrect, if He chooses?

What kinds of worshipful stories do you imagine we might create on New Earth?

Knowing that could happen, what would you change about those stories now?

Knowing what He has promised in the New Earth, how might that change our lives on this old one? How does it change our stories? Do we cling to them as if Things are all we want, or as if we’ll only get them in this world? Or do we hope to see them in eternal perspective, trying to be Heaven-and-New-Earth-minded so we’re of earthly good?

Soli Deo Gloria!

I don’t know if you’ve been following the news, but recently, NASA revealed that the orbiting Kepler Telescope has found even more extra-solar planets, several of which are close in size to Earth. And, as always, the moment we get a news story like that, we hear the inevitable speculation about alien life. Are they out there? Are they like us? How will we ever know? We’ve certainly seen some of that speculation on this very blog.

I think it really boils down to this question: if alien life exists, if it seems to be sentient, would said aliens have souls?

This might seem like idle speculation, especially since the chances of human beings making contact with intelligent alien life seems so unlikely. But I would argue that this really isn’t idle speculation at all. But to understand why, we have to take a peek at a fantasy novel that was published a few years back.

When I first heard of it, I was impressed by the title, Summa Elvetica: A Casuistry of the Elvish Controversy. The theologian in me loved the allusion to medieval Christian tomes and the proper use of the word “casuistry.” And the premise was a killer as well. What if fantasy races lived alongside the Roman Catholic Church in medieval times? How would the Church determine if those races had souls?

It might seem like a silly question to ask, but Theodore Beale, the author, revealed how important answering that question really is. The Catholic analogue in the book wrestles with the question of whether or not elves have souls for a very important reason. If the elves don’t have souls, then there is no reason for the humans to go to war against them, slaughter them like animals, and take their stuff. If they do have souls, then the Church would be morally obligated to share the Gospel with them. And so, the fantasy-pope of the story sends a young theologian to meet-and-greet the elves to determine the answer. At the end of the book, the Church presents its findings.

What fascinated me was Beale’s historical footnote in the book (which I would quote, but I seem to have misplaced my copy of the book) that revealed that much of the language he used in writing those findings came from an actual theological document produced by the real Roman Catholic Church shortly after the Americas were discovered. Only the Catholics weren’t worried about elves. They weren’t sure what to make of the Native Americans. And so the real Catholic Church debated whether or not these “newly discovered” people had souls. I don’t know how long the debates lasted, but in the end, they decided they did. Unfortunately, that declaration didn’t stop the European settlers from mistreating the Native Americans, but I digress.

I suppose the reason why I’m bringing this up is because I suspect that if we were ever faced with sentient alien life, we’d have to answer that question and quickly. To put it another way, are aliens people too? A lot would be riding on the way we answer that question, especially in terms of how we would relate to each other after the initial contact.

I guess what I’m worried about is this: given humanity’s track record for how we’ve treated each other, beings that are undeniably and unarguably created in the image of God, I fear that in any future scenario between aliens and humans, we’ll be the bad guys. I would suggest that perhaps the safest thing to do is to simply assume that any intelligent aliens we encounter actually do have souls and go from there.

Which naturally begs the question: if aliens do have souls, do they need to be saved? In two weeks, we’ll sit at the feet of a master and see what he has to say on the subject. Until then, keep watching the skies!

It’s the second week of Advent. We light the Bethlehem candle and contemplate the astonishing love of God, who follows through with His promise of a Savior and takes up residence in the Virgin’s womb, traveling to a little town in the hill country of Judea to be born in a stable and laid in a manger. Hope sustained by centuries of prophecy is fulfilled that night.

This is a story of scope and majesty surpassing any tale of science fiction or fantasy the human mind could conceive. What does that leave me to talk about this week?

Good question. It would appear I’ve painted myself into a corner by tying this series to the themes of Advent, and love is the focus of Week Two. I discussed love in speculative fiction at some length a few weeks ago—I suppose I could refer you to that post and leave it there, but that would be cheating.

There must be something. A compelling topic somewhere between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge, a dimension of sight and sound and mind. Wait…there’s a signpost up ahead. Next stop, The Twilight Zone!

Speculative fiction is often accused of being mired in existentialism, a philosophy that claims man is alone in the universe, abandoned to his own devices, his life ultimately bereft of any meaning other than what he creates for himself. That being the case, the existentialist might say, we write stories full of spaceships and fairytale creatures, desperately trying to fill the void that is our universe. Like the messiah stories I talked about last week, I think this sense of abandonment, of utter loneliness, is another symptom of our profound need for God. Our sin has separated us from Him, and we long for that relationship to be restored.

The Twilight Zone, Rod Serling’s long-running television series, took pleasure in exploring those shadowy places where imagination and reality overlap. Many of the stories were about people who found themselves alone in a suddenly strange world, struggling to understand why, and, more importantly, what to do about it. Astronauts and aliens, farmers and librarians, the enchanted, the cursed, the fatally proud and the triumphantly humble—all found their place inside Serling’s funhouse mirrors.

Some of the most poignant of these episodes were Christmas stories. In “Five Characters in Search of an Exit,” a soldier, a ballerina, a clown, a hobo, and a bagpiper awaken in a cylindrical prison with no doors or windows, and they have no memory of how they came to be there. “We are in the darkness,” says the ballerina, “nameless things with no memory – no knowledge of what went before, no understanding of what is now, no knowledge of what will be.” After their attempt to escape the prison ends in a startling failure, their fate is as lonely as when they began, though not entirely without hope.

A story that ends on a happier note is “Night of the Meek,” in which Harry Corwin, a drunken department store Santa, fired and kicked to the curb on a chilly Christmas eve, discovers an empty bag that miraculously produces gifts. As he distributes them to the neighborhood children, Harry rediscovers the joy of Christmas. The department store owner calls the police, thinking Harry has pilfered the presents from his store, but when the police arrive, they find only discarded rubbish inside the bag. In the end, the only gift Harry takes for himself is the wish to don the mantle of St. Nicholas every year in the same way.

Finally, there’s “A Passage for Trumpet,” not a Christmas story exactly, but definitely in the Advent spirit. Joey Crown, a down-and-out jazz musician, pawns his trumpet, then attempts suicide. When he regains consciousness, he wanders the streets in a daze, but none of the passersby acknowledge his presence. He’s hovering between life and death. A beautiful sound drifts through the air, and he follows it to a deserted club where he meets the angel Gabriel, who convinces Joey that his musical talent, and his life, are important and should be treasured, even when times are tough. Joey is restored to life a changed man, ready to start fresh.

Like the characters in these stories, I expect we’ve all found ourselves at some point in our lives feeling overwhelmingly alone, perhaps wondering if God pays attention to our pain and grief, or if he even exists at all. As a race, we’ve cried out to heaven since the Fall, searching, wondering, pleading.

Are you there? Are you watching? Can you hear me? Do you care?

One night in Bethlehem, the Father answers, Yes. I’m here. I see you. I hear you. I love you.

And a Child is born.

Thirty-three years later, the Son of God, suspended between Heaven and Earth, pays the price of our salvation and takes the agony of our sin and the emptiness of our separation from God upon himself.

Father, forgive them, he says, for they do not know what they are doing.

My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?

Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.

It is finished.

We cry out again. They have taken my Lord away, and I don’t know where they have put him.

Resurrected, our Lord replies, Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.

He ascends to Heaven, and we stare after him into the cloudy sky. Have we finally been abandoned once and for all?

The angels are there to remind us, This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven. And we remember he said, I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth….he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.

Like the shepherds, and the Wise Men, we need only to seek, and we will find.

The Spirit and the Bride say, Come.

In church Sunday we sang Michael W. Smith’s “Shine On Us” which contains these words:

Lord
Let your light, Light of your face
Shine on Us

That we, may be saved
That we, may have life
To find our way
In the darkest night
Let your light, Shine on us

When we got to the part “To find our way/In the darkest night” I got this vivid image of Frodo Baggins holding up his gift from Galadriel, a Phial filled with the light of the star Earendil, and heading into Shelob’s lair.

In church? During worship? Indeed. And the image was so powerful, so clearly allegorical, so transitional to what God provides spiritually, that I teared up and could hardly continue singing.

J. R. R. Tolkien had given me a gift — an image that came out of nowhere and impacted me with its truth. Except, it didn’t actually come out of nowhere. It came from Tolkien’s sub-creation, the fantasy — the combination of imagination and enchantment — that is not part of the Primary World, as he called this world in his essay “On Fairy-Stories.”

I suspect Tolkien didn’t intend his light of the star Earendil to undergird the theology of God’s grace, but that’s what the image and the song in combination inside me ended up doing, and my experience illustrates Tolkien’s own belief about fantasy:

Fantasy . . . is, I think, not a lower but a higher form of Art, indeed the most nearly pure form, and so (when achieved) the most potent.

I’m not aware of Tolkien talking a great deal about what his stories meant. He insisted that they weren’t allegories (at the time, critics were saying they represented the war against Germany) and that they weren’t derivative (they accused him of co-opting the premise of Richard Wagner’s four epic operas comprising the Ring Cycle). He even said at one point that the Lord of the Rings was a very Catholic work, but what exactly did he mean?

One thing I would postulate from what he said about fantasy is that he believed his stories revealed true Truth.

Fantasy is a natural human activity. It certainly does not destroy or even insult Reason; and it does not either blunt the appetite for, nor obscure the perception of, scientific verity. On the contrary. The keener and the clearer is the reason, the better fantasy will it make. If men were ever in a state in which they did not want to know or could not perceive truth (facts or evidence), then Fantasy would languish until they were cured. If they ever get into that state (it would not seem at all impossible), Fantasy will perish, and become Morbid Delusion.

Fantasy’s drawback, Tolkien believed, was that it was hard to pull off. The necessary element was “the inner consistency of reality.” Anyone could conceive of a green sun, for example, but to do so and to do nothing else with it was gimmicky. A world with strangeness and no inner consistency was underdeveloped. Instead, the writer as sub-creator needed to draw upon the ramifications to the secondary world (the one of fiction) of a green sun.

Tolkien also recognized that fantasy could be misused.

Fantasy can, of course, be carried to excess. It can be ill done. It can be put to evil uses. It may even delude the minds out of which it came. But of what human thing in this fallen world is that not true? Men have conceived not only of elves, but they have imagined gods, and worshipped them, even worshipped those most deformed by their authors’ own evil. But they have made false gods out of other materials: their notions, their banners, their monies; even their sciences and their social and economic theories have demanded human sacrifice.

I couldn’t help but think of Phillip Pullman’s His Dark Materials as an example of fantasy put to evil use. But Tolkien is right — other kinds of stories are as susceptible to misuse. And yet, if fantasy is powerful when done as sub-creation with internal consistency, readers are not merely transported to the secondary world, they live in that world and experience with the characters their conflict and their overcoming or their faltering and failing.

Of course readers can “live” in a fully realized fictional world containing nothing of fantasy, so sub-creating isn’t unique to the genre. What is unique, however, is the enchantment that transports a reader to that place of Other. As close as I can explain it, I think it touches the spiritual, pulls the veil back and gives a glimpse of glory or of shame. At least that’s been my experience, one that stays with me and surprises me at the most unpredictable moments.