Good morning! I caught up with my friend Jeremy again. He’s graciously filled in for me this morning.

Jeremy McNabb is a steampunk author, youth director, and speaker. His latest e-novella, Gravesight, is available on Amazon Kindle. Hope you enjoy the read!

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This is the Advanced Class

Not long ago, I had the opportunity to sit through several informative sessions on storytelling, given by Steven James. On the conference itinerary, these classes were listed as “Advanced,” suggesting that if you hadn’t the first clue about writing, you probably ought to enjoy a different class during that slot. I’ll give you the background to set the context of the scene.

Mr. James had just finished explaining that a writer must either give the reader what they want, or else, give them something better. In other words, if you’ve spent ten-thousand words on an amazing car chase, it’s unfair to the reader for the character to wake up to find that it was all a dream. In some Christian fiction, as Mr. James points out, what the reader gets is what seems best for the character—but not necessarily what is best for the story. The climax of many Christian novels consists of the protagonist’s inevitable and predictable salvation, and not something more unpredictable, revelatory, or powerful.

“But salvation is the best thing there is!” protested one participant.

Mr. James calmly and patiently articulated that many, many Christian novels end in a salvation, and that while the angels rejoice over the saved, rescuing a completely fictional soul from a literary Hell may cheat the audience of a deeper glimpse beyond the veil.

With great indignation, the same participant rebutted, “So you’re saying is that a novel is different from a sermon?”

Everyone turned their head at that point. Someone must have missed the boldfaced word “Advanced” printed on the itinerary, just above the class description. Mr. James answered, “Absolutely. A sermon gives answers. A novel asks the questions.”

There are dozens of differences besides this singular distinction. Sermons are spoken; novels are read. Sermons are short; novels are long. Sermons are given from a pulpit; novels, page by page. Sermons are concerned with conveying truth; novels are concerned with conveying the truth as a particular character sees it.

But none of those summarize the whole difference better than Mr. James did. Interestingly enough, most classes and textbooks on preaching advise preachers to incorporate stories into their sermons, while best-selling authors unanimously agree that a novel is no place for a sermon. Here’s where I should be expected to pick on the church, especially on preachers who aspire to be novelists. Throughout Mr. James’ sessions, he made sure to highlight the common mistakes that (even best-selling) novelists make. I’ll admit, my exposure to Christian fiction doesn’t compare to my exposure to mainstream fiction. It’s my dirty little secret. Most of the books people were talking about at the Christian writers’ conference were ones I hadn’t read. When Mr. James mentioned sermonizing, or a clichéd act of God, rescuing the protagonist from death, my mind went to mainstream novels.

Now, before this becomes a sermon:

THE END.

Last week, we talked about the nature of love, offering a couple of examples from speculative fiction. Self-sacrifice figured prominently in that discussion, and I argued that love in its most refined form is fundamentally other-focused. Love seeks the best for the loved one, even if that means giving up everything, even life itself, if necessary, to make that happen. On the high road of love, everything is pure and noble and admirable, but…

Where, for the sake of all things blossoming, chocolate-coated, glittery, and pulse-pounding, is the romance? Dying for the sake of love might be romantic under certain circumstances, in a despairing, angsty, Romeo-and-Juliet sort of way, but it’s hard to get too excited about it. People want, to use a term that popped up here last week, kissyface. We’re talking about passion, ardor, desire–a focused attraction that fills the world with adventure, music, and jasmine-scented breezes that blow your hair around in a fetching manner without creating tangles.

I’m not trying to trivialize romance. Romance isn’t merely a diversion–emotionally energizing if you’re involved, and fun to watch if you’re not. It’s important. Romance is about a change in perspective. It’s what happens when a special someone helps you realize that the world doesn’t revolve around you. You experience the world through a new set of eyes, and you begin to notice beauty in places you never before thought to look. You care enough about this other person that you want to spend the rest of your life with them, doing your best to make them happy. You’d catch a bullet for them, if the situation ever came up. It’s a heady feeling, more intoxicating than any artificial mood-enhancer. It’s the spark, the fire, the fireworks.

It’s also an image of a quality of love God wants to share with us, something mentioned briefly in the book of Revelation as the “first love.” We see a vivid portrayal of that kind of intense joy and delight between lovers in the Song of Solomon.

Romance is also hard work. There’s serious conflict mingled with the sunbeams and lollipops as two people begin to smooth out their rough edges against each other. There’s fighting and losing and seeking and finding and winning and fighting again. It’s wonderful, and awful. It can bond people for a lifetime, or if they can’t adjust their priorities and expectations, it can tear them apart. This is gripping stuff. It can yield some incredible stories.

Getting back to speculative fiction, I’ve noted previously that science fiction in particular doesn’t dwell much on romance. Maybe there’s too much methane in the atmosphere. It’s difficult, I think, to come up with a compelling reason to stage a romance in a science fiction setting. It can feel awkward, like putting pants on a duck–a waste of time, and annoying to the duck. Romance, wherever you find it, is perfectly at home in fantasy worlds of courtly love, full of dragons and castles and princes and magic. Or in New York. Or maybe even in Forks, Washington. Romance has an element of fantasy embedded within it, an image of how we wish things could be, a place where dreams come true.

There is a growing niche market for traditional romance novels placed in science fiction settings, not so much different than using any other exotic venue like Monaco or Bali, I suppose. The covers even look the same. Toss a planet or rocket in the background of two semi-clad people embracing, and it’s good to go. My opinion? Pants on a duck. It’s romance, of a sort, but does it ask any speculative questions about humanity or use the speculative element as a metaphor or other key story component? More importantly, does it objectify romance, losing its tranformative magic in the rush to arrive at that climactic cover image?

I’ve had a difficult time trying to pull good examples of romance from my own science fiction reading, which may say more about me than the genre. I know the romance is out there, but I haven’t read much of it. It’s more common as an element of space opera, where it can easily get lost in the sweep of galactic war and power politics, or outshone by creative futuristic gadgetry. Truth be told, science fiction is usually more interested in the mechanics and social rituals of sexual activity in future societies, among aliens, or between humans and aliens.

We’ll grapple with those ideas in Part 3 4, but I’m not quite done with romance yet, so I’ll finish Part 2 continue in Part 3 next week with one example of a science fiction romance I found and enjoyed. Feel free to provide some favorites of your own.

Until then, spend a little romantic time with someone you love.

– From “Mythopoeia” by J. R. R. Tolkien

He sees no stars who does not see them first
of living silver made that sudden burst
to flame like flowers beneath an ancient song,
whose very echo after-music long
has since pursued. There is no firmament,
only a void, unless a jeweled tent
myth-woven and elf-patterned; and no earth,
unless the mother’s womb whence all have birth.
The heart of Man is not compound of lies,
but draws some wisdom from the only Wise,
and still recalls him. Though now long estranged,
Man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.
Dis-graced he may be, yet is not dethroned,
and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned,
his world-dominion by creative act:
not his to worship the great Artifact,
Man, Sub-creator, the refracted light
through whom is splintered from a single White
to many hues, and endlessly combined
in living shapes that move from mind to mind.
Though all the crannies of the world we filled
with Elves and Goblins, though we dared to build
Gods and their houses out of dark and light,
and sowed the seed of dragons, ’twas our right
(used or misused). The right has not decayed.
We make still by the law in which we’re made.

Mythopoeia, according to Wikipedia, is “a narrative genre in modern literature and film where a fictional mythology is created by the writer of prose or other fiction … The authors in this genre integrate traditional mythological themes and archetypes into fiction.”

When I first heard the term, I was confounded. Which is it, I wondered, the creation of a myth or the integration of traditional myth into a new story?

Maybe it’s both in combination. And yet, there seem to be two distinct methods of imagining and creating speculative fiction. One takes an existent myth or fairy tale and makes it anew. The other, through an amalgamation of experiences and persons and settings, creates (or “sub-creates”) a new myth.

I’m mindful of this latter in particular because the CSFF Blog Tour is currently featuring Andrew Peterson’s The Monster in the Hollows (Rabbit Room Press), book three of the Wingfeather Saga.

In this series, Andrew eschews the use of dragons (except for the sea variety) and elves, dwarfs and ogres. Instead his story revolves around Fangs and toothy cows, cloven and ridgerunners. The saga does not take place in Middle Earth but in Glipwood, a place at the edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness and in the Green Hollows, the last holdout against Gnag the Nameless who has learned the secrets of stones and songs.

Andrew is not alone in creating a new place and populating it with new myths. Sharon Hinck did something quite similar in her Sword of Lyric series (the first volume, The Restorer is re-releasing with Marcher Lord Press this fall). While anchoring the story in this world, Sharon takes her protagonist through a portal to a new place — not Narnia or Stephen Donaldson’s The Land, but a world of complex political alliances and conflicts, where Rhusicans and the People of the Verses intermingle, where a Restorer is hoped for but not expected.

Karen Hancock (Legends of the Guardian-King series) is another author who created her own world, complete with political intrigue, religious prejudices and practices, history, and never-before-encountered monsters.

Certainly there are others. But beside these speculative writers are others who borrow from existent myth, or at least borrow mythological creatures. Donita Paul comes to mind with her Dragon and Turtle picture books and her DragonKeeper Chronicles and Dragons of Chiril series, as does Bryan Davis (Dragons In Our Midst and Oracles Of Fire). Both obviously feature a well-known mythological creature, but both turn the “known” on its head. Bryan does so with the equally well-known legend of King Arthur.

Scott Appleton, in his Sword of the Dragon series (AMG Publishers), is another example of an author making use of existing mythical creatures while putting an entirely new spin on them.

Both J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis utilized existing myths in their epic fantasies. Lewis, however, employed the “creation by amalgamation” method in his space trilogy.

So my question — is one method better than the other?

For readers, is one more enjoyable? more interesting? fresher? less predictable?

And for writers, is one harder to write? more restrictive? more imaginative?

As you might suppose, I have my own way of working and my own reading preferences, but first I want to hear about yours. Do you like fairy tales retold? vampire myths turned upside down? mermaids rewritten? Or would you prefer to encounter a new world with beings you’ve never conceived of before?

If you pick up a copy of Ray Bradbury’s classic, The Martian Chronicles, you’ll find a lift quote in the front matter. The quote goes like this:

It is good to renew one’s wonder, said the philosopher. Space travel has again made children of us all.

When I taught this book in my American Literature classes, I’d take time to point out the obvious – that stories of space travel can renew our wonder too. This is precisely what The Martian Chronicles did and continues to do for me.

Renewing our wonder is perhaps the real gift of all speculative fiction.

(As an aside, all fans of speculative fiction owe an enormous debt to Bradbury’s Chronicles [1950] and Isaac Asimov’s Foundation trilogy [1951-1953]. Together, I consider them the ‘fathers’ – or perhaps, grandfathers – of modern science fiction.)

We’ve always looked to stories to renew our wonder. When I was a boy, I loved to curl up in my bedroom with an anthology of Greek mythology. Here was a world of wonder indeed! The golden fleece, Medusa’s head and the golden apples of Hesperides provided ample challenges for Jason, Perseus and Hercules. They took me with them on their heroic quests and my imagination soared to worlds unknown.

Indeed, there are few repositories of wonder as rich as the world of Greek mythology (and Norse mythology too, though it is darker and not as well known to most of us). The world of the ancient Greeks didn’t extend much further than the Mediterranean, so they didn’t have to look too far to find mystery in the unknown, and they let their imaginations run wild as they filled it with things both wondrous and strange.

As time passed and our knowledge of the world grew, we still saw adventure and possibilities for wonder beyond the edge of our maps. Early in the 14^th century, Dante pictured purgatory as a mountain island in the southern hemisphere. At the turn of the 20^th Century, H. Rider Haggard looked to the dark continent of Africa for a backdrop for stories about ancient treasures and the fountain of youth.

This impulse to look for wonder in the unknown dies hard. Even in our own time, with all we know about our world, with the nooks and crevices of our planet explored, we still look. We may look through the mists of time to find adventure in another Age, or through a wardrobe that’s really a portal, or lift our eyes to the stars – but we still look. (Hence Bradbury’s quote about space travel and Star Trek’s famous reference to space as the final frontier.)

The human heart longs for mystery and wonder, as the great stories and storytellers of our past have always known.

Some might ask, why is this and is it good? I suggest to you that the yearning for wonder is built into each of us by our creator, who is Himself a God of wonder. This longing for wonder is perhaps just an echo of our deep and abiding longing for glory, and the stories of wonder we tell one another are perhaps just one of many ways we image our creator with our own creative efforts.

Of course, it does not follow from any of this that all such stories are good, or that every last aspect of any particular one is good – I certainly wouldn’t like to defend all that’s been written and published under the label, ‘speculative fiction.’ Even so, I do think that both the impulse to tell these stories and the delight we find in them is good. It is part of who we are, an aspect of the imago dei in man.

In his sonnet “On First Looking Into Chapman’s Homer,” John Keats describes reading great stories as traveling in “realms of gold” and compares the exhilaration of doing that to what Cortez must have felt when he first spied the Pacific in his exploration of the New World. In many ways, Keats saw the world very differently than I do, but to this observation that books open doorways to breathtaking vistas I say “Amen!”

God bless speculative fiction and its capacity to renew our wonder, to lift our eyes above the near horizon. Sometimes we have to look away to see what is obscured by the mundane and the routine all around us.

One day, creation will be restored, and nothing will need to be renewed, ever again. Until then, read on my friend.

It is good to renew one’s wonder.

Binding of the Blade author L. B. Graham loved school so much that he never left, transitioning seamlessly between life as a student and life as a teacher. He and his family now live in St. Louis, Missouri. They would like one day to have a house by the sea, which he wants to call “The Grey Havens.” He and his wife have two children. Both love books, which pleases him immensely.

L. B. holds a B.A. in Literature from Wheaton College, and an M.Div from Covenant Seminary.  He is chairman of the Bible department and teacher of worldviews at Westminster Christian Academy. Of his five-book epic fantasy series The Binding of the Blade (from 2004 to 2008), the first novel, Beyond the Summerland, was a Christy Award finalist in 2005. He has also written several articles in IVP’s Dictionary of Biblical Imagery.

Churchian Dragons are among us.

By that term I mean not false Christians, or ignorant Christians. I mean Christians who do practice discernment and seek excellence in other ways, mostly about spiritual things, Bible study, and church practice. But then they forget all that when it’s time to discern a Story.

Exactly opposite to Lewis’s “watchful dragons,” they permit only overtly “practical” religious Things, and suspect others of being at best useless. They will give some fiction authors safe passage, but only if they trust them for their beliefs and perceived  practical benefits. And they forget that a story’s true benefit comes not from it helping us make converts or modify behavior, but from it motivating us to enjoy God Himself.

It’s easy to give criticism — not so much to correct it. And even while correcting it, it’s also easy to slip into too much of an anti mindset. “Those darned legalists who can’t enjoy stories for their own value. …” In other words, the same attitude legalists practice: reactionary.

Here’s hoping this series conclusion doesn’t come across that way.

Instead, what happens should we come across a Churchian Dragon?

He stands in front of the gates to his church or home, eyes flaming, nostrils snorting steam.

You stand outside, with your stories, the focus of those glowing crimson eyes.

He’s let in C.S. Lewis, mainly because he heard somewhere that The Chronicles of Narnia is Good for the Children and it’s Allegory. Frank Peretti got in, mainly because he Showed How Important Spiritual Warfare Is. And others have bartered passage.

But you — you’re under suspicion. The Dragon doesn’t know you.

You could be one of those sorts who secretly despises Christians who sincerely wish to avoid the world. A heretic. At best a compromiser.

More likely, you’re one of those high-minded types who claim Story gives us more than “practical” benefits. But all the Dragon wants is a Thing to be exchanged for something “better”: converts, behavior, safety, helping the children.

The Dragon wants treasure. From many story advocates, he’s only gotten wood chips. “Trust me,” the wood-chip-tosser insists, “these are valuable. Just eat them and you’ll see!”

What we need, perhaps, is to give Dragons the “treasure” they seek. Just enough.

Enough to persuade them along the way that Story gives us even better treasures.

1. Be strongly Biblical.

O great Churchian Dragon, noble beast guarding thine sequestered lair, hold thy fire!

This author does not ignore the fact that many people abuse Story for causes that God hates.

And I do not suggest man’s explorations of truth and beauty are equal to God’s Word.

Rather, I remind you that in Scripture, God Himself encourages us to use imagination to enjoy and delight in Him. Explicitly, He commanded His people to build a tabernacle in His honor, with artistic excellence. He also included Psalms, Proverbs, and other books that did not simply repeat the Law. These fleshed it out, explored it, and expressed love and delight in God, and included honest portrayals of our struggles to understand and love Him.

God did give us His revelation in a form that certainly does include information, legal codes, doctrine exposition, and moral exhortation. But implicitly, all that serves the greatest Epic Story, with Himself as the main character and the Gospel as the plot, told and shown.

This isn’t useless accoutrement, O Dragon. It is useful. Sharing stories is, in fact, Biblical.

If you doubt me, look at how I’ve lived and what I’ve said, for I also wish to honor our King.

2. Praise true pragmatism.

O Dragon, this visionary author does not offer “try this and see if it works for you,” for vague reasons. Rather, he gently asks you: have you defined “what works” apart from the Bible?

(Brief break in character.) Previously I rejected many Christians’ reasons for reading fiction (if they do) because they’re based on moralistic pragmatism. Let that not be confused for an objection to any kind of pragmatism, or arguing for frivolity. Rather, I am a pragmatist.

I merely suggest that we need to define pragmatism how Scripture, not tradition, defines it.

Many Christians have wrongly defined pragmatism as “whatever works to give us more and better Christians.” They want the result. So they simply ignore, or at best assume, the source and the “chief end of man.” But our mission not just a pyramid scheme to get more converts.

Yes, evangelism and morality are vital. But we don’t need to keep telling ourselves “go witness” or “be good,” or only read books repeating that, if we have lost ourselves to be enamored with God Himself, enjoying Him. The good results naturally follow.

You see your sin as more disgusting than you ever would have thought. And it’s in between you and God. So the sin has to go. Who would choose filth when confronted with diamonds?

Of course, we would, were it not for this splendorous, infinite God Himself saving us.

3. Encourage existing Enjoyments.

O great Dragon, why turn your fire upon your humble visionary-novelist servant when other things that you enjoy, which have even less “practical” value, escape your blasts unscathed?

Everyone is already enjoying certain things anyway. These are things that Christians should reject, if they filtered them through the same wrongly defined pragmatism that keeps most visionary stories locked outside the Dragon-guarded gates.

After all, if you see no moralistic purpose in “fantastic” stories about things that aren’t real, why do you season your food?

Why have music in church, when only teaching would suffice? Or for that matter, you could forsake all other teaching and only read from Scripture?

And for those who do read fiction, but only about “realistic” subjects (such as books with Amish women on the covers who look forlorn, probably because someone forced them to wear eyeliner and blush to get their pictures taken for the covers), I ask: why do you need those? Why not blast thine fire upon them also?

I simply point out, most audacious Dragon, that your standards are not consistent.

Either declare all these Things worthless, and not fit for converting sinners or encouraging better behavior, and deny them all entrance. Or consider applying a more Biblical standard.

4. Earn Dragons’ trust by Telling.

Dragon, can we not be friends? You weary of taunts from those even claiming to be in your own caves, who decry thee as old-fashioned, fearful, provincial. Yet many of us are also weary of making the taunts, for reaction only is not helpful to any of us, nor is it sustainable.

Therefore, let us come and reason together.

And I offer my friendship, my help with the things you want.

Would you appreciate reassurance of my goal to honor God, not in “useless” or self-defined ways, but in the ways His Word claims we should honor him? That is what I offer you.

I will also endeavor to speak your language. If we storytellers can discuss knowing secular culture in order to reach it, surely we can also seek to know even the most “fundamentalist” cultures. We can learn how you think, do our best to help you with your goals, and show you Christ’s truth and love through our stories — even as we also try winsomely to persuade you to enjoy God personally through visionary tales.

Your children need good books? I will do my best to give them. They will include the values you love, yet for the motives you may neglect — that this gives us more of God to enjoy.

With you I will stand, in Biblical, local churches with all their flaws and oddities. I’ll agree with you on the sorry state of our world and even churches, bad entertainment these days, and our need to discern — so long as your criticisms are truthful and gracious.

Lord willing, you won’t hear legalism from me. You’ll hear love for you, the nonfiction truths you love, and yet also the gracious challenges that any Christian should give another.

5. Reach Dragons’ hearts with soul-winning stories.

Yet Dragon, I do not simply give you something that will help someone else. I desire to win souls with God-honoring stories. By that I mean not only “converting a non-Christian,” but winning over your soul, really your whole person, whom the Spirit has already saved.

I’ll also encourage you to see fiction-writing and all other “unspiritual” jobs as ministry.

Dragon, this may be familiar ground to you, but it is not for me. When I’m writing stories, I tend to think like a Gnostic. This is mere material. I use my head and my heart, running in the background, yet God isn’t personally interested in this. If He is not, then I must quit and do something else to honor Him. However, if He is, then it is false piety for me to act as if He checks out and rolls His eyes every time I go back to that novel work.

Stories can encourage us. In the best stories, we can see God. We see ourselves as we are, and how we should be. We see God’s beauties even in a fallen world.

With great stories, we glorify God and enjoy Him.

Noble dragon, may I enter?

Questions

What wrong “practical” notions do some Christians have, which they expect stories to fulfill?

Am I on-track to suggest these come from revivalistic, must-make-conversions assumptions?

Have you found that graciously addressing this wrong kind of pragmatism helps? Or do you use other ways of communicating how God, His truth and love, are honored in storytelling?

I thought I loathed “study guides” that attempt to pull Practical Value out of a work of fiction. Yet I suppose last May, that is almost what I did in offering a two-part series about how the Marvel superhero film Thor echoes Biblical truths.

Then in response, a friend of mine commented:

I enjoyed Thor on several levels…it was an encouraging movie!

Encouraging. Why yes. Yes, of course it was. No one who liked it would disagree with that.

Yet I’m not sure I’ve previously thought to apply that adjective to a story I loved.

But it makes sense, doesn’t it? Such stories encourage us.

Encourage us to what? Perhaps for three things, all of which echo the Epic Story of Scripture. Such a story implicitly honors God, or shows us truth about ourselves and subtly motivates us to respond to God, or reminds us of truth about God’s beauty in our world. Or all three.

And yet a great story can also encourage us, in happy or even discouraging moments, even if it seems “pointless.” A secular story, without truths about God or us and our response to God, can still show His world. It can show good ultimately winning over the worst evils. It can show “Christ-figures,” or perhaps more accurately “Christian-figures,” who in their love and sacrifice remind us of how we as Christians imitate the true Christ. That’s encouraging.

Here’s how my friend, who is a pastor, remarked upon how Thor’s story encouraged him. (Slightly edited. Also, don’t read this quote if you haven’t yet seen Thor.)

It was positive and really played up friendship and family relationships in a good way, and the lessons of loyalty and sacrifice were done without making it campy. Even the communication between Thor and those back home on his planet — very much like prayer. He only had to speak and his father heard him and responded. The scene where he laid down his life … the tear appeared in his father’s eye … and his life was given back to him — well, that was kind of OBVIOUS. And powerfully done. It was a movie I enjoyed watching and was glad I had gone to see it.

Hal Jordan's ring can seem a reminder of predestination, if you use your free will hard enough.

If you’ve seen Thor, or any other well-done superhero or other film this year (and yes, I stubbornly include Green Lantern in this category), how did its story encourage you?

How can we share with others that this is another reason we need, not just “could use,” great stories that encourage us? After all, if some people find sappy Christian art or a sentimental greeting card encouraging, why not an excellently done story with God-honoring themes?

Do you, like me, even now tend to separate Story enjoyments, or enjoyment altogether, from your spiritual thoughts and practices? If so, why? How can we fight that false dichotomy?

How does Scripture itself, with its Psalms and literature, encourage us?

What are some other books and stories you’ve read or seen this year that encouraged you?

Okay, here we go. Keep your seatbelts fastened and your arms and legs inside the car for the duration of the ride.

When I introduced this series last week, Galadriel made what I thought was a rather perceptive comment: “I don’t understand the point of a ‘speculative love ‘ story…”

Indeed. What’s speculative about love?

Nothing.

Love is an objective virtue. It doesn’t change. In 2011, Mirriam Webster breaks down the definition of love pretty much the same way people have from the dawn of time. Christians believe that God is the summit and source of all love, and our capacity to love is a result of being created in His image. The Apostle Paul lays out the Christian perspective on love in I Corinthians 13. If you haven’t read it recently, please, do so. You’ll be glad you did.

Now, the rituals, expressions, and other frou-frou we wrap around the concept of love change all the time, and that can make our perception of love confusing. Love is also an emotional virtue, and emotions can be confusing. We find it difficult to distinguish between love and the desire to be loved—or to be in love.  As a result, we do a lot of stupid things and blame them on love.

Getting back to the speculative part, if real love isn’t constrained by time or place, and is unfailing and unchanging in nature, why would we bother making it the centerpiece of a science fiction, fantasy, or other speculative story? There are so many spaceships and aliens and wizards and dragons and wars both interdimensional and interplanetary to write about. Oh, there might be a strong friendship or even a romance on the side, maybe to give the hero something to fight for or to provide an opportunity for a little sexual spice to keep the reader engaged. Love is useful as an accessory, but as the main event? Please. There’s a rack for those sorts of stories over there in the corner.

Of course, the point of writing on this topic is that I don’t believe that. I think the point of speculative fiction is to take our familiar humanity somewhere extraordinary. In the process, we learn that what is right and good and true is still valid years into the future, or on an alien planet, or in a universe where trees can talk and horses can fly. Love is so central to our existence and identity as human beings that a story which doesn’t on some level grapple with what love means, and how it helps make us more than well-dressed animals, is missing something important and compelling.

Here’s an example, and all you literary buffs can freely roll your eyes: Star Trek (the original series), Episode 63, “The Empath.” This story has an interesting background. It was one of only four fan-written Trek screenplays that made it to production. It quotes the Bible–twice. DeForest Kelly (Dr. McCoy) said it was his favorite episode.

There’s not a bit of romance in it, but it’s all about love.

You can read the synopsis here, but I’ll give you the condensed version. The U.S.S. Enterprise is on a routine mission to pick up a couple of scientists from a planetary outpost where they’re studying a star about to go supernova. The scientists don’t answer the radio when Enterprise arrives, so Kirk, Spock, and McCoy beam down to investigate. They find the lab vacant, but are shortly thereafter transported against their will to an alien research facility deep underground. The nature of the research is a mystery, but when they find the two Federation scientists there, dead, they figure it must be something less than pleasant.

They also find a mysterious young woman there. She’s painfully timid, and mute. They gain her trust, and McCoy dubs her “Gem,” which he decides is better than “Hey, You.” Anyhow, Kirk is zapped away for a few hours and returns somewhat the worse for wear after receiving the alien equivalent of the rubber hose treatment. Gem heals his injuries, and they discover that she is an empath, able to link her nervous system and life force to another person and take on herself whatever ails them, then restore herself. It takes a lot out of her, which explains her timidness. She can die working this little trick.

Eventually, the aliens explain that their project is designed to test the worthiness of Gem’s race for rescue from the supernova. She has to demonstrate an advanced level of compassion–but her innate instinct for self-preservation makes this difficult. The aliens announce another test. Kirk must send either Spock or McCoy into their torture chamber, but McCoy will certainly die, and Spock, if he survives, will sustain irreversible brain damage.  Here’s where it gets interesting. As Kirk ponders his decision, McCoy injects him with a sedative, then catches Spock off-guard and does the same thing to him.  McCoy tells the aliens he’s the chosen victim, and they take him away.

Anybody with a passing acquaintance with Star Trek knows that the relationship between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy transcends the military chain of command, and even goes beyond a sense of simple friendship or comradeship. This is love, and here it’s in full view. McCoy can’t allow either of his friends to risk death. Instead, he offers himself up to die in their place, not out of duty, or logic, or desire for approval, but love. As Jesus tells us in John 15:13, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

It doesn’t end there. McCoy comes back beaten almost beyond recognition, at death’s door, and the aliens confine Gem with him and wait to see what she’ll do. She’s in agony. She wants to help, but she knows she’ll die if she does. Finally, she touches him, but recoils. The aliens are ready to give up on her, but she comes back and begins to heal McCoy, who flings her away once he’s recovered enough strength to do so.

I won’t spoil the ending if by some chance you haven’t seen this episode, but suffice it to say that McCoy’s act of self-sacrificial love isn’t merely a noble gesture. It inspires Gem to overcome her fear and shames the aliens’ hypocritical experiment. It demonstrates that love has the power to transform lives. Star Trek frequently, perhaps more often than not, gets love wrong, but in this instance, I think it’s right on the mark.

So, our brave Dr. McCoy did good. He achieved the supreme expression of unselfish love, right?

Well, almost. As I mentioned at the beginning, Christians believe that God is the summit and source of all love. In the person of Jesus Christ, He displayed a love that is mirrored only imperfectly in the fictional example. Jesus exceeded the greatest love possible for a man because He didn’t stop with laying down his life for his friends. He laid his life down for his enemies–freely, purposefully, without any assurance that his sacrifice would be appreciated or his love returned. As Paul tells us in Romans 5:7-8, “Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” And that love is even more transforming: “For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!” (Romans 5:10) Part of that transformation is to follow Jesus’ example: “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”(Luke 6:27-28)

So, there’s a start. I’m sure our readers can come up with more and better examples of self-sacrificial love illustrated in speculative fiction, and please do so.

Next time, The Mushy Stuff!

The sequel to Grossman's bestseller The Magicians

By doing a Google search of blogs for “fantasy books” I quickly found what I was looking for. One article gave an overview of books releasing this fall. Another discussed the difference between juvenile and YA fantasy. A third looked at paranormal fantasy for men.

As I contemplated what topic might be of most interest, I glanced up at the top of the Google page, right under the search bar. I’d limited my search to blogs mentioning fantasy books sometime during the past month, and yet I was staring at an astounding number: “about 1,130,000 results.” One million, one hundred thirty thousand blog articles about fantasy books just within this past month.

This number seemed like a more important topic than anything else I could write about. My first reaction was one of jubilance. After all, here was proof that the culture at large is still fascinated with fantasy, whether urban, epic, or dieselpunk (a term new to me).

My next reaction was one of dismay. How in a world so crowded with chatter does a reader find the book he’s looking for? How does a writer get buzz started about his novel when there is already so much talk about so many other works? And how does a blogger separate his article from all those other blogs burbling about fantasy?

What I’m asking, in essence, is this: What is the “It” factor that makes people sit up and take notice? What makes them buy a book, review it, talk about it, give it as a gift? More so, what causes them to tweet and re-tweet, to write their own articles and link to someone else’s discussion of the book, to share it on Facebook or Google Plus?

Let me throw out a couple ideas.

1) The Celebrity Factor. As PR guru Rebeca Seitz (Glass Road Public Relations and Reclaim Management) said in her 2010 class at Mount Hermon, we live in a celebrity culture. People want their own fifteen minutes of fame, but they also are fascinated by, and perhaps want to imitate, the lives of the rich and famous. Ironically, some people have become rich because they are famous and others have become famous because they are rich. The point for this discussion, however, is that a book written by a “celebrity author” creates some buzz for no other reason than that a celebrity author is releasing another book.

When you have two “celebrity authors,” such as Ted Dekker and Frank Peretti (House) or Ted Dekker and Tosca Lee (Forbidden), co-writing, the chances for buzz seem greater.

2) The “Something Different” Factor. J. K. Rowling was not a celebrity when she published the first Harry Potter book. As many pundits will tell you, her writing isn’t anything to write home about either ( 😉 ). So what made readers go crazy over a middle grade fantasy? Rowling married something familiar (school, and in particular for her initial audience of English readers, British boarding school) with something out of the ordinary (wizardry). Suddenly, readers had a place that felt at once familiar and completely new. The Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins might also fall into this category.

3) The Controversial Factor. Perhaps nothing creates discussion more than controversy. Dan Brown (The Da Vinci Code), Paul Young (The Shack), Phillip Pullman (His Dark Materials), and yes, J. K. Rowling again, illustrate how some authors incited controversy through their stories. The issues in question drew attention to the books. The more vocal the opposition, it seems, the more readers chose to see for themselves on which side of the controversy they fell. And the more people who read the books, the wider the conversation spread.

4) The Romance (Sex) Factor. Sex sells. Advertisers have known and capitalized on this for a long, long time. While stories have also included both romance and sex since the beginning, perhaps none exploited sex by withholding it as did the Twilight series (Stephenie Meyer).

5) The Nobility Factor. This is my favorite category. I’d put the great epics here. In stories like The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings or any of the Narnia books, readers are ennobled, in part because within the pages of these classics they meet characters who persevere, sacrifice, overcome. In these books readers find hope and inspiration and victory. Yes, struggle is there, too, but the greater the struggle, the nobler the one engaged in it.

So what do you think? Are there other “It” factors? Would it be reasonable to say that the more “It”s a book has, the more it separates itself from all the others? Which of these would be on your “It” list? 😀

This is the column, nearly ending this series, in which I get a little nervous. Ask me in about ten years, after I hope I’ve had more personal experience with Christian fiction readers (and not writers), whether I still agree with its contents. Very likely there’s much I would change.

Yet even now, I dare to suggest that I already have sufficient background, experience, and reasons to explain why Churchian Dragons — Biblical Christians, who try to practice real discernment in many areas but are naturally suspicious of stories — dislike fiction, especially visionary fiction, that doesn’t meet an often-arbitrary set of standards for Is It Useful.

My recent involvement in a discussion with a Christian, who clearly follows this subconscious ethic, helped reveal this even more. What was his expectation of Story? What did this kind of Christian expect Story to do? Did he want to see truth play out in a story-world “simulation”? Or receive incentive to worship, the same as any music or hymn presented with excellence, inside or outside a church? Or be driven to exalt the Creator and remember His wonders?

Nah. I’m afraid his, and many Christians’, default question of a story is something like this:

“Is it fit to convert sinners with?”

God’s glory, delighting in Him — they may see our need for that, and apply it in many other areas, even music, building aesthetics, and excellence in vocation. But for Story, all that is thrown out, and replaced by pragmatism. Is it useful? Does it help with my existing goals?

In slight defense of Finney, I think lots of photos of that age showed crazed eyes like that.

“Is it fit to convert sinners with?” by the way, is the question American revivalist Charles Finney asked of any teaching. Finney was likely the leading force behind pushing this kind of pragmatism, defined this way, into American evangelicalism. But even apart from Finney’s wrongful understanding of “conversion” (another topic for another article), such a question mistakes an end — converting sinners — for the means. Yes, sinners should repent and be saved by Christ. Yes, that is a mission of the Church. But this is not anyone’s “chief end.”

Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

Or, to quote John Piper, who loves that Catechism line, tweaks it, and expands on it:

God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.

Stories for glory

God working all for His own glory ("Christian Hedonism") — a nonfiction truth essential to enjoying great fiction.

Christians need to redefine their Story pragmatism. Not “will it work to convert sinners?” Not even less-Biblical hopes such as “will it work to change my kids’ behavior?” or “will it work to give me safe, family-friendly entertainment?” But instead: will this glorify God?

If glorifying and enjoying God forever is the chief end of man, that should be the same goal we understand and explore for everything. Thus:

• The chief end of Creation is to glorify God and help us enjoy Him forever.
• The chief end of Story is to glorify God and help us enjoy Him forever.

Many members of the Churchian Dragon company already understand this. They boo and hiss at Finney-esque pragmatism, rant (sometimes unfairly) at modern megachurch leaders whose methods even seem to resemble Finney’s, and even more actively strive to bring their views on other Things into alignment with the glorify-God-and-enjoy-Him-forever goals.

But they haven’t done this yet with Story itself.

Thus, a chief means for Christian visionary authors, who believe they’re called to write for Christians, should be to show through Story and Tell in nonfiction why they need to.

We can’t just show the Dragons, as proof of our good intentions, our story “treasures” as barter for passage. At worst, the Dragons have been trained to despise such treasure. And at best, they believe it’s only good to exchange for something else.

Thus, we must persuade them that Story is indeed treasure, its worth inestimable, to accept with thrilled gratitude and (to shatter the metaphor) to love not for its own sake, but because  its beauty draws us to enjoy God Himself , the first and best of Beings.

Wait, why not just show the Dragons?

Among writers, more people bring up this objection. Just let Story do its job. Tell the Story and get out of the way. That’s what Lewis did. Let it speak for itself. Don’t spoil the joke.

And I can understand that. In fact, two weeks ago that was what I had to remember, while I was fighting to articulate the true “machinery” of Story, as opposed to many Christians’ wrong views of it. In frustration, I had to take a break, and go do some dishes — and, it so happens, listen to my wife’s Rich Mullins playlist. Then suddenly, without being told but instead shown, the themes I was tackling seemed to make more sense. In Lewis’s terms, I had stopped looking at the beam of light, Contemplating, and had looked along it: Enjoying.

This is also why, at a Christian writers’ conference,  I can only go to so many workshops on the craft or business of writing without feeling overwhelmed, not to the point of exhaustion, but to the point of getting tired of only talking and talking about writing — I want to do it!

Still, here are a few thoughts versus the “just let Story itself do its job for Christians” notion:

1. It only works on those who knows the “code.” And remember our Dragons’ nature. They’re not Christians who know what Story is, or who are artsy and know that not everything has to be stamped with John 3:16 to glorify God or advance the Gospel.
2. The human mind has a remarkable capacity to hold two completely contrary notions at the same time. Christians may agree that yes, glorifying God matters, and then in reaction to fiction switch to opposite ideas — no matter how much they are Shown a story. But if they’ve been trained better to listen to Telling, that may help them more.
3. Not even C.S. Lewis has gotten through to these sorts of wrongly pragmatic, well-meaning readers. They must be told, in nonfiction, to “breathe Narnian air” before they start digging ion the Chronicles of Narnia for their own practical notions.
4. Lewis himself didn’t follow a Show and never Tell axiom. Yes, for many he let his stories stand on their own. But he also wrote nonfiction. And quotes are legion from the letters he would write back to children who asked, confirming that yes, Aslan is a “supposal” (but not an allegory) in that world of Jesus Christ in our world.

The Lion, shown *and* told, will defeat all Dragons.

Moreover, for most of us, I would guess we did not come to our conclusions about how God can glorify Himself and work in our hearts through Story simply by experiencing stories.

One must do just a little bit of Telling to see better what it’s like to be Shown. Even “show, not tell” is itself a Telling statement. In some way, we all need to be given an interpretive key, based in Telling, before exploring the concept of Showing that leads us to enjoy Story.

And if this is true for those of us who fancy ourselves experienced fiction readers, how much more would this apply to our Christian brothers and sisters who mainly operate according to nonfiction. They need to be shown and told why they need, and not just “could use,” God-honoring stories — and particularly visionary tales that motivate us, not just to Have More Family Values or to Be Safe from Offensive Content, but to worship and enjoy God Himself.

That’s the first of these reasons we can imbue in certain visionary novels for Christians, and teaching more overtly in our nonfiction:

A Story’s real “usefulness” must be defined not by whether it makes us or the kids Behave Better, but whether it helps us enjoy and glorify our Creator.

So far, that seems the best way to “steal past” a Churchian Dragon: by seeing that he has been brainwashed. Some knights have advanced in “peace” and then began shooting their arrows. Dragons also want treasure to fill their caves, but keep getting wood chips thrown at him along with the bold claim “this is treasure, really!” Or, even more likely, Dragons keep forgetting, like all of us may, what true treasure is — God Himself.

Next week: the series conclusion, how we can offer real Treasures for Churchian Dragons. First, I’d love to hear your own thoughts on Dragons, treasure, and redefining pragmatism.