I posted some thoughts about Mike Duran’s The Resurrection two weeks ago, as well as reviewing it on my own blog. But one story element I didn’t really go into–one that moved me while I was reading the book and has stuck with me since–is the post-resurrection journey of Ruby Case, accidental healer, as she struggles to come to terms with the fact that she can’t heal people without God’s help, and he doesn’t always help.

In the story, Ruby accidentally raises a child from the dead. The next thing she knows, votive candles and gifts are showing up on her front porch every day, and strangers are coming to her seeking healing. And she wants to help them–despite her husband’s desire to protect her, she can’t bring herself to turn them away.

The problem is that she can’t force God’s hand, and he doesn’t seem inclined to turn Ruby Case, Housewife into Ruby Case, Faith Healer on a regular basis.

Out of all the story’s subplots, this one moved me most. It’s such a real struggle. Who among us hasn’t desired, even needed, to see a miracle–without getting it? Who among us hasn’t wrestled with Jesus’s words about prayer–“Ask what ye will and it shall be done for you”–and even struggled with our own identity as believers based on how God does or doesn’t answer our prayers?

I’ve been thinking about Ruby’s story this week, as I spent Monday in intensive prayer for a toddler who was run over by his father’s tractor on the weekend. I did my best to pray in faith and to believe that God could work a miracle–and I know others prayed much harder, with far more at stake–but the little boy died.

I’m a pragmatist when it comes to art: I don’t really believe in art for art’s sake. The best fiction ministers to life–it serves it by serving readers. Maybe by imparting strength in a difficult time, or renewing our faith in God’s final victory, or just saying “You’re not alone.” Through an honest mirroring of our lives and our faith, it imparts a kind of healing of its own and helps us work through our questions and hurts. Ironically, it sometimes does this best in speculative fiction, because speculation can help us tackle things that are too big for “real-world” constraints.

If we write for no other reason, I think this one is worthwhile: because through writing, we can come alongside those whose questions are raw and pressing, and maybe, if not answers, we can offer them something just as valuable–

Healing.

Over at WhereTheMapEnds a couple of days ago, I read an interesting interview with the godfather of Christian supernatural thrillers, Frank Peretti. Here’s the part that caught my attention:

WhereTheMapEnds: What have you seen that discourages or frustrates you about Christian speculative fiction writing and/or publishing?

Frank Peretti: Not much. I suppose I could complain—or perhaps just chuckle—about the built-in expectations of this industry and its readership. I and other authors have exchanged many an anecdote about what so-called Christian readers expect and/or demand from Christian fiction: humor is still pretty rare, moral dilemmas have to be cut and dry and easily resolved, profanity is not allowed—we’ve noticed that it’s allowable for a character to kill, stab, or shoot someone as long as he keeps all his clothes on and doesn’t swear while he’s doing it.

There’s a lot to talk about in there, but let’s concentrate on the bit I’ve highlighted in bold. We seem to be doing little by way of our fiction to alter the image of Christians as humorless bluenoses, whose First Commandment is, “Thou Shalt Have No Fun.”

...or any other day.

It’s understandable. Writing Christian speculative fiction feels like serious business. We’ve got souls to save, demons to battle, and apocalypses to forecast. There’s simply no time for idle banter or frivolity. The Bible seems to take a dim view of jocularity–Ecclesiastes repeatedly inveighs against the mindless merriment of fools, and there’s also that bit from Paul about the dangers of coarse jesting. Maybe it’s best not to go there.

But then, we also find this in the Psalms:

When the LORD restored the fortunes of Zion,
we were like those who dreamed.
Our mouths were filled with laughter,
our tongues with songs of joy.
Then it was said among the nations,
“The LORD has done great things for them.”

Joy is a singular quality of God’s people. He’s done great things for us–we have a lot to be happy about, and when people see that joy, they know something is different about us. They want a piece of it, and God is glorified. This being the case, I would expect to see more lightheartedness in our creative endeavors.

Hello, all you happy people.

Sure, there are occasional chuckles, often as comic relief between passages of bloody mayhem, or as part of an awkward romantic overture, but there just aren’t very many stories in the Christian spec-fic world where humor is front-and-center, not just an item on the Writer’s Checklist of Supporting Literary Elements. I’m not talking about strings of one-liners or a stand-up comedy show; I mean a joyful attitude in the writing. We have plenty of Stephen King equivalents, but where are our Terry Pratchetts, Piers Anthonys, and Douglas Adamses?

I can think of a few candidates, and I’m sure our readers will suggest some of their own. These folks do good work, but we need more:

Frank Creed – If you think lighthearted, dystopian, and cyberpunk don’t belong in the same sentence, you’ve never read Frank Creed’s Underground series. His end-times Christians are powered by an infectious joy that lights up each page. I like to think that a future persecuted Church might look something like this, even without Creed’s technological bells and whistles kicking the action up a few notches.

Karina Fabian – Catholic author Karina Fabian gives us spacefaring nuns, a wisecracking dragon detective with a soul under construction, and zombie hunters who moonlight on reality shows to make ends meet. Fun stories with a nugget of spiritual truth at their core.

Matt Mikalatos – His Imaginary Jesus is a globetrotting, time-traveling romp laced with laughs, a parable writ large and a disarming narrative of one pilgrim’s progress as he reexamines the foundation of his faith. Coming this fall: Night of the Living Dead Christians.

Bottom line, there’s nothing wrong with being serious, but I propose that the message still gets through, sometimes even better, when we lighten up, just a little.

As I’ve noted before, Anne Rice has stated that her vampire books were actually explorations of the spiritual. Spiritual light or spiritual darkness?

Some may say that an exploration of spiritual darkness must precede any look at spiritual light. I suppose this might be one of those areas that differ from person to person, but I can’t help but wonder why we Christians aren’t exploring the light more than we are the darkness.

Corrie ten Boom

Certainly darkness is in the world. Yet when I think of darkness, some of the most uplifting, true stories I’ve read come to mind. Take Corrie ten Boom, for example. Without a doubt, her story contains horrific elements, including the inhuman conditions in a Nazi concentration camp and the death of her dear sister as a result.

But throughout, from the decision to help Jews, to Corrie’s release from the camp and her subsequent commitment to show the love and forgiveness of God to victim and victimizer alike, the story is infused with hope and promise and the sovereign hand of God over all circumstances.

Elisabeth Elliot

The story of Jim Elliot, Nate Saint, Ed McCully, Roger Youderian, and Pete Fleming is similar. These young missionaries, so committed to sharing the gospel with a group of people who had never heard of Jesus, died at the hands of the people they wanted to save. More astounding, Jim’s wife Elisabeth and Nate’s wife Rachel returned to the tribe, lived with them for two years, and saw many come to Christ. The forgiveness and love these women lived out in the midst of tragedy and loss is a revelation of God’s love and forgiveness.

Joni Eareckson Tada’s story is equally inspirational. Injured as a seventeen year old, Joni has lived as a quadriplegic for forty-five years.

Joni Eareckson Tada

Despite her disability, she shines the love of Jesus into the lives of hundreds of thousands through her writing, painting, and speaking. She has even put out a vocal recording and starred in the video of her life story. Perhaps her greatest work has been establishing Joni and Friends, an international disability center bringing hope and help to people throughout the world.

Hope. That seems to be a key thread that runs through these stories of triumph over tragedy. The darkness is very real in each one — Joni’s despair, the deaths of the missionaries and Corrie’s sister — but the triumph dominates the story.

The Hiding Place is not the story about Corrie’s sister dying but about God’s love and forgiveness manifested in an unspeakably cruel place.

Through Gates of Splendor is not a story about five twenty-something missionary men being killed but about the truth in this verse of the hymn from which the title of the book came:

We rest on Thee, our Shield and our Defender.
Thine is the battle, Thine shall be the praise;
When passing through the gates of pearly splendor,
Victors, we rest with Thee, through endless days.

Joni is not the story of a seventeen-year-old whose life caved in, but of a God who brings meaning and purpose out of suffering.

You might wonder why I’m taking a look at all these true stories in a post about speculative fiction. I see how inspirational the lives of these three who suffered greatly have been. They personally explored the light in the midst of the darkness of their real circumstances. The result has been phenomenal. They have pointed generations of people to Christ.

Why, then, would a fiction writer not want to adopt this model — an exploration of light in the midst of darkness? Why go the other route and spend pages and pages exploring the dark, even if the light comes filtering in at the end?

I personally (and remember what I said at the beginning of this post about us all being different) find hope and help to be what I want to read. Darkness, I already know. Hope and help in the midst of darkness is compelling. Why aren’t more Christian speculative novels exploring the light?

It seems to me we are becoming fixated with what is true to the human experience, and as a result we are not setting our “mind on things above” (Col. 3:2). Do we think we know all there is to know about God, so we don’t need to focus on Him as much as we do the depravity and corruption sin causes?

Darkness will be a part of fiction, I believe. But I also see there are two ways of looking at it. In one case, stories seem to explore the darkness, in the other they seem to explore the light that triumphs over the darkness. This latter type is the kind of story I like to read and I want to write.

As an author of many speculative fiction novels and as a pastor, there are two seemingly opposing forces struggling within me as I work to come up with new ideas in my writing. First, how to come up with exciting fiction that will keep my readers riveted to my story, furiously flipping pages–or these days tapping the page-over buttons on their Kindles and Nooks–well into the wee hours of the morning. Secondly, as a Christian desiring to walk faithfully before the Lord, how to stay within the framework of truth presented in God’s holy word. Can Christian Speculative authors really compete with the kind of energetic fantasy we find in the secular market without violating truth?

Actually, I think we can and that without invoking the seemingly endless varieties of Amish community stories that seem to be out there. At any rate, I thought the best way to illustrate my point would be to give examples from my own writing while giving my reasoning behind the different plot structures.

My first novel, The Chronicles of Soone, is a sci-fi fantasy story written in the Star Wars style. It has various races, warriors with supernatural psychokinetic abilities, high tech weaponry galore, space ships galore, and even inter-dimensional travel. However, the one thing blatantly missing in this story is the presence of “alien” life forms of the George Lucas variety. Why? Well, as a Christian, the Bible leaves no room at all for the existence of aliens like these. The Bible easily establishes the existence of a spiritual realm and a mortal realm. However, alien life forms of the “little-green-man persuasion” are given no inclusion in the creative framework of God.

One might ask, how did you come up with different inhabited planets and the various human races you include in this story? I began with this possibility. What if God, in his omnipotence and omnipresence, chose to create a completely different universe apart from our own? He would, very likely, populate it in a similar manner–creating a race in his own image. Being subject to the possibility of sin, they would–as all created beings have–fall into disobedience and the condemnation of it. God would seek to redeem them and so on. Thus I allowed myself some latitude in technology and history, geography and so on, but I’m still working with spiritual enemies and mortal needs from a Creator God. There’s a lot that can be done with it, and the premise of God creating apart from our universe is totally plausible based on who God is … I don’t believe he did, but it is plausible and that’s what speculative fiction is all about, right?

In this type of story, and many others, allegory is very useful–making comparisons between the “other” humans in the “other” world with our own. However, God is always God, no matter what world we are talking about. This is one of our boundaries that must not be crossed. People change–unless you’re talking about our basic nature to do evil–but God does not change. No matter what world we may dream up, God is the same. Otherwise, we are technically not dealing with “Christian Speculative Fiction” anymore, but something with a view of God like the world views him … not as the scripture does. Many great stories have been written in the allegorical style. The Chronicles of Narnia instantly springs to mind, but there is a never ending flow of others.

My second example takes a different route: that of placing Christian characters into fantastic real world situations. We can stay home for this one–we don’t need to build other worlds to explore. We just need a thrilling adventure right here on good ole Earth into which we can place Christian characters and watch how they handle these unique, often overwhelming, circumstances. Hallowed Be Thy Name is based on a Jekyll and Hyde type of plot, only modernized, focusing on genetic research. Trenton Hallowed has developed a genetic mutagen hoping to speed up man’s supposed evolution. Instead, he has strengthened man’s primal ferocity and his mutagen is causing terrible physical changes as well as rendering him a psychotic murderer. Jonathan Hallowed is a believer and a relative to this geneticist. In the process of the story, Jonathan is dosed with the mutagen as well and finds himself strengthened by it, but because his body’s metabolism speeds up out of control, he is also racing toward death.

Jonathan is a Christian character facing fantastic circumstances. The speculative fiction is there, but without the need for allegory. Jonathan has choices to make just like we all do and he makes those choices based upon his faith in Jesus Christ. In this type of setting we can see the thought process we all go through before the watching world. Only the circumstances are amped up to the extreme. God is still God and the scripture stands without being violated.

My last example takes its plot directly from the pages of scripture. By using unfulfilled prophecy, such as we find in the book of Revelation, we can come up with a lot of interesting plot points even though we are working within a more limited framework–prophecy itself. For example, in my novel, Perdition’s Gate, I chose the Great Tribulation as my setting, but I didn’t want to copy the Left Behind series. Therefore, since the timing is unknown to us, I set tribulation period in 2094. It’s still a seven year tribulation as the Bible teaches, but with an advanced date I had liberty to make up a lot of preceding history and reframe the world during that time, whereas Left Behind used what we know today. I literally had 80 years of time between now and my setting to have all sorts of events taking place, new technologies invented, etc., that I could then use in my story!

Another way that I chose to stay out of Left Behind territory was my hero. The character is actually a special ops agent working unknowingly for Antichrist. Through the course of events, this character is forced to come to terms with the truth about events happening around him, his own lost condition and the prophecies coming to pass in the world. He goes from a lost man to saved, along the way asking the same questions lost people ask and receiving the sound wisdom of scripture in answer.

These examples are merely the tip of the iceberg. There are many ways for Christian authors to work within the framework of our faith in order to tell awesome stories that lost and saved alike can be thrilled by while at the same time offering nuggets of spiritual truth that feed the soul. While the publishing industry has relegated this sub-genre to the corner and limited access, we as writers don’t have to be as limited as we might suppose. And with an ever-widening portal into publishing through the increasingly popular ebook market, the possibilities appear more favorable than ever.

– – – – –

James Somers‘s writing career began with the sci-fi action novel The Chronicles of Soone: Heir to the King published by Variance Publishing/Breakneck Books. He has since published the sequel, The Chronicles of Soone: Rise of Lucin as well as two new action-thrillers: Perdition’s Gate and Hallowed Be Thy Name. He has several other novels in progress in both the thriller and young adult fantasy genres.

In addition to writing, James serves as the pastor of Ozone Baptist Church in Rockwood, Tennessee, and also works in Knoxville as a surgical technologist. He is married and has five children.

He may be reached for interviews or discussion at jamessremos at yahoo dot com

God's physical "house" wasn't the only outlet for worship, for captive Israelites in Babylon.

It is returning — there on a Christian radio program, here on a blog, and always in archives from when the issue was more hot (and even less thought-out): the Harry Potter debate.

Should Christians read a fantasy series that doesn’t include God or an equivalent character? Should we bother with stories about wizardry and magic? Yes, it’s only a story, some may say, but what about all those people who use those stories to get into bad stuff?

In this fourth installment of the Imagination … series, I’m not trying to prove all that is fine and can be glorifying to God. One does not even need to. Instead we find, directly in Scripture, that one can glorify God and even be gifted by Him to study and master even actual pagan beliefs, far worse than those found in a Harry Potter novel.

Thus, one needn’t show that Scripture allows reading Harry Potter, when Scripture supports a greater extreme: reading atheist Pullman’s His Dark Materials, or actual pagan religious instruction could honor God, if that’s your calling. If it’s not, the worst sin you could do is waste your time. But if you’re a reader of Christ-honoring speculative stories, much more so if you’re a writer of the same, studying pagan literature very likely is your calling.

"Job-Shadowing Daniel" by Larry Peabody is an excellent overview of the life of Daniel and Christian vocation today.

Last week’s featured Biblical imaginers were Israelite artisans Bezalel and Oholiab, the former of whom was said to be filled with God’s Spirit (Exodus 31:3) for the task of helping design a Tabernacle for the worship of God. This week we find another hero, a visionary who was also aided by God’s Spirit — the bureaucrat/prophet/seer/scholar, Daniel.

But before Daniel served his Lord by standing up to paganism in practice and anti-God laws (the accounts that prove more popular with Christians), we find out in Daniel 1 how he got there. And it wasn’t by acting as if any exposure even to real pagan stories could harm him.

Daniel: scholar of pagan stories

Setting — Daniel has been dragged to Babylon, after God had constantly warned Israel that Babylon would invade. God also said what He wanted his people to do, in Jeremiah 29.

That chapter is often quoted only for verse 11 (“For I know the plans I have …”). But when we focus only on that verse, we miss the rest of this passage, in which God speaks to His people and gives instruction for how they must interact with the pagan society that invaded them.

Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

— Jeremiah 29: 5-7

This passage is being bandied about much more because of the city-evangelism emphasis of pastors like Tim Keller (see this, for example). And Daniel must have known this instruction, before he was taken far from his home, from his family, his own first name, his Temple — but not from his God. Note his clear resolution not to let Babylonian paganism get to him:

Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king’s food, or with the wine that he drank. Therefore he asked the chief of the eunuchs to allow him not to defile himself. And God gave Daniel favor and compassion in the sight of the chief of the eunuchs […]

— Daniel 1: 8-9

Maybe Daniel came to class through a giant door like this, only instead with a giant "N."

Before moving on, this truth is vital. Daniel was convinced: even here, after they had changed his name and drafted him into Professor Nebuchadnezzar’s School for Gifted Youngsters, he would not be defiled. Christians should participate in a pagan culture only if they also have such a desire.

I must skip the diet-suggestion part (though with a brief reminder that this has nothing to do with “Biblical” weight loss). But notice what Daniel doesn’t vow to avoid for God’s glory?

As for these four youths, God gave them learning and skill in all literature and wisdom, and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams. At the end of the time, when the king had commanded that they should be brought in, the chief of the eunuchs brought them in before Nebuchadnezzar. […] And in every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters that were in all his kingdom.

— Daniel 1: 17-20 (emphases added)

Daniel and his friends outclassed “magicians and enchanters.” And with “learning and skill in all literature and wisdom,” given to them by God.

Marduk vs. Tiamat! (surely soon to be a major motion-captured motion picture)

This was Hogwarts, Babylon Satellite Campus.

This made me wonder: what in the world were they learning anyway? And so far I haven’t been able to find a complete class syllabus. However, I’m sure Daniel would not have been actively practicing occult techniques right along with “magicians and enchanters” — who we find in later chapters suffered quite the low performance reviews anyway. But would he not have at least known their notions, hypothetically? Enough to at least repeat the answers?

Even if we assume Daniel ignored even learning about actual pagan “magic” techniques on paper, it’s clear he was not only casually familiar with Babylonian literature, but mastered the subject “ten times better” than others. What kind of literature did God help him master?

As Tiamat opened her mouth to its full extent,
[Marduk] drove in the evil wind, while as yet she had not shut her lips.
The terrible winds filled her belly,
And her courage was taken from her, and her mouth she opened wide.
He seized the spear and burst her belly,
He severed her inward parts, he pierced her heart.
He overcame her and cut off her life;
He cast down her body and stood upon it.

— from the Enûma Eliš, a Babylonian creation myth (it dates to at least 1100 B.C., long before Daniel’s time)

After that, Marduk rips the evil ocean goddess’s carcass in half, all the better to create the earth and skies to get the universe kick-started. Pleasant stuff. The full version could make J.K. Rowling  look like Janette Oke. And yet God blessed Daniel’s learning of such literature.

I haven’t even gotten into how this myth was likely a ripoff of the Biblical creation account — a reply to the objection that we must avoid stories that mix Christianity and pagan elements!

At the very least, this proves a Christian may honor God to study what the bad guys believe. We don’t even need to mention stories written by Christians yet. Again, this is explicit Biblical support for a “worst-case scenario”: studying overtly pagan stories.

Yet doesn’t it also follow that Daniel could, for God’s glory, enjoy even the creativity of the literature he studied? Was it all right for him to learn about these false gods and myths, so long as he didn’t take any kind of pleasure in how well the stories were told or the culture was formed? Or could he appreciate the myth-tellers’ and even occult teachers’ craft, while rejecting their substance as being intended to oppose the God Whom he loved more?

Surely Daniel and his friends could do this, not only without sin, but with God’s blessing and gifting (Daniel 1:17). This was part of his unique calling to seek the welfare of his pagan city. And without his obedience to God, it seems clear that God’s plan to bring His people back to their land, and even do amazing things like save a pagan king along the way, could not have happened. How much more permissible, then, is it for Christians themselves to enjoy something far more positive than studying actual pagan stories to know what pagans believe: using their own imaginations to enjoy or even write new stories for God’s glory!

With that, I think I’m out of room again. I’m saving what I hope is the final part for next week, about Christ Himself, the ultimate Storyteller, and whether His stories were fictitious or historical — and either way, whether He meant them only to tell Moral Lessons.

Your thoughts on Daniel, pagan stories, and how God works in our gifts and imaginations?

“Neither seek nor shun the fight.”

~ Gaelic proverb

Non-violent or pacifist?

Just for clarification: This is not a stance on the death penalty, war, self-defense, or revenge. I’m not even too concerned about the amount of any one of them in fiction (I think I at least touched it in my recurring themes post at some point, anyway).  I’m more concerned about approach, I think.  There’s a list of topics I think every sane person should revisit periodically, things I just don’t think should be taken lightly, and if we didn’t argue about them I’d be a bit worried.  Among them is violent behavior (be it the death penalty, war, enhanced interrogation, beating the snot out of a schoolyard bully, or anything else that might fit here) and our response to it. So, if you’re really curious about my stance on violence in stories, simply put: There’s a time and a place for everything under the sun.  I’m admittedly fascinated by the way writers choose to handle tough subjects, violence included.  It underscores our frailties and reminds us how precious life really is–and the consequences of an evil that is quite real in the world.  Justice is impossible without it. And that’s really about all I’m going to say on that.

That said: Doctor Who  sent me down this road, so we’ll pick on the Doctor first. Supposedly, he’s a pacifist, but I’ll go to my grave disagreeing with everybody, including the Doctor, on that one. But you be the judge. The show itself, like I’ve said, is a bit finicky on its own philosophy sometimes. And before you yell at me, please remember I actually like that the Doctor considers violence last resort. On the one hand, you  find resolve like this:

(Season 1)

Dalek: What’ll it be, Doctor, coward or killer?

The Doctor struggles a minute, then jerks his hands away from the controller: Coward. Always.

Note: For the record, I love this line because he’s neither killer nor coward, and that time he doesn’t care what anyone calls  him for his decision.  And this scene very quickly generates the idea that heroes are not quick to destroy, shameless when they refuse, and  often guilt-riddled when they must.

(Season 3)

Doctor [after he and Martha successfully tricked the Master into thinking they had a secret weapon to kill Time Lords]: “Did you really think I would ever tell her  to kill for me?”

 

(Season 4)

Wilfred [ offering a pistol to defend himself ]: “Take this.”

The Doctor: “I never, ever would.”

Note two:  The season three snippet underscores the idea that revenge is not a viable notion:  He won’t use a gun to defend himself, and he won’t ask someone else to do so, either.

(Season 5)

Doctor: I have three options: One, I let the starwhale continue in unendurable agony for hundreds of more years. Two, I kill everyone on this ship. Three,   I murder  a beautiful, innocent creature as painlessly as I can. And then I find a new name because I won’t be the Doctor anymore. [someone interrupts] Nobody talk to me; nobody human has anything to say to me today!

And I think this one speaks for itself. It tells a lot about the Doctor, but on top of all the good things, I think this whole scene also demonstrates that while he wants to do the right thing, he doesn’t always see every option or know what the right thing is. It’s actually Amy who  figures it out, much to his relief. And I think to that end, there’s that more subtle indication that  heroes don’t always have to know what they’re doing or even know what the right thing is to be decent people.

(Christmas Special)

Donna: They were burning and drowning and you stood there!

 

[Nevermind they were going to kill everyone,  Donna, including you, and he did warn them first.]

Season 4:

[A Character about Martha]: “You made a soldier of her.”

But on the other hand, the Doctor clearly doesn’t have a problem destroying his entire planet  (his own people, his own family, his own friends) to get rid of his biggest enemy, had no problem manipulating people into destroying themselves, took revenge on the Family of Blood, destroyed the Racnoss without blinking, time-locked the Time Lords a second time, and goes stark-raving mad every time he looks at a Dalek for more than two seconds.

Ironically enough, for all his fascination with humans and his insistence that his companions are the best humans in the world,  the Doctor’s companions are also far more likely to resort to a weapon than he is: Martha carries a gun more than once; Rose turns the Daleks to dust using the Time Vortex and later herself shoots a Dalek;  Donna…slaps people.  River has no problem shooting people, and the Doctor even jokes about it.  That’s a far cry from the Doctor’s almost threatening “Don’t you dare!” toward Jack Harkness in season four, btw.  And that’s the primary criticism of one of his enemies: “You take ordinary people and fashion them into weapons.”  He terrifies them to the point they run off without a fight,  using fear as a weapon despite his hatred of such manipulation and oppression.  He’s avoiding a fight. They’re plotting a revolt to destroy him. And so the Doctor lives in this constant danger of becoming the very thing he despises.

So is he a warmonger or a pacifist; a violent man or a man of peace? Good or evil?  Somewhere in the middle, really.  Just…don’t attack his friends.

So there you have it: I don’t think the Doctor’s a pacifist, but I also don’t think pacifists really exist, either. Push hard enough, someone’s coming out swinging.

The Charm of Restraint

All that said, in all fairness, there’s something particularly charming about a hero who doesn’t carry a weapon.  Doctor Who is neither the first nor the last to work through when violence is appropriate and when it isn’t. Another contemporary favorite of mine is Eliot Spencer, in the show Leverage.  He hates guns and usually doesn’t carry more than a knife, but even then tends to use only his hands and feet. To quote:

Nathan Ford: [Nate sees Sterling walk in behind Eliot] Eliot, I’m going to ask you not to do anything violent.

Eliot Spencer: What? What are you talking about? I only use violence as an appropriate response.

Jim Sterling: Hello, Nate.

[Eliot’s eyes widen and he whirls around and punches Sterling in the face]

(Season 3: Zanzibar Market Place episode)

Part of Eliot’s development is that he steps quickly out of his role as hitman/thug and  into his role as team protector. I think part of why he stays with Nate is that Nate doesn’t make him act that way.  As a result, part of Eliot’s redemption arc is taking the thing he despises about himself, a very dark thing, and using it to save instead of destroy.

Most of the stories I read or watch involve, on a one to ten scale, anywhere from a level five to ten on violence. The dominant theme of all of them tends to be what separates murder from justice, the avenger from the killer, the oppressor from the protector. What, exactly, makes a good man: The one who never fights, or the one who fights one way over another?

• The Patriot – Benjamin Martin is not a violent man, nor a particularly rebellious one, either. He tries the middle ground as long as he can, offering safe haven to anyone on both sides who comes through. But when one son is captured and another murdered before his eyes, he’s driven first to revenge, then to the American Revolution.
• Gladiator –  Maximus  was a bit overly trusting in the beginning , which is what got him in trouble, but despite the utter hell he goes through maintains his principles, even in a gladiator ring. Again, he’s not  violent and has no concept of violence as entertainment.
• Braveheart – William Wallace hits the revenge theme, a revenge that only afterward expands to rebellion against England.
• Human Target – This show was canceled, but basically it was about an ex-assassin who as a means of penance offers his service as personal bodyguard. His teammates are a former cop, a professional thief, and an apparently still-active hitman and sniper.  It focused more on the consequences of taking human life, both physical and psychological.

Book-wise, I could list plenty, but  when you’re reading mostly fantasy, mystery, suspense, and psychological thrillers, some measure of violence is inevitable.  I’ve been catching up on my Tim Downs, so I’ll just cite him.  Downs (mentioned affectionately) has, at least for me, shown a wide range of using violence in different methods. He has a knack for making his protagonist look at gruesome images of dead (and usually rotting) bodies, but since the Bug Man is a forensic  entomologist with glasses that make Coke bottle bottoms look thin, he doesn’t engage in much of the active, physical violence (although he gets himself in plenty of trouble either way). In Plague Maker, though, Nathan the FBI agent deals with far more violence in what turns out to be this beautiful story about forgiveness.  Head Game is more psychological, and in some ways more chilling as a result: the head game isn’t in killing you; it’s in getting you to kill yourself through a chain of psychological attacks that, at least to me, created this morbidly fascinating depiction of spiritual warfare (I’ve also been thinking on that topic awhile; that was part of it).

And overall that’s what I find:  Ideally the strong man  isn’t a bully, but he can be pushed to his limits. He may or may not be aggressive by nature, but he’s not going to sit back passively, either.  So there is  a particular charm to the strongest character being simultaneously strong and gentle (Eliot isn’t really gentle, but he does have a gentler side that we get to see occasionally), to a character who clearly can defend himself and won’t on some overriding principle (that usually endangers him).   And there’s a charm to the most powerful player preferring restraint over dominance.  And that’s the charm of the Doctor’s only “weapons” being  a sonic screwdriver, the TARDIS (which is more of a getaway vehicle than anything) , and his brain.

“Good men have too many rules.”

“Good men don’t need rules. And today is not the day to find out why I have so many.”

~Eyepatch Lady & The Doctor, A Good Man Goes to War

Edit: And I think I know my next topic: Psychological violence. Also, I apologize this isn’t as polished as I’d have liked. I could have gone so many directions with it.

Writers, like any other sort of artist, can be very sensitive to criticism of their art. Stories are the children of our mind, and like any good parents, we hate to see them abused, misunderstood, or generally spoken-ill-of.

However, writing is a very public vocation. If all goes well, many people will read our stories. Chances are, a significant fraction of those people won’t like them. I find myself recycling old bits of folk wisdom: “You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred.” “If you can’t run with the big dogs, stay on the porch.” “Sticks and stones, et cetera.”

I may need some Super Sauce.

New writers can be particularly thin-skinned because they’re encountering the slings and arrows of the world for the first time. It’s like running barefoot for the first time. Rocks hurt. As you gain experience, the skin gets thicker, and the rocks don’t hurt so much, at least not enough to inspire tears and a general call to have your boo-boo tended. Negative criticism is accepted as a normal part of life. You smile and nod, and press on.

I’m finding Christian writers seem more susceptible than average to negative criticism. They have expectations, especially of Christian readers and reviewers. Brothers and sisters in Christ are supposed to be nice. We don’t say negative things about each other. We encourage and support. If you think my baby is ugly, you keep that nasty thought to yourself–and ask God to forgive you.

Except–it doesn’t work that way. Christian writers often garner even more critical feedback than their secular peers, because, again, there are expectations. Christian writing must be uplifting, morally sound, and doctrinally correct. It must not offend, irritate, stir controversy or be in any other way, for lack of a better term, un-Christian.

I have a few suggestions.

It makes things tough. You’re skipping tra-la through Sherwood Forest, then a hundred gentlemen in green livery burst from the underbrush, aiming all manner of pointy objects at your jugular. And they’re supposed to be the good guys. It’s just not fair.

Clearly, there needs to be a balance. Criticism makes us stronger, if we’re willing to listen to our readers and reviewers with an open mind and learn from their observations. “Iron sharpens iron,” “two are better than one,” and “a cord of three strands is not quickly broken.” On the other side, feedback can be honest and loving without descending into patronizing or bluntness, though that line can be easy to cross without meaning to, particularly in electronic correspondence that lacks tone of voice, body language, and all the other non-verbal cues we rely upon to interpret human communication. Is that 🙂 emoticon a friendly or a sarcastic smile? Hard to tell.

Here are some ideas to chew on. One is an excellent article on giving and receiving criticism from Orson Scott Card’s webzine, Intergalactic Medicine Show. The other is a video that illustrates the fact that there’s really no such thing as bad publicity, if you handle it properly. Enjoy. I’ve got to go kiss an ugly baby now.

In response to guest author John Olson’s post, “Speculative Marketing: Re-imagining Reality,” I wrote a comment that revealed something about me, something I don’t usually tell the Spec Faith crowd: I don’t feel weird. That in itself makes me weird, however, since many vocal spec faith readers and writers see themselves as a group apart.

I was a “mainstream” reader before I was ever a fantasy reader. To exacerbate matters, I don’t really like science fiction, though like other genres, I find that some titles will captivate me. The upshot is, I often don’t feel like I fit with speculative groups. Yet I write fantasy, so I don’t feel as if I fit with mainstream groups. I truly am weird.

But as I also mentioned in my comment to John’s post, I’ve discovered that I’m not as alone as I thought. There are other fantasy or sci fi lovers who do not feel as if they are outside the mainstream. In fact, they love to read good books. Period.

Then there is the Christian aspect of Christian speculative fiction. Not long ago “Christian fiction” was considered a genre produced exclusively by Christian publishing houses. Times are changing. A growing number of Christian authors feel compelled to write for the general market. Their place in “Christian speculative fiction,” then, is uncertain, at least in some people’s minds.

Perhaps we need two distinct categories — Christian speculative fiction as a genre and Christians who read and write speculative fiction.

Not so long ago, in the article “Imagination And Truth,” I suggested that Christian fiction (of any genre) should be defined as stories that speak the truth about God:

And here is the point that separates Christian fiction, I believe, from all other fiction. Christian fiction speaks the truth about God. Other fiction can speak the truth about morals or the way the world works or what makes a person love or hate or live on the edge. Other fiction might be silent about God. Other fiction might speak a lie (though undoubtedly the author believes that what he’s written is true) about any of these things. Only Christian fiction speaks the truth about God. [Emphasis added this time around 😉 ]

Given that definition, Christian fiction can be found in all kinds of places — in ebooks, books published by traditional Christian publishing houses, self-published books, books put out by general market publishers, books published by small or independent presses.

In addition, a number of Christians are writing about people and society from a Christian worldview. They aren’t actually saying anything about God — not overtly or allegorically, though perhaps obliquely and by implication. Veronica Roth, author of Divergent comes to mind as such a writer. She states on her blog that she is a Christian:

I’m also a graduate of Northwestern University, a Chicago-suburb resident, a Christian, and A Tall Person, among other things.

Besides her blog description, Veronica makes a clear statement of faith on the acknowledgments page in Divergent. Yet her book, I understand, deals with a dystopian society and doesn’t include God. Does she or doesn’t she belong in amongst those identifying with “Christian speculative fiction”?

Certainly that’s for her to decide, but I’d say emphatically she belongs with Christians who love speculative fiction.

I personally would like to see a broader community emerge — one in which readers and writers support and encourage quality speculative fiction wherever we find it.

I have seen great strides made among Christian publishers in the last seven years since Spec Faith 1.0 was first conceived (you’re currently at the 2.0 version). I’ve also seen organizations like the Lost Genre Guild crop up, and small publishers like Marcher Lord Press and Splashdown Books come into being with the intent to make more Christian speculative fiction available.

Somehow our efforts seem scattered, however. Just today I visited the site of a Christian speculative fiction writer I “met” on Facebook. In her sidebar is a list of “Author Friends,” and I didn’t know a one. Perhaps they aren’t all speculative writers, or maybe none of them is. But I frequently happen upon other speculative writers not involved in any of the groups I know.

If for no other reason than to pray for each other, I think it would be great to have a place for Christians who love speculative fiction to “congregate.” I don’t, however, think we need to separate from the mainstream.

Goodness — Veronica Roth’s book debuted at number six on the New York Times bestseller list, which of necessity puts her squarely in the mainstream. Are we to say she doesn’t belong in our little niche of Christian speculative fiction because she’s too popular? Or because she isn’t writing about God? I say, she’s a Christian with a Christian witness writing speculative fiction and those of us who care about our genre should be excited to see her doing what she is doing. We should also be supporting her in prayer, even as we should Jeff Gerke or John Olson or any other Christian who writes or publishes what we want to read.

Possibly getting Christians who love speculative fiction together will prove to be much like herding cats. I’d still like to see us try — I’d like to see a support system of some sort, for readers and writers, for Christians writing Christian speculative fiction and Christians writing speculative fiction. I’d like to see us create a stir for the books that we love and ultimately for the God who makes it possible.

Author John Olson

Don’t worry. I’m not trying to go all Matrix on you, and I’m certainly not pitching a new spec fiction concept. I’m just trying to understand why I behave the way I do – and why groups behave the way they do.

Sometimes when I’m writing or speaking to a predominantly Christian crowd (like right now for example), I find myself self-editing. Questions keep popping into my head:

• What would they think of me if they knew I thought thus ‘n’ such?
• Am I allowed to say thus ‘n’ such?
• If I admitted thus ‘n’ such, how would it impact my book sales?

In my experience the more judgmental the crowd and the more power it has to impact my life, the harder it is for me to see the world objectively. The more time I spend surrounded by the same crowd, the more my reality tends to get skewed.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In many ways it’s a good thing. It may be a useful survival instinct (actually the word ‘adaptation’ came to my mind, but of course my survival instinct kicked in immediately and edited it out). In general we tend to adapt to our peer group by avoiding behavior that causes us pain. It’s only natural – er … you know what I mean.

But what if the crowd is wrong?

If everybody in the crowd self-edits to be accepted by the rest of the crowd, then the views of the crowd will tend to drift away from reality. Why? Because the censure of the crowd has more immediate impact than straying from reality. The longer the crowd stays together and the more it isolates itself from the rest of society, the further it will drift. Which suggests that crowds are often wrong – especially in areas where they’re defensive.

The more judgmental the crowd, the faster it will drift away from reality, because the consequences of disagreeing will be more severe. On the other hand, the more loving and accepting the crowd, the less it’s likely to drift. Love and truth, it seems, go hand in hand.

So what does this have to do with Christian speculative fiction?

Probably nothing at all. I’ve been drifting away from reality for a long time. But I can’t help thinking it should impact our writing. Here are a few conclusions I’ve come to over the last several months:

1. We need to start writing speculative fiction that’s actually speculative. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of editing myself. I don’t care whether my books get published or not, but if my work isn’t centered on cold hard truth, if it isn’t questioning the status quo and ripping down every artifice of my heart, then I’m doing more harm than good. If the Emperor is naked, I need to call him naked to his face. If I don’t do it, then I’m only contributing to the delusion.

2. We need to stop worrying what people think. Readers, publishers, book store owners … The more we care what they think, the less we’ll be able to tell the truth. If we want to be effective writers, we can’t afford to give “the crowd” power over us. If we give it too much power, we’ll lose more than our ability to tell the truth. We’ll lose our ability to see the truth.

3. We need to re-imagine the Christian speculative fiction market. I’ve seen the emperor, and his tighty-whities are wearing thin. We have to admit to ourselves that we’re not a part of the “Christian market.” Traditional marketing methods aren’t going to work for us, because we’re anything but traditional. We’re not normal, and we don’t like reading about normal. So why should we expect normal marketing methods to work for us?

Allow me to speculate on the germ of an idea … What if we were to create a completely new market that does publishing in a totally different way? Marcher Lord Press is a good start, but what if we also worked together to create a giant online organization to build our market and promote the fiction we love? We could create our own retail outlets, automated marketing centers, crowd-sourced ratings systems and author co-ops. And the internet lets us automate almost all of it. This may sound like science fiction, but it’s not. Randy [Ingermanson] and I have the technology. I’ve been working on it for years. But I’m not a blogger or a community builder or loop reader. I like building technology, and I like reading good speculative fiction, but we need a lot more than that. We need a good leader and some administrators and bloggers and team builders and organizers and lots and lots of writers.

Anybody out there interested? How about a show of hands? It’s just a matter of organizing and working together to create a new world. And isn’t that what we’re supposed to be all about?

– – – – –

John Olson is author or co-author of a number of novels, including the award winning science fiction Oxygen. He also is a popular writers’ conference speaker, specializing in teaching the elements of speculative fiction.