One business and one ministry are rebuilding the Ark, but they expect only a “flood” of visitors.

(Snaps upright.) Whew! What a dream, the other night. But it seemed so real.

For its inspiration, I have to thank Brian Godawa, his novel Noah Primeval (which is still on our front page), parts of the movie Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (which I recently quoted), an overnight thundershower, and this very series — about whether any of the stories we love reading or writing, for God’s glory, may make it to eternity.

Thus I saw in my dream that God had promised another great Flood, to wipe all of mankind from the face of the Earth. Apparently the Ark 2.0 had been commissioned to only my own family. Well, already this seemed unfair, because while this age is bad, it’s not nearly so bad as the world of Noah’s day. But even more unfair was the fact that at first the Ark looked suspiciously like my family’s diesel van, with hardly any room.

Later it turned out the real Ark was in the backyard, but it was still far too small. The solution? A smaller model Ark, enlarged via — why not? — a shrink/expand-o-ray. Of course, this technology might affect the wood, but not the model Ark’s painted-on large-screen television. Still, it wouldn’t be large enough for all our stuff. And what of the animals? Easy solution: shrink them! My brother had done this, and was carrying them all on a tray. Some of them were dropping off the edges. Poor things. Ugh, the visuals …

All this reminds me again of a core truth that underlies last week’s column, and the rest of this series about whether some of our stories could last forever. That truth is this: God loves the world. And in Genesis 6-9, He destroyed the sin that had been wrecking it, but also preserved His people, and animals — all without a shrink-ray.

Paradise preserved

Though that world was being ruined by evil men, perversions, and really big “Nephilim” (whatever they were), God chose to rescue righteous Noah and his family during the Earth-cleansing cataclysm He sent. But God did not preserve only them. As if asking Noah to construct a huge vessel wasn’t hard enough (though Noah’s family may have had hired help), He also commanded them to bring on board animals. And every kind.

Thus, more of God’s creation than humans continued on the other side of destruction, such as animals, seeds, and fertile fields. Even today, despite the continuing sickness of sin in our groaning world (Romans 8), we benefit from a planet salvaged from disaster.

That truth relates to the question of whether God will keep things besides humans in His promised everlasting world. It relates because 2 Peter draws an explicit connection between God’s past judgment of humans by water, and His future judgment by fire:

[…] By the same word [God used to deluge the world with water] the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.

2 Peter 3:7

After that promised judgment, what will happen? I suggest that more of God’s promises must be fulfilled — to Israel, to Gentiles “grafted in,” (Rom. 11:17) and to creation itself.

Quick qualifiers

Last week, in part 1, some of my first thoughts about this topic brought controversy. Here I don’t want to duck that discussion, or else egg it on and deviate from the main topic of stories’ future. After all, as reader Bethany J said Tuesday, the discussion of whether our stories may last forever — assuming they do honor God! — applies whether one holds to old-Earth-fully-destroyed-and-recreated, or old-Earth-made-new.

Still, it seems important to review at least three crucial issues, before moving on.

My explorations of the stories-lasting-forever topic are based on these beliefs, founded in Scripture. I’ll also engage some passages that seem to say opposite.

Q. Is it right to study and anticipate, or even speculate about, Heaven?

A. Yes, God encourages His people to believe His promises, and anticipate what we do know about what He has promised. We don’t know everything, but He is a self-revealing God, Who told us more about the New Earth than we might think.

Old-Testament prophecies, especially, point to a world beyond symbols only, or for the pre-millennial end-times folks here, a literal kingdom on Earth that lasts for 1,000 years before the New Earth. Recently I re-read these passages, and I wish I had room to include whole chapters here — like Isaiah 60, 65 and 66, and Ezekiel 34 to 37.

Jesus constantly promised His disciples eternal joy in Himself, and urged them to reject temporary “pleasures” of this age, not in favor of duty, but delight in Him — delight that leads to wise yet reckless abandon of sin and Satan’s domain in this age, and pursuit of love, holiness, truth, and action. His words encourage us all the more to anticipate the After-world, eagerly awaiting the New Earth He promised (2 Peter 3:13).

By contrast, the Beast lies about God’s Name, Heaven, and Heaven’s citizens (Rev. 13:6). Satan, not God, benefits from anyone not longing for Him and His Home.

Q. What does the Bible promise Christians about the everlasting state?

A. Scripture promises rest in Heaven now, and a physical New Earth in the future.

Some seem to bypass the Bible’s “New Earth” parts and believe in a “spiritoid” sort of existence. In the last column, that concept barely came up. But many Christians believe this view by default. As for nonbelievers, it’s what they believe we believe.

Others define the “new earth” as an entirely new creation, physical, but vaguer. They may believe God isn’t glorified, or our mission aided, by thinking too much about that.

Others compare the creation’s resurrection with our own, pointing to passages like this:

The creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, 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”

Romans 8: 19-21 (emphases added, and I wish I could include the whole passage!)

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

Many Old-Testament prophets, such as Isaiah and Ezekiel, had already promised that Israel will live not in an alternate world, but the same land God promised them, where “the cities shall be inhabited and the waste places rebuilt” (Ezekiel 36:10). This is similar to God’s promise to “remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26), and His resurrection of dead, dry bones (Ezekiel 37).

Finally, we can compare the “new [kainos] Earth” (Rev. 21:1) to the same new applying to God’s people, whom He makes “a new [kainos] creation” (2 Cor. 5:17). We are not annihilated and re-created, but transformed. Here, new means new version, same Thing.

Q. What limits does the Bible place on our imaginations about that world?

A. Scripture leaves room for mystery about the New Earth, and especially about the present Heaven. But though we don’t know everything about the New Earth, we’re not as limited as we might think — even by some commonly cited verses.

Some passages do seem to say that God hasn’t given us specifics about that New Earth. 1 Corinthians 2:9 (hover to read) is one of the most-cited ones. However, reading the rest shows that a) this isn’t about New-Earth details, but God’s previously secret salvation plan, b) God has actually “revealed to us through the Spirit” (v. 10) this kind of wisdom!

What of Paul’s mysterious journey to paradise in 2 Cor. 12:1-4? He heard “things that cannot be told, which man may not utter” (v. 4). Clearly God is still holding back many surprises. But as discussed above, He didn’t hold back in Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Revelation.

Questions remain, for sure. Will God make new beings? (That topic is still going, here.) How can Scripture promise seas, coastlines, and trading ships in Isaiah 60, but also say “the sea was no more” in Rev. 21? Will the Temple in Ezekiel 40-48 be real and located on the New Earth, or is it symbolic? If the New Jerusalem is a real city set upon our physical planet, wouldn’t its size as described in Rev. 21 distort Earth’s orbit?

That last, especially, is a mystery. (At present I’m leaning toward TARDIS-like physics.) And I’m very glad God didn’t tell us all about the New Earth’s nature.

Still, if Scripture doesn’t say that something (in addition to sin!) will have no presence in eternity, instead of asking “does the Bible clearly say it will return?” I’d ask “why would it not return, after God purges its untrue and sin-affected parts?” Consider also: What if Adam and Eve had never sinned? Would they have kept living in time, under God’s rule, on Earth with day and night, animals, plants, water, and bodies? Would they have gone on to have science, machines, art, music, and storytelling? If so, why would these not return, whether you hold to annihilation-and-recreation or complete resurrection?

Of all this, there’s one thing I can say for sure:

One Story will be with us forever. That Story would be God’s Word.

And knowing that, we can discern more about the New Earth.

That includes this: that we will remember the Old Earth, sin, and conflict, because these very elements compose the first and eternal Story. Thus, certainty about that Story’s eternal existence, before any speculation about our own stories, comes next week.

It’s a beautiful, sunny day in East Hickory, Georgia. At the Pig and Whistle Down Home BBQ, Earl Bodine tugs on his John Deere cap and gives the sparkling counter its third polish of the morning with a damp dishrag. The door opens to the tinkle of a tiny brass bell, and a portly fellow in bib overalls enters the restaurant. He settles himself on a stool at the counter.

“Mornin’, Earl.”

“Welcome back, Mort!” Earl tucks the dishrag into his back pocket, then picks up an order pad and a ball-point pen. “What can I get for you?”

Mort strokes his chin. “Hmm. How’s about a pulled-pork sandwich, side of slaw, and a large sweet tea?”

Earl jots down the order and hangs it on a carousel in the kitchen window. “One Zuckerman’s Famous Pig, Raylene! Slop it!”

“Yeah, yeah. Number Six comin’ up.”

“Haven’t seen you around lately.” Earl fills a giant plastic tumbler with iced tea and sets it on a coaster in front of Mort. “Where’ve you been keepin’ yourself?”

“As good as your barbecue is, Earl, I require some variety in my diet. I’ve been doing a little restaurant hopping.”

“Yeah, I understand. Find anything good?”

“There’s this new hash house on the other side of the tracks called Loco Larry’s. He claims to have the hottest barbecue sauce in town.”

“Does he now? Well, sir, I reckon it’s time to break out the Shut Up Juice again.”

“Shut Up Juice? What’s that?”

“Order up!” Raylene hands Earl a plate through the kitchen window, which he delivers to Mort.

“Here, let me show you.” Earl rummages around beneath the counter and emerges with an eyedropper and a large plastic mayonnaise jar with the initials S.U.J. scrawled on it in thick black marker. “I got tired of all them young upstarts disrespectin’ my barbecue, sayin’ my sauce didn’t have enough heat, and so on, and so forth. So, I invented Shut Up Juice. Blended into my top-secret regular sauce base is the essence of ’most every hot pepper known to man, plus a few cultivated only by denizens of the underworld. It is guaranteed to silence any smart-aleck fool who thinks he knows barbecue better than me.”

Earl cuts Mort’s sandwich in two and dispenses a single drop of rusty, murky fluid from the jar onto one of the halves. “There. Give’er a taste and let me know what you think.”

Mort takes a bite. “…”

“Dang hot, ain’t it?”

“…” Mort clutches his throat. His face is turning beet red.

Earl smiles. “So, whatdya say? Give me your honest opinion.”

“…” Mort chugs the entire contents of his glass of tea and waves frantically at Earl for a refill.

Earl serves him another glass, which Mort drains twice as fast as the first one. “See what I mean? That there is the hottest sauce in the world, and will render any loud-mouthed braggart speechless who dares challenge me. It has saved me untold hours of listening to drivel, nonsense, and tomfoolery, and it has won every argument I deemed to be in need of swift and decisive termination. I usually apply a full tablespoon, but you’re a good friend, and I didn’t want to ruin your appetite.”

“Mer…wheeze…mercy goodness, Earl…you could…strip paint with this.”

“Hmm. Hadn’t considered industrial applications.” Earl pulls out his order pad. “Let me jot that down. May be some profit in it.”

Mort mops his face with a blue polka-dot handkerchief. “There’s one problem, though.”

“You don’t say. Looked pretty effective to me.”

“The thing is, it stopped me from talking, but I couldn’t taste the sandwich. The sauce totally blotted out the sweet, savory smokiness of the meat. Seems to me, the sauce should complement that flavor, not overwhelm it. Don’t you want your competition to recognize the superiority of your barbecue?”

“I mostly want them to shut up.”

“But once they recover from the Shut Up Juice, they’ll start trash-talking your food again.”

“Maybe…after two months of blessed silence!”

“It doesn’t solve the problem. Here, I want you to try something.” Mort produces a tiny bottle from the front pocket of his overalls, unscrews the lid, and taps it twice over the other half of his sandwich. “Now, take a bite.”

“What’d you put on that?”

“Oh, just a little something my grandma came up with a long time ago. Family secret. Try it.”

“Mort, if I find you’re going into business against me, it may put our friendship in jeopardy. Just sayin’.”

“Mm-hmm. Eat.”

Earl takes a bite, then another…and another. “Well, I’m…I’m speechless. I’d never have thought there was a way to improve my barbecue, but I have to admit this tops anything I’ve ever tasted. Your grandma wouldn’t be interested in sellin’ me the rights to that there family secret, would she?”

“You’re welcome to it. She won’t mind.”

“Gimme that bottle. What in blue blazes is this stuff?”

Mort hands Earl the bottle, grinning from ear to ear.

Earl looks at it, frowns, and shakes it twice. “It’s empty!”

Mort nods. “Read the label.”

“‘Less is More.’ Is this some kind of joke, Mort? It ain’t very funny.”

“That’s my grandma’s secret. Your barbecue doesn’t need Shut Up Juice to prove your point, Earl. It’s plenty good as it is. Let the food do the talking.”

“Let the food do the talking. You know, it makes sense. Why didn’t I think of that?”

Raylene’s voice rings out from the kitchen. “Because you are a nitwit, Earl Bodine!”

“I love you too, Sweet Pea!”

Mort tugs on Earl’s sleeve. “You can start right now. I believe you owe me a sandwich.”

***

This is a follow-up of sorts to my post last week on controversy and conversation in online forums, including Speculative Faith. Perhaps illustrating the maxim, “be careful what you wish for,” we had a deluge of lively discussion on several topics after that. We do pretty well keeping it civil around here, but as any conversation expands, it’s easy to veer off into angry arguments and personal attacks, forgetting that the point of the discussion lies in the exchange of ideas and information, not “winning” the debate.

In argument, as in barbecue, it’s difficult to resist the temptation to silence critics with some kind of extra-spicy “shut up juice”– a well-timed zinger, witty insult, or even a “proof text” from Scripture. It may feel good, for a minute or two, but it rarely settles anything, is a great way to make enemies, and is much less productive than letting your case stand or fall on its own merits. What you were trying to say gets lost when everyone’s attention focuses on the Shut Up Juice.

So, stay cool, fight fair, remember there are human beings on the other side of that screen, and read your comment two or three times before clicking Submit.

Here’s a report on the original Shut Up Juice, which you can find at The Mean Pig BBQ in Cabot, Arkansas.

Speculative writers are familiar with J. R. R. Tolkien’s long essay “On Fairy Stories” and with some frequency may even quote from it. I know I have. And yet I’ve never read it. But that is changing.

With little effort, I located a copy on line, available for free download, and I’ve begun to make my way through the twenty-seven pages discussing a fairly narrow segment of speculative fiction.

illustration for the Brother's Grimm story "The Elves and the Shoemaker"

Tolkien is specific. Fairy stories are certain things and definitely not others.

First they are stories about Faerie, “the realm or state in which fairies have their being,” though this realm contains much more than elves or fairies, even more than “dwarfs, witches, trolls, giants, or dragons: it holds the seas, the sun, the moon, the sky; and the earth, and all things that are in it: tree and bird, water and stone, wine and bread, and ourselves, mortal men, when we are enchanted.”

Though Tolkien obviously has in mind what he believes constitutes a fairy story, he ultimately declines to define them:

The definition of a fairy-story—what it is, or what it should be—does not, then, depend on any definition or historical account of elf or fairy, but upon the nature of Faërie: the Perilous Realm itself, and the air that blows in that country. I will not attempt to define that, nor to describe it directly. It cannot be done. Faërie cannot be caught in a net of words; for it is one of its qualities to be indescribable, though not imperceptible. It has many ingredients, but analysis will not necessarily discover the secret of the whole. . . I will say only this: a “fairy-story” is one which touches on or uses Faerie.

Instead, he elaborates on what fairy stories are not. They are not dream experiences such as The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland. They are not journey tales such as “The Voyage to Lilliput,” a rendering of an excerpt of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. They are not beast fables such as “Brer Rabbit” or “The Three Little Pigs.”

At one point, however, Tolkien hints at what he believes to be key to fairy stories: “the primal desire at the heart of Faerie [is] the realization, independent of the conceiving mind, of imagined wonder.”

Imagined wonder.

I have to let that one sink in. The idea brings to mind Narnia, further up and further in, or Perelandra or Middle Earth itself. It’s beauty and awe made alive. It’s longing and hope and expectation and joy, all textured and in living color.

As to the origin of the stories themselves, Tolkien says they come from invention, inheritance, or “diffusion,” the latter two both being forms of borrowing. In the end, of course, the borrowed must of necessity spring from an original invention. But as Tolkien sees it, dissecting the origin isn’t critical. The stories themselves, even if taken from the identical original invention, will be distinct.

Hence, critiquing a work must not be based on its parts but on its whole:

In Dasent’s words I would say: “We must be satisfied with the soup that is set before us, and not desire to see the bones of the ox out of which it has been boiled.” . . . By “the soup” I mean the story as it is served up by its author or teller, and by “the bones” its sources or material—even when (by rare luck) those can be with certainty discovered. But I do not, of course, forbid criticism of the soup as soup.

So what are your thoughts? Is Tolkien too narrow in his understanding of what constitutes a fairy story? Are myths better if they are invented instead of borrowed? Do you grow weary of stories that grow out of the most common myths such as King Arthur or the Biblical (and real) Nephilim? Do you think we readers spend too much time trying to look at the “bones” instead of contenting ourselves with the “soup”?

In my new novel, Noah Primeval, Book One of the Chronicles of the Nephilim, I retell the story of the Biblical Noah as a nomadic tribal warrior. He refuses to worship the divine council of gods in Mesopotamia and is subsequently hunted down by assassin giants, leading the chase through Sheol, and ending in a climactic battle involving Leviathan and other hybrid monsters.

“What?” you may say. That’s not in the Bible! That sounds more like the non-canonical book of Enoch or the fantasy world of The Lord of the Rings than Holy Scripture. Isn’t that mythologizing the Bible?

It is hard enough to get some religious believers to appreciate the imagination of the fantasy genre. But when it comes to retelling a story from the Bible, their view is categorical: don’t even think of putting those two things together — Bible and fantasy. That borders on tampering with the Word of God worthy of the curse in Revelation 21 on those who “add or take away from the words of the book.”

I think this negative impulse comes from an essentially good intent: the desire to avoid denigrating their sacred stories or reducing them to the level of false pagan myths. But such good intent does not necessarily produce the good result of a well thought out Biblical understanding of story. 1

What would surprise many of these concerned believers is the fact that the same ancient Hebrews who championed the Scriptures as their sacred text containing the very words of God, were also the ones who wrote those Scriptures utilizing pagan imagination and motifs. And they were also the same ancient believers who wrote many other non-canonical texts that retold Biblical stories with fantastic embellishments worthy of mythopoeic masters.

Subverted Pagan Imagination

I have written elsewhere about the extensive use of Canaanite poetry and imagination by Bible authors to express God’s own imagination. 2 The Bible redeems pagan imagination by using its motifs and baptizing them with altered subversive definitions that support Yahweh, the God of the Jewish Scriptures against Baal, the god of Canaan, and other pagan deities in the ancient Near East.

Two examples of this redemptive subversion that show up in Noah Primeval are Leviathan and the Divine Council of the Sons of God. It appears that Yahweh was not only interested in dispossessing the Canaanite people from the Promised Land, he was interested in dispossessing their narrative, because the Bible embodies a subversion of Canaanite imagination within its own narrative.

Baal, the storm god, was the chief deity of the land of Canaan in the time of the Israelite conquest. Canaanite myths depict Baal as a “cloud rider” who defeats the River and the Sea, as well as the Sea Dragon called “Leviathan,” (a symbol of chaos) in order to claim his eternal dominion. 3

In polemical response to this mythology, the Biblical writers describe Yahweh as a “cloud rider” (Is. 19:1; Ps. 104:3-4), who defeats the River and Sea (Hab. 3:8), as well as the Sea Dragon, “Leviathan,” (Is. 89:6-12) in order to establish his eternal dominion (Ps. 89:19-29). It appears that Yahweh, in consort with the human authors of the Bible, is subversively using the pagan cultural motifs and thought-forms of the day to say, “Baal is not God, Yahweh is God.”

In Psalm 74, 89, Isaiah 27, and Isaiah 51 the story of the Exodus crossing of the Red Sea is described with the imaginative terms of creating the heavens and earth, crushing the head of Leviathan, and binding the chaos waters of the sea in order to establish Yahweh’s covenantal dominion on the earth in his people. This is history mixed in with mythopoetic imagination to describe the theological significance of what is taking place – just like other ancient Near Eastern religions did. 4

Another aspect of Canaanite pagan mythology that is redeemed in the Scriptures is the Divine Council of the Sons of God. In the sacred Baal texts we read about the “Sons of God” who act as an advisory council and judicial board to a Father deity called “El.” Baal is a vice regent who ascends to the throne of El and rules over the other gods of the council, who then do his bidding. 5

In the Bible, Yahweh (also called “El”) presides over a divine council of the “Sons of God”, (Ps. 89:5-7) who also give advice in judicial decisions of Yahweh (Ps. 82), and carry out his bidding as well (Job 1:6-12; 1 Kings 22:19-22). A deified figure called the Son of Man is a vice regent who ascends to God’s throne surrounded by those “holy ones” who do his bidding (Dan. 7:9-14).

Of course, there are significant differences that separate the monotheistic Biblical divine council and the polytheistic pagan Canaanite divine council. As one example illustrates, the Biblical divine council are not to be worshiped, but Yahweh alone; while the Canaanite divine council were worshiped. Big similarities, but bigger differences. Biblical imagination is not engaging in syncretism (blending opposing views), but in subversion (infiltrating and overthrowing an opposing view). The commonalities show a clear cultural connection that is subversively redeemed and redefined in the Biblical understanding of the concept. God incorporates pagan imagination and motifs into his own narrative and subverts them through redefinition and poetic usage.

So that’s what I did in Noah Primeval. I retold the story of Noah, utilizing mythopoeic notions of Leviathan as a personification of chaos, and the sons of God as the divine council around God, as well as the incorporation of other Mesopotamian imagery in order to give a theological explanation for the true origins and partial reality of pagan mythology.

Don’t worry, it’s not as head trippy as all this academicspeak may sound. This is just the deep stuff behind the exciting fantasy action adventure in the novel. But there are appendixes in the book for those who want to explore the Biblical and ANE research more in depth.

1 The curse of Revelation 21, is not a reference to the entire Bible, but the prophecy of the particular book of Revelation. Also, the context is not about taking away individual words but about taking away or adding to the content of the prophecy. If it were words, then we are all condemned because we do not have the original words, but only English translations based on many different copied manuscripts with lots of different textual variations. In other words our book of Revelation contains added words and taken away words.
2 See Wyatt, N. Religious Texts from Ugarit. 2nd ed. Biblical seminar, 53. (London; New York: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002). Also, Brian Godawa, “Old Testament Storytelling Apologetics,” at www.godawa.com.
3 See my article “Biblical Creation and Storytelling: Cosmogony, Combat and Covenant” for a detailed explanation of this ANE technique.
4 See Michael S. Heiser, The Divine Council In Late Canonical And Non-Canonical Second Temple Jewish Literature (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin, 2004) 34-41; Patrick D. Miller, “Cosmology And World Order In The Old Testament The Divine Council As Cosmic-Political Symbol” Israelite Religion and Biblical Theology: Collected Essays by Patrick D. Miller, (NY: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000).
5 For more differences explained, see Gerald Cooke, “The Sons of (the) God(s),” Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, n.s.:35:1 (1964), p 45-46.

– – – – –

Brian Godawa is the author of the new Biblical fantasy novel, Noah Primeval, now available for purchase on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. To see a trailer, read an author interview, sign up for free chapters, and learn more information about the Chronicles of the Nephilim, visit the Noah Primeval web site.

Mr. Godawa is also the award-winning screenwriter of the feature film To End All Wars, starring Kiefer Sutherland. In addition, he authored the popular book Hollywood Worldviews: Watching Films with Wisdom and Discernment (IVP). Visit his web site for films and other books and free articles.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one, from a book, story, song, pastor, or maybe yourself:

This world is not my home; I’m just passing through.

Or any of these:

In heaven, time shall be no more.

Only three things are eternal: God, souls, and God’s Word.

We’ll spend all eternity undistracted by earthly things, worshiping God.

Or even:

You can’t take it [that is, a material possession] with you [when you die].

Several things have brought these to my mind, starting with my “open letter” last month about the contemporary Christian movie Courageous. In that column I attempted to react to the movie not just as a story, or just as a sermon, but both. After all, its creators had said they wanted make a sermon-story, so I felt the movie should be praised or critiqued accordingly. But soon that discussion developed into — you never can be too sure about these things — a subtopic about whether the iPhone, though developed by presumed non-Christian Steve Jobs, could be used in Heaven.

Actually, this subtopic wasn’t really that random. That’s because in the film’s ending scene, with a church altar-call-esque summons for men to be men, one character says:

“You can’t fall asleep at the wheel only to wake up one day and realize that your job and your hobbies have no eternal value, but the souls of your children do.”

Transcription courtesy of Christian Jaeschke, from the novelization of Courageous by Randy Alcorn

“Your job and your hobbies have no eternal value.”

Yes, that part — like several of the above clichés — leaped out to me as both poor story and un-Biblical sermon.

But hey, I’ve been there, done that about Courageous. I don’t want to blame the movie’s screenwriters, who surely meant well. Lines like “your job and your hobbies have no eternal value” are the result of ongoing evangelical myths. They are not the source.

So my hope in this series is to identify the problem’s source. Then prove that it is a problem. Then show from Scripture how these are not Biblical, and why it matters.

This definitely applies to Christians as people. It also applies to those who have devoted significant amounts of time to their hobbies or even jobs of reading/writing the best speculative stories they can (given that hobbies and jobs are often interchangeable).

But first I have a few problems of my own to overcome.

Otherworldly issues

1. I just finished a miniseries about going beyond story battles.

I loved writing that short series. It gave me a chance to remember what all our love for stories, and ultimately God’s original and ongoing Story, is all about. It’s not just about generating controversy (as Fred Warren underscored on Tuesday), or beating back un-Biblically “safe” views of story or speculative genres. Those issues are important, but they are temporary. Rather, I want to love and promote great stories because they are special agents of worship. Unlike nonfiction teaching, or even art forms like music, stories help us “get more,” in unique ways, of the same God Who has revealed Himself.

This new series, though, should expand those themes.

I don’t believe that manmade stories, like controversy, are temporary. I hope to prove proactively in this series that all of a Christian’s God-honoring talents, ambitions, even accomplishments — including our stories — may just follow us into the New Earth.

My goal is not just whacking wrong Heaven/New Earth beliefs. Sure, that’ll come, but only while a-passing through to the final destination. My hope is to encourage.

2. Talking about the goodness of material Things could seem like justification for greed and materialism, “prosperity gospel” garbage, or neglect of holiness.

That nonsense is out there. It’s sinful and it’s disgusting. The chief end of man is not to get more of God’s gifts and enjoy them forever. It’s to glorify and “get” and enjoy God.

You’re a child of the king, so you should live as the King wants you to live, coo the friendly, smiling, too-easy-to-take-cheap-shots-at television preachers, to gullible, self-centered followers. But true children of the King store up treasures in Heaven (Matt. 6: 19-21), and are eager to give, at personal cost and from Christ-endorsed “selfish” desire for the greatest reward that He promises: Himself and His Kingdom (Luke 12: 32-34).

But in some sense, I’ll assume in this series that you already know the danger of valuing God’s gifts more highly than their Giver; or that greed and sin are nasty; or that God may call us to give up ambitions, talents, or anything else, to serve Him in other ways.

Of course, true to form, I might still issue a sporadic disclaimer about those. But not every book, sermon, or series can take care of every angle of every Christian issue.

And nowadays, I’m seeing a lot of pushback against things like The American Dream, ambition, possessions, even personal talents. And there could be a chance — I’ve been noticing this — that we push too far. That we wind up in the opposite extremes. That in correcting for materialism, we wind up with spiritualism — Gnosticism-infected beliefs that fail to recall that God is redeeming not just souls, but His world.

These hurt our holiness. Worse, they accidentally deny God’s Word. They imply that the material world itself — not just its present evil age — isn’t worth God’s time. That the world to come is vague and unearthly. That only our “spiritual” deeds and work matters.

I think I’ve been saying this often, but more vaguely. Until now.

How vital is this topic? I suggest this: If we don’t have some hope that our story-related hobbies/jobs could enter eternity, we should stop doing them. Now.

3. I don’t want to assume readers believe New-Earth myths that they don’t.

Last week I said that more Christians need not fear painting only in pastel, fuzzy tones about the New Earth. This applies especially to Christian storytellers. All Christians are in the business of pointing to everlasting life. Our stories in particular should arouse this longing deep in the hearts of hearers, and in one way or another, point to its Source.

To discern and enjoy man’s stories, and know how their music — in sounds and lyrics — are echoic remixes of Heaven, we must be more familiar with the original Song.

Some of us may have grown up hearing sermons or seeing images that imply Christians have only the clichéd “sitting on clouds and playing harps” lifestyle to “anticipate” after we die. Others, though, may have more often heard rebuttals. How silly, the rebutters may say. Really, we can’t know exactly what Heaven will be like, but that’s where God is.

But too often we debunk the stereotypical clouds-and-harps mythology, yet hold onto other un-Biblical myths.

And too often also might one set out to debunk myths, having not taken stock of what folks actually believe and would say outright, or believe deep down and haven’t thought of it in a while. That’s why I’m asking: what do you believe about the After-world?

Perhaps giving away my challenges to some of the above clichés may help — if for no other reason than for readers to say, Hey, I’ve never believed that. You’re behind, brother.

Yet again, my hope is not just to myth-bust, but to encourage all Christians.

That goes especially for those who love stories, and/or writing, and would love to keep their favorites right on into everlasting life, but aren’t sure if that’s a Godly desire.

So this series will start with this: For readers and writers of stories whose themes and excellencies are meant to glorify God — according to His own nature and revelation about how He seeks His glory — your hobbies and jobs are not automatically worthless.

Scripture doesn’t say that this world, or time, or “earthly things,” are temporary.

God’s Word itself never claims that only God, souls, and itself will last forever.

In fact, it speaks of fire that purges and cleanses the curse of sin from the Earth (2 Peter 3). As the stars melt and the skies tear apart, the Earth does not. Instead it is “exposed” (verse 10). Made new. Reforged. A real, solid, perfect planet. Crown jewel of the divine empire.

That has implications. And prophecy is clear that the new world will also have Things.

Why should those Things not include manmade stories? More on that, next week.

No, I’m not talking about this kind of alien work of God. Instead, I want to talk about how it seems that I’ve always had aliens on the brain.

I mentioned two weeks ago that my earliest forays into writing revolved around aliens. Most of my earliest work had to do with aliens in some way, shape, or form. As a matter of fact, those lousy speculative fiction books I mentioned usually included a story about aliens and how said aliens might fit into God’s salvation plan. Just a decade ago, I was working on a sci-fi trilogy about aliens, but more on that in future posts.

And I know I’m not the only one with aliens on the brain. Recently the White House released a statement that said that the United States government has never been contacted by aliens, nor did the government have any UFOs tucked away in hidden hangers. What prompted this revelation? Someone submitted a survey asking for whatever information the President had and tens of thousands of people signed it.

Not only that, but I recently spotted a news article about how some researchers have come up with a new method for looking for intelligent alien life: look for the light pollution of their major cities. And they’ve got lots of places to look. It seems like every month scientists announce that they’ve found more and more planets orbiting far-flung stars, including a few in their star’s Goldilocks zone.

So I guess the question is this: is it possible that we’re not alone? Could there be aliens out there, potentially even sentient aliens? And if there are, what would that mean for the Christian?

Just to be clear, I’m not really interested in the current spate of alien abduction stories that circulate out there. Far too often, those stories are revealed to be hoaxes or someone’s imagination running away with them (although Jeff Gerke, writing as Jefferson Scott, once presented an interesting “white paper” on the subject of alien abductions that I found very thought-provoking). Truth be told, I find it hard to believe that if an alien society developed interstellar travel, they’d spend all their time abducting people in remote parts of the world and probing them. Just saying.

That still leaves the question: could there be alien life out there? The universe is a vast place, and we’ve already seen on Earth that life can show up in the strangest of places and the strangest of forms.

But rather than just dive into the topic right now, how about this: what’s your opinion? I’ll share mine in the coming weeks, but right now, I’d like to know: do you think it’s possible? Why or why not? And if it is possible, what does that mean?

I noticed something interesting in the comments to my article last week. Several of the earlier ones paraphrased to, “Well, I really can’t argue with this.” Stephen chimed in soon afterward, trying to stimulate conversation, I suppose, with, “Who disagrees? Why would they disagree?”

Hmm. “Think, think, think,” quoth Pooh.

Dude talks tough, but he ain't nothin' but fluff.

Two weeks ago, I proclaimed my intention to “misbehave,” to stir the pot, be surprising, challenge the status-quo, et-cetera, et-cetera. Looking at those comments, I wondered, “Am I still settling for the conventional? Am I spouting safe ideas and taking comfortable positions anybody can accept without much thought?

Blogging is supposed to be interactive. I write something, then the readers line up on both sides of the issue, charge their muskets, and open fire. When the smoke clears, the battlefield is strewn with punctured rhetoric, and everybody on the ’net is talking about that epic conflagration over at Speculative Faith and reenacting bits and pieces of it on their own blogs. We’ve gone viral.

No doubt about it.

However, if my opinion piece is as provocative as a well-fed hamster, nothing much will happen. We’ll get a few shoulder shrugs. A couple of loyal readers might log in with, “Hey, there goes a hamster,” and “Yep, it’s a hamster, no doubt about it. Can’t really argue with that.”

Controversy gets people talking. It’s the friction point where the sparks begin to fly. If you’ve spent any time at all around here, you’re familiar with some of our collective hot-buttons, and may have noticed a spike in comments when they’re in play. For example:

• Characters should/shouldn’t swear in Christian fiction.
• Christians should/shouldn’t criticize Christian writers.
• The gospel should be presented obviously/subtly in Christian fiction.
•  (Insert name here) is/isn’t a universalist.
• CBA-allied publishers and booksellers are helping/hindering Christian spec-fic writers.
•  J.K. Rowling is/isn’t the Devil’s stenographer.

Controversies have expiration dates, though, and after the fourth or fifth go-round, people lose interest. “C.S. Lewis and Purgatory? Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Bored now.” It’s not enough to hit on a controversy, it’s got to be crisp and prickly with a succulent, chewy center, like a fresh artichoke.

Should I try to be more controversial? That’s a lot of work. It’s hard to maintain a steady level of volatility, unless you’re talking about politics. Speculative Faith focuses on Christianity in fiction—religion can and does inspire folks to combat, but somebody will eventually toss a box of baking soda on the grease fire with an appeal to be kind and loving, like Christians should, buttressed with an apt Scripture verse or two. Everyone will retire to their corners, vaguely ashamed of themselves, and all conversation will cease.

I’m not talking about a reaction motivated by rudeness or lack of respect here—simple disagreement is often enough to bring out the volunteer fire department. From one perspective, we’re being better Christians—nobody’s arguing, so nobody’s going to get hurt—but what’s the point of having a discussion forum if we only discuss an issue until somebody feels uncomfortable? I guess we could steer clear of all controversy and offer nothing but supportive book reviews and an exchange of trivia from our favorite books and movies.

Is there a middle ground? How might we explore areas of fundamental disagreement between people without creating animosity? It may not be possible—it helps to be courteous and respectful, but some folks will always feel personally threatened by an opposing view, no matter how gently offered.

Cute & cuddly does not a revolution make.

I know some of you don’t like open-ended questions, but I don’t have answers for these. I want to see this forum live long and prosper, and I want to do what I can to help that happen.

What I do know is that it’s not going to help anybody if all I do is serve up hamsters.

Yesterday during an NFL game, a quarterback dropped back to pass and was belted from both sides, violently sandwiched between two onrushing linemen. The two-team collision reminds me of Christian speculative fiction.

As various contributors here at Speculative Faith have pointed out from time to time, speculative stories are the brunt of criticism from those who believe fantastical elements don’t belong. At the same time, however, the hammer comes down, claiming theology has no place, that it’s too restrictive, too confining, too box-like.

Like so much else in the Christian life, I believe writers following Jesus Christ must walk in balance, in this case between those two extremes. We have God-given imagination and we have God-given revelation. One ought not exclude the other.

The logical approach seems to me to anchor ourselves, and therefore our writing and our responses to what we read, in that which is fixed. From that point and within its parameters, speculative stories have infinite latitude. The “anchor,” I submit, is truth, especially God’s self-revealed truth.

The Apostle Paul addressed false teaching from time to time in his letters to various churches. He was concerned that those spouting wise-sounding words might delude believers into abandoning the gospel. Repeatedly he called believers to govern or protect their minds. To the Corinthian church he wrote

We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ (2 Cor. 10:5)

Some people might be tempted to put a period after speculations or possibly after every lofty thing. But the verse clearly states that the speculations and lofty things Paul was standing against had a specific purpose: they were raised up against the knowledge of God.

A logical deduction, then, would seem to be that speculations and lofty things aimed at revealing a true knowledge of God would receive Paul’s approval. The key seems to be in the last part of the verse: we are to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

Think of our thoughts as beautiful stallions, sleek and strong. They can either run wild or they can be tamed and trained. Are those tamed and trained stallions inferior to the wild ones? That question, I think, expresses the fears of some writers. If we submit our thoughts to “theological correctness” somehow we will be giving up something vital and necessary for good storytelling. Somehow the captive thoughts, the tamed ones won’t express the messiness of the human soul.

I don’t believe that to be true, for one main reason: Christ was a man. Well, OK, two reasons: God created Man. My point is, no one knows the messiness of the human soul more than He Who created it and Who lived it (“For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin” — Heb. 4:15). In other words, our greatest source for understanding the way the world works — that in the heavens or on earth, the visible or the invisible — is God’s revelation.

Apart from that anchor, however, we can wander into all kinds of false ideas, and our stories will no longer be true. Paul again, this time to the church in Colossae:

See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. (Col. 2:8)

The key here, I believe, is that our thoughts will be taken captive, one way or another. The wild stallion may be a romantic notion, but in truth, horses on their own are prone to hunger and disease and may become prey to any number of predators. Their “freedom” leads them into lives of skittishness and fear and danger, whereas those that are tamed and trained know safety and satisfaction.

Our thoughts are not so different.

But what does “safety and satisfaction” do to storytelling? I mean, conflict is the key and that messiness of the soul is what we’re concerned about. What does “tamed and trained” have to do with that?

My contention is that Christians see with more clarity, not less. Yes, the glass through which we peer is still dark, but we’re no longer blind. We do see, however imperfectly. Yet some who profess Christ act as if our Christianity handicaps us from writing what the rest of the world sees. Just the opposite is true. We not only can write what the rest of the world sees, but we can write what they are incapable of seeing, and that, my friends, means Christians should be the best speculative writers of all.

What do you see when you first wake up in the morning? How do the colors of the world come together—as they are, or as they aren’t quite? What about the shadows of night, or the short-circuiting flicker of an overtired mind?

Perception is broken. Nonetheless, it’s accurate enough that we are capable of recognizing the existence of truth. Somewhere between the brokenness and the certainty is something artists call a lost edge: a blending of the one into the other.

In visual art, this happens for a powerful reason: to bring the most important details into focus. The place where things begin to blur away is a frame of reference that points the eye to what matters.

In fiction, one speculative genre accomplishes this by refusing to draw a solid line between the everyday and the fantastical. Welcome to the world of magic realism.

Magic realism or magical realism is an aesthetic style or genre of fiction in which magical elements blend with the real world. The story explains these magical elements as real occurrences, presented in a straightforward manner that places the “real” and the “fantastic” in the same stream of thought. It is a film, literary and visual art genre.

From Wikipedia’s entry on Magic realism

Is this the same as when an angel steps into a Christian story to change everything? Not exactly. Magic realism offers no justification or explanation for its strange or even utterly implausible events, and that’s something that’s almost never done in Christian fiction. Our religious culture is so laden with crosscurrents, preferred emphases and paradigms, and even outright disagreements over How To Be Godly, that it’s de rigueur to express the supernatural with a fully realized context and definition. All the lines sketched firmly in place.

And this need for definition may indeed contribute to accusations of two-dimensionality in Christian fiction. In art, the lost edge is what makes things lifelike.

In Christian writing, supernatural fiction tends to define its events through overt statements or through very clear context. Christian fantasy in particular tends to lean heavily on the strict parallelism of allegory in order to ensure all’s interpreted as prescribed.

Magic realism? Forget the contextual requirements. Forget the careful definitions. Forget the rules. It just is, regardless of whether anyone believes it.

Those who define everything that exists as the natural haven’t told us anything of significance. I could just as easily define everything as hablabadaba. It would mean the same thing and deliver the same informational content. Customarily, the word natural is invoked to describe a realm of energy, space, time, and matter, and any other conceivable or unknown physical entity, whether it be a part of this universe, or a detached natural realm outside the spatio-temporal universe we inhabit. Anything outside the natural realm, as commonly thought, would be supernatural, preternatural, extranatural, or the like.

But perhaps those who do this are not offering a definition. Instead, maybe they are making a claim about the way things really are, as in nothing exists outside of the natural. Here, however, we receive a check…. Where does this leave our non-omniscient naturalist? In a state of agnosticism, presumably, though many will call it atheism.

From Less Real than we Think, More Real than we Want by Marc Schooley

Christians accept their sense of the spiritual realm as something that exists. It’s part of the Christian definition of the “natural,” in the sense that we don’t exclude it from our reality. In many ways, our sense of the supernatural is tidily codified into what Schooley refers to as “a detached natural realm outside the spatio-temporal universe we inhabit.”

This approach, while comfortable to the modern Western mindset, is both at odds with the original context of the Bible and also risks degrading the supernatural through an imposition of pragmatic naturalism. This is how Western Christians become practical atheists all the while invoking heaven and hell, angels and demons. Those things are somewhere out there, to be encountered according to the categorical rules we’ve invented for a detached natural realm—“the spiritual.”

Whether the rules are wild or tame, nonetheless we have rules for these things, and by the rules do we define our truths and lies. Nothing exists outside of that.

But this is not lifelike in its presuppositions about the lost edge of truth and perception. Magic realism presents a unique window on the epistemology of awareness and the unsterile mess within the human heart and mind. And then it conjoins that mess with the intrusion of the spiritual upon everyday life.

As t.e. George has discussed, there is much unexplainable and unexplained; there are many moments where the light shifts strangely as we wake or fall into sleep. Do we then acknowledge them, or shove them out of the box of religious naturalism to be ignored?

Was it not Blaise Pascal who said, le coeur a ses raisons, que la raison ne connait point?

The heart has its reasons, whereof reason knows nothing…this is a truth of the biblical paradigm, where hearts are deceitful and desperate, and yet can indeed ring true against all our tidy, self-serving rationales.

However, American evangelical writing has only just begun to make a place for the role of magic realism. We seem to be standing on the cusp of many things in Christian publishing, where either everything is growing, or everything is falling down. We are not sure which.

It could be both. There are things that happen. And anything is possible. These may or may not be truths; what’s certain is that they’re not exactly comfortable thoughts, depending on how one perceives them.

Sitting in my bed, I saw shiny black and rippling silver scales flash in front of me. I could see them clearly. In my joy of this miracle, I got out of bed and did not question where this creature was taking me.

I followed its beauty and compelling voice through dark hallways and out to the courtyard. Although it was winter, I did not feel the cold. The strange creature settled under the cherry tree’s naked branches.

The creature slithered and curled into the branches of the tree. “Come up here, Wen Ming,” it said.

“I will stay here, where I won’t fall.”

“Then you will miss a beautiful sight.”

“I cannot see. So I will miss it anyway.”

“What if I promised you that you would be able to see clearly all the way to where the earth and heaven join?”

I peered up at it. When I looked at it, I saw clearly. When I looked away, all was dark again. But I had not lived my life as an orphan for nothing. I did not give my trust easily. “Why should I want to see that?”

–Lucky Baby, by Meredith Efken (Howard Books, 2010)

Cathi-Lyn Dyck has been a published writer and poet since 2004, and a freelance editor since 2006.

She can be found online at ScitaScienda.com.