As one of the commenters to last week’s post noted, it’s ironic that a fiction writer is contemplating whether or not entertainment is a waste of time. I’ll reiterate, I believe it’s important to develop our own philosophy of entertainment because our society puts so much value on it.

Somehow, despite the tragedy in Japan, the more recent earthquake in Myanmar, the conflict in Libya, the unrest in Bahrain, Yemen, and Syria, the media in the U.S. features Lindsey Lohan’s decision to drop her last name, Charlie Sheen’s latest misbehavior, and what TV shows made it into the top ten for the week.

Perhaps so much death, destruction, and oppression is too much to bear, so we are doing what Tolkien was talking about — escaping from something that imprisons our soul. Of course, Tolkien’s idea of escape was losing oneself in a fantasy world that showed truth and nobility and striving against evil.

What about losing ourselves in Desperate Housewives or Office, South Part or Glee? Maybe Rango is better or The Battle for L.A.And there’s always the Final Four or the soon approaching NBA play-offs.

The point is, a lot of entertainment does not create the kind of escape Tolkien envisioned.

Should we filter out anything that isn’t Christian or at least consistent with Biblical principles? When we reach overload and want to put our brains in neutral, should we take a walk instead of turning on the TV?

I think the challenge isn’t so much avoidance as it is integration. But let me back up before I explain.

Since my last post, I’ve thought more about entertainment and Scripture, and one thing jumped out at me: the Bible doesn’t set down standards governing entertainment. In addition, throughout the Bible there are examples of people involved in entertainment, some unfavorably so, but none that receives an indictment because it is entertainment.

Samson, for example, entered into a contest of wits with his bride’s friends, with a rather costly pay-off for the loser (Judges 14:10ff). Then there was Esther’s future husband, Ahasuerus, who held a mega-party (Esther 1:1ff). The Jews, of course, incurred Moses and God’s wrath when they combined partying with idol worship (Exodus 32:18-19).

In the New Testament, Paul used the Greek games as an illustration of spiritual truths (I Corinthians 9:26), King Herod’s daughter used the occasion of her pleasing dance performance to request John the Baptist’s head (Matthew 14:6), and Jesus liked the kingdom of God to a feast (Matthew 22:2ff).

Eating, drinking, dancing, competitions, songs, stories — it seems the people in the Bible, noble or ungodly, participated in forms of entertainment and God did not set down any guidelines.

But here’s the thing. He did set down lots of principles for life. We are to love Him and love our neighbor as ourselves. We are to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly before our God (Micah 6:8). We are to be filled with the Spirit and we aren’t to grieve Him.

And we are to do these things, not exclusively on Sunday or when we are with other Christians. Rather, we are to be who God wants us to be 24/7. Being a Christian is not a part time occupation. Consequently, when we’re at work, we are Christians. When we’re in the grocery store, we’re Christians. When we’re in our cars on the freeway, we’re Christians. And when we pick up a book or flip on the TV or log into the Internet, we are still Christians.

Our Christianity should inform our actions, reactions, and interactions, even in the moments when we’re involved in entertainment. That’s what I mean by integration.

For some of us, that means stringently restricting our entertainment. For all of us, it should mean discerning how the values of our entertainment stack up with the values promoted in Scripture. It should also mean we reject I like it as a justification for our involvement.

Not that I’m saying we can only do what we don’t like. 😆 But let’s be honest — dirty jokes are funny and pornography entices. If our justification for what we do is, I like it, then dirty jokes and pornography must be OK.

What is an acceptable justification instead? I like it and … what? Must God like it too?

What are your thoughts on that one?

Avenir Eclectia: Adventures in Microfiction
by Grace Bridges

Imagine a world where writers can hang out and play, using existing characters or creating their own. Imagine how good it feels to finish a complete story in five minutes flat. Imagine a place where there is something for every kind of speculative writer: science fiction, fantasy, and supernatural.

 

That place is Avenir Eclectia.

Avenir Eclectia is the name of a colony in the constellation Cetus: Avenir, a generational spaceship turned orbital habitat, circling Eclectia, a barely-habitable planet subject to violent seismic forces. On the station are the dubiously rich, those who can afford to be away from danger, and the scientists who work to make new toys for them—called wizards by the population of beggar orphans because of the strange forces they use and their belief in the sea. On the planet are miners and hunters, and undersea there are cities of the middle class, built underwater for the greatest safety. The sea life includes sentient, telepathic beings some call angels.

That’s the story world in its briefest description.

The unusual part is how writers are going to go about creating the story: as a mosaic of ultra-short pieces. Vignettes, not requiring beginnings or endings. Just snapshots of a few moments in somebody’s life. The ideal length is 150 to 400 words. Check out the ones we have on our site already.

I can’t take credit for the idea—it was Kristine Pratt of Written World Communications who told me of her plan to publish a book with 100 one-page devotionals from different authors. I got to thinking we could do something similar with fiction, and Avenir Eclectia was born.

This world is open to any writer who wants to try his or her hand at it. Submissions will be screened and edited as necessary, and we will ask each to remain within the established parameters—don’t get too wild on us—but we would love to have a large group of contributors.

Add your piece to the puzzle and escape with us to the distant world of Avenir Eclectia.

Fast facts:
Definition: Multi-author microfiction project, online, and someday as a print anthology from Splashdown Books with possible novel spinoffs for the very brave among us…
On the web: http://www.avenireclectia.com
Avenir Eclectia soundtracks: http://eleonmusic.virb.com/avenir-eclectia

Yesterday I reached 100,000 words of my novel-in-progress — about a young man, in search of his family, who because of his miraculous gift is drawn into a seemingly greater story about him as the savior of his own world. This novel’s projected length is 140,000 words.

And that almost bothers me. Because similar-length novels have previously put me off.

Once upon a time the mere size of The Lord of the Rings books was intimidating to me; and yes, I’m ashamed to admit it. When the first of the films was about to release, that drove me to delve into Fellowship of the Ring in advance of viewing the film version (and fortunately I had already begun The Two Towers and wasn’t spoiled about the first film’s ending).

Yet should I be ashamed to admit I balked at first? Some long books just seem intimidating. Even the Bible, a very large and complex book, can seem intimidating simply because of its size — and especially if you have the massive ESV Study Bible.

So why did all the later Harry Potter novels get away with being massive? Children snapped them up and weren’t intimidated. Not once did I hear in all the press coverage of Potter’s popularity an interview with a reader who said, “eh, I lost interest when they got so long, starting with Goblet of Fire.” Rowling’s narratives kept even heavier copies selling and more pages turning. The same is true for other visionary fiction with external girth, such as The Silmarillion — another book that once intimidated me, partly because of its size.

And yet here I am writing novels beyond what I’ve heard is the “standard” 100,000 words. This has helped me grow to love the freedom and challenge of filling this space with what I hope will be all essential character-and-plot-driven material. No, I don’t just want to write longer out of supposed brilliance — like an essayist trying to fulfill a 15-page limit by any means. Here I’m hoping journalism-based habits — keep it short, to the point — will help.

You’ll notice that’s what I’ve tried here. Some of my columns, also, have been quite long …

So for you, how long is too long for any sort of book, whether nonfiction, visionary fiction or any other fiction genre? And if you do crack the pages of a thicker novel, what keeps you reading, despite its length?

G’morning. My apologies for my scarcity; time’s gotten a bit away from me.  There’s a whole stack of  topics sitting in my queue–all unwritten.  A few notes, but, otherwise, little more than halves of ideas: scraps off to the side, partially-used templates, thoughts on multiple pieces of software…

Honestly, it sounds like my story notes. Being the oddball who collects various storyboarding methods and splices them together like Frankenstein gathering corpses from rogues and cutthroats he thought no one would miss, well, let’s just say it’s not that odd for me to be working off a half-baked idea on a napkin, an image that captured my attention, and a random line or quote. But the madness doesn’t stop once I leave my harvested field. From there I go down into my lab, where I’ll use OneNote, Excel, Word, and a gigantic sketchpad simultaneously.  Each medium lets me look at my notes a different way; and each storyboard will evolve faster than I can write the next page.  Faster and faster until, somehow, like the Creature,  my story–my creation, my characters, my world– comes alive.

We writers are an obsessive lot, so much like Victor Frankenstein, scouring even the darkest recesses of humanity , seeking to do what only God can do: endow life in dead things.  This is, in part, our contribution as Imago Dei–being made in the image of God as children are in the likeness of their fathers, so we take hold of that creative spark and weave together universes with the mere stroke of a pen.

The Creature was made from murderers and thieves, and the souls of these fragments of flesh found their way into the Creature’s soul.  He had a choice, no doubt–but the point was he didn’t believe he had a choice. Even his maker  condemned him–abandoned him and left him alone. Unlike Frankenstein, we understand that these creatures–these stories of ours–tales,  come together from various scribblings over a lengthy period of time: an image, a thought, a line from a book or movie, a concept–and they cannot be neglected or thrown together haphazard and careless.

Infuse a story with scraps of light, and at the heart of the story will be light. Infuse it with scraps of darkness, and the whole story will also be dark.

It’s my firm belief that absolutely anything can be spun into something of a story. Prison yard, grave yard, church yard, anything and everything is at the writer’s disposal.  But the materials we choose–be it a plot device or something in our own souls imprinting on the core of the story–weed their way into the very fabric of the story until there’s no separating one from the other.

And maybe in the end, this is more important than how ‘clean’ a story is. All the prettiness in the world can still leave at its center a rotten corpse and a wicked soul.  By being careless and foolish and, ultimately, blasphemous, Frankenstein sought to be God and  instead became the Devil, and his Creature the son of the Devil.  If what comes out of a person (or thing, in this case) is more important than what goes in, then the most important part is not creating a body (words on a page, three-act structure, story world, characters) but a soul (the immaterial, intangible part of a story that can be described but not defined, always present, but never forced).

So writers are really left with two choices: We can create a story which externally is pretty, or functional (I think the Creature was actually disfigured, if I remember right) at least, but, deep down, is inherently more of the “white-washed tomb” category; or we can instill a deep reserve of life and goodness despite whatever other flaws–real or perceived–it might have.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Time: 57 A.D, about three hours past dawn.

 

Place: A village in the countryside, a few furlongs from Rome.

Two friends meet in the marketplace…

“Good day to you, Cleopas. The Lord’s peace be with you.”

“And also with you. Good day, Lucius. I must confess my heart is heavy, despite the beauty of this morning.”

“Truly? What ails you, my brother?”

“Gaius.”

“Ah, the melancholy lad. My Phillipa speaks often of him. They should spend more time together. It might cheer him up.”

“He’s been writing.”

“Wonderful! The opportunities for a literate young man these days are unlimited. There’s always a demand for scribes, and accountants, and personal secretaries. I heard just this morning the University is seeking new apprentices for their resident historian. The crotchety old fellow wants to retire to his villa in Mykonos, and…”

“Lucius, he’s writing poetry. Stories.”

“Hmm. Less of a market there. Still, it’s a noble pursuit. Think of Homer, Ovid, and Aristophanes. With patience and dedication, he could well achieve excellence.”

“You don’t understand. His stories are…different. He calls them ‘speculations.’ Outlandish tales of life in the future.”

“Unusual. Perhaps the novelty will help sell his work.”

“They’re insane. He writes of chariots propelled by their own motive force. Flying machines. Ships that travel under the water.”

“Youthful fancies. I’m sure he’ll outgrow them and adopt more mature themes, in time.”

“That’s not the worst of it. He speaks of life on Earth thousands of years from now! The Empire crumbled into dust! Kingless nations ruled in the Greek fashion, by vote of the people! The Church in anarchy, split into hundreds of warring sects! I fear these are the ravings of a revolutionary and a heretic.”

“Cleopas, neither of us would shed many tears over the Empire, and we recognize no true king but Christ Himself, so structures of government hold little concern for us. But…thousands of years passed without our Lord’s return? Disunity in the Church? It diverges from what we’ve been taught.”

“Exactly. Revolutionary sentiments bring trouble, but that’s sure to come in any event. Persecution of the faithful is already rampant. I fear for his soul. Perhaps his faith is not so grounded as I’d thought. There are some in our fellowship who might seek his expulsion if they discovered this.”

“Wait. These are works of idle imagination, not political speeches or letters of doctrine with the intent to teach. And…maybe his ideas aren’t so outlandish as they appear at first glance.”

“What do you mean?”

“Remember at the beginning, when so many gathered festively in the countryside to await our Lord’s return? They had disposed of their possessions and resigned from their employment, certain that only a few days remained until the Heavenly Kingdom was established on Earth. Paul the Apostle chastened them for idleness, and Peter reminded us all that God does not count the hours as we do. Who knows how long He may tarry that more may be gathered to Him?”

“I suppose that’s true. We are called to follow Christ with all our strength, regardless of the delay. Still…thousands of years…such a trial of faith is difficult to imagine.”

“And what of his stories’ heroes? What are they like?”

“Oh, men of strong character, to be sure. Kind and merciful, brave and self-sacrificing. They seek justice for the oppressed. Not perfect, but willing to admit their faults and redress their errors. However, some are women, and are disconcertingly powerful, even holding positions of high authority in government.”

“But those women are also of noble character?”

“Yes. Virtuous and thoroughly admirable.”

“These are all qualities we are enjoined as Christians to pursue in our own lives. What fear is there in such worthy models, even when found in bizarre circumstances? Perhaps the very strangeness of their environment may serve to make the reader wonder at the good works portrayed, and what might motivate them.”

“You are a good friend, Lucius, to encourage me so. It may be that my son has not wandered so far afield as I had feared.”

“And you are a good father to hold such concern for his spiritual welfare. Who knows? His inspiration may come from heaven. Gaius, son of Cleopas, may one day be numbered among the prophets.”

“Ha! If he would be more prompt about his chores, that would be a miracle indeed!”

————————————–

I’d like to thank Stephen, Becky, and the rest of the crew at Speculative Faith for inviting me to be a regular contributor. I’ve admired their work for some time now, and have enjoyed this forum where the tough issues of faith and fiction are always debated thoughtfully and respectfully. I just hope I can keep up with the serious brainpower going on here.

I’m hoping to bring something a little different on Tuesdays—the odd, the offbeat, the weird angle that makes you think a bit after it makes you smile. If I’m missing the mark, let me know—this is all about you, the faithful readers, and I want to do my best for you.

Fred

As a result of the discussion generated by last week’s post on this topic, I want to make some general statements.

First, I don’t think there is a one-size-fits-all answer to the question, is entertainment a waste of time? In that regard, I don’t think one person can give a definitive answer for someone else — only for himself. Third, I do think the Bible gives some things for us to think about.

Here’s my observation: our society is fast moving toward hedonism [as defined by the Oxford American Dictionary, “the ethical theory that pleasure (in the sense of the satisfaction of desires) is the highest good and proper aim of human life.”]

Because we live in a society obsessed with making it to the weekend, I think we Christians, and especially we lovers of speculative fiction, ought to think through our own personal “philosophy of entertainment.” It might affect what we view, listen to, read, play, and for writers, it might affect what we write.

First, a further word about our culture. Here in the U.S. we’ve morphed a phrase from the Declaration of Independence which might be at the root of our current condition. What the document says is this:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. [emphasis mine]

However, we live as if we have the right to happiness and that we are to pursue it with vigor.

What does the Bible say about entertainment or pleasure or happiness? Not a great deal. We know King David, King Solomon, and a variety of others wrote songs. Most were related to God or His people.

 

Then there is the Song of Songs.

We know Jesus told stories. Those all had a point that related to what He was teaching.

Still, He attended the wedding feast in Cana.

The most extensive Bible passages about pleasure are in Ecclesiastes. Solomon, though the wisest man ever, went through a period of deep doubt and despair. And it appears to have started with what I call his pleasure phase.

Earlier he’d set his mind to know wisdom, decided that only brought grief and pain, so he switched gears.

I said to myself, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure. So enjoy yourself.” And behold, it too was futility. I said of laughter, “It is madness,” and of pleasure, “What does it accomplish?” … All that my eyes desired I did not refuse them I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart was pleased because of all my labor and this was my reward for all my labor. Thus I considered all my activities which my hands had done and the labor which I had exerted, and behold all was vanity and striving after wind and there was no profit under the sun.
– Ecc 2:1-2, 10-11

Apparently his discovery that his pursuit of pleasure was vanity, ushered in his nihilistic phase. He decided that Mankind was no different than the beast of the field, that the sum of all things was zero. And he concluded

I have seen that nothing is better than that man should be happy in his activities, for that is his lot.
– Ecc 3:22a

Even though he says later that “the mind of fools is in the house of pleasure,” (Ecc 7:4b) he still says living for happiness is all there is because the righteous and the wicked alike die (Ecc 9:2-3). Live it up, he says, for this is your reward (Ecc 9:7-9).

Thankfully, at the end of his life Solomon reversed much of this, but I find his foray into hedonism instructive (as I’m sure God intended). Solomon admitted that he didn’t deny himself any pleasure and yet he found it vanity.

Was that because of the excess? I don’t think so. If there had been a level of pleasure that was satisfying, why would he not return to it and sing its praises? Ultimately, during this phase, the best he could come up with was that pleasure was better than being dead.

So what does all this have to do with today and speculative literature and the entertainment we embrace? I’ll look at that next week.

Often found staring into trees in search of a tui. Mystic wordnerd. Independent friend. Urbanite hermit. Head in clouds. Literary. Beachwalker. Multilingual. Grace Bridges is a sci-fi author (Faith Awakened, 2007; Legendary Space Pilgrims, 2010) and owner of Splashdown Books, an independent publisher of inspirational sci-fi and fantasy. She’s a Kiwi of Irish descent living in beautiful New Zealand, and a chocaholic cat-lovin’ Trekkie, Jesus freak, web designer, and all-round DIY gal. Find her on Facebook and Twitter.

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Diving In With Splashdown Books
by Grace Bridges

Speculative fiction is my life’s blood, the air that I breathe. There’s one main reason for this.

It blows my mind. And that is something I enjoy very much.

When I experience a story that blows my mind, I can feel the horizons of my thoughts expand beyond where they were before. It makes me see the world in a new perspective and causes progress in my personal development.

That’s not all, though. I’m certain that whenever my thinking is stretched, each time my view is encouraged to morph again, it shows me another facet of just how amazing God is. This is what connects speculative fiction to worship. Colonies thousands of years in the future and hundreds of light-years from Earth? (1) Mind-blowing. A race through virtual realities, with hero and artificial villain engaged in philosophising the meaning of forgiveness? (2) Mind-blowing. King Arthur appearing in modern London to lead Britain to her destiny? (3) Mind-blowing. Yes! Take me there! Wow me! Make me tell God he’s incredible for putting that amazing idea in someone’s head. And there is no end to new greatness—God goes on forever.

It became an obvious decision to step into publishing. To help bring some of these excellent stories into the public eye, where they would otherwise languish in obscurity. I may be only one person, and I may live at the end of the world, but there’s a small part I can play in connecting authors with readers.

And so I picked up the story of the writer with writer’s block who, in pursuit of inspiration, gets sucked into a fantasy world (4). After that came an otherworldly fantasy with high drama and romance (5), a deeply psychological spacefaring tale (6), the superhero inflicted with hilarious clumsiness (7), and the boy with the miracle ring (8). There is plenty more ahead, of course, and I’m excited at what the future holds: not just novels, but other kinds of projects too. Come June we’ll have eleven titles out there.

When I began Splashdown Books I considered the submissions process very carefully, and how it should work. I’d been on the other end of it often enough as an author, and wanted it to be as friendly as possible – and not just add to the cycle of rejection that is so common in this industry. So I ended up continuing what I had done as an individual – to critique material sent to me, so that the author has a benefit from our interaction. I start with the first few chapters, and if I like those, I’ll ask for the rest – and in any case, I will put on my editing hat and give the work a thorough going-over. In this way it is my hope to encourage authors even if their book is not right for Splashdown.

It’s been almost two years since Splashdown started with just me and one author. Now there is a wonderful team: ten authors and more in the pipeline, plus several artists, designers, editors, marketing people, and even musicians who provide the soundtracks to our videos. I’m always on the hunt for more staff, so let’s talk if you think you might like to get involved.

So that’s Splashdown in a nutshell. I have a question for readers here—what kind of genre would you like to see more of in the area of Christian speculative fiction? Obscure is outstanding! Mashups are marvellous! What do YOU want from Splashdown?

(1) Lamb Among the Stars by Chris Walley
(2) Caffeine by Ryan Grabow
(3) Avalon by Stephen Lawhead
(4) The Muse by Fred Warren
(5) The Duke’s Handmaid and Nor Iron Bars a Cage by Caprice Hokstad
(6) Alpha Redemption by P.A. Baines
(7) Tales of the Dim Knight by Adam and Andrea Graham
(8) Reality’s Dawn by R.L. Copple

Evidently the visionary-author blogosphere has been echoing with a controversy: is it okay for Christians — especially attempting authors — to write negative reviews of other books?

And last Friday brought a related discussion: is it okay for Christians to spoof their own?

This isn’t something I thought about before, to be honest, during or after my interview with Ted Kluck, who’s part of a committee writing a POD parody called Beauty and the Mark of the Beast, spoofing Christian end-times fiction. Until now I hadn’t considered that a parody could seem intrinsically nasty — which I suppose it could, and which I must consider.

Why? I would suggest two reasons.

First: people often parody things they actually enjoy — though one might call this affectionate parody that mostly spoofs fans’ reactions to a story or franchise, or serves as a takeoff for goofiness that’s actually unrelated. Example:

This is different from a more-hostile Lord of the Rings parody — and I wish I could illustrate what such a mean-spirited parody would look like, but I don’t have it in me and frankly can’t think of anything to spoof in the books. (The films, though, present their best opportunity in the last film when Legolas so astutely remarks that Aragorn’s plan is to create “a diversion.”)

And many ways exist to make fun of a story, not all of them hostile, such as:

1. Affectionate parody, which can include making fun of an actual story though with love for the story itself. As my wife said this morning, so many spoofs and funny fanfiction works on Lord of the Rings websites were likely written by those who cried during Boromir’s death and can name nearly all of Elrond’s antecedents.
2. 

   How It Should Have Ended offers parodies and takeoffs that are almost always affectionate.

   Takeoff, perhaps best illustrated by the animation above. Its maker wasn’t mocking Boromir, or Middle-earth pronunciations, or anything, but only being goofy.

3. Satire, such as C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters — no specific person/thing is being mocked, but the comparison of Hell’s hierarchy with a business bureaucracy is classic. It also helps us laugh at ourselves (more on this in a bit).

   But then there’s:

4. Hostile parody, which resembles affectionate parody but is clearly meant to disparage the target. We’ve all seen the slamming of Twilight or other things for being poorly written or shallow, or political cartoons showing presidents with exaggerated ears or rhetoric.

Is this acceptable for a Christian? This is something I’m still sorting out, especially as a still-recovering political columnist. Scripture has precedent for making fun of bad guys — Jesus’ slams of the Pharisees, for sure, being the best-known example. But that was Jesus. He knew the Pharisees He was slamming would not repent and believe in Him. We’re never told to imitate Him in that regard — instead, we’re told to love our enemies — and certainly not adopt that practice as the method of dealing with those who despise or persecute Christians.

Thus, hostile parody would seem off-limits for the Christian. But as I noted above, the two categories can seem to overlap, making a parody’s intent difficult to discern.

Does the Beauty and the Mark of the Beast fall into affectionate parody? From what I’ve seen on the work-in-progress’s website, I think it does. Most of what’s there seems to poke gentle fun at the responses of some end-times thriller fans, and the worst kind of the-end-is-near reactionaries. Actually a lot of what is there doesn’t spoof Left Behind as much as pop evangelicalism, obsessions with Christians sports celebrities, even legalism. Example:

Parker, Strongbow hypothesizes, is his most worldly teammate, and therefore least likely of his acquaintances to be raptured.  He never kneels in the endzone after scoring touchdowns, has lots of tattoos, and listens to rap music.  He has never once thanked God in a postgame interview, a track record that Strongbow privately feels is semi-unacceptable.

Strongbow was also the only player on the Denver Broncos to refuse implementation of the state-of-the-art NFL.com™ Fan/Player Homing Device™ – a chip which is implanted just below the skin at the nape of a player’s neck, and allows subscribing fans to track measurables like a player’s resting heart rate, exercise habits, diet, sexual activity, and frequency of urination.  It is billed by the website as “The Next Level in Player/Fan Interaction!”  Strongbow feared that the implementation of the chip had serious End Times implications.

What’s being spoofed here? I hate to give away the jokes, but here it is: thinking that sports stars aren’t “Christian” enough if they don’t preach in every interview, demigod-level sports star status in general, and suspecting things like computer chips as forecasting dooooom.

These are things that real Christians, seriously, have gotten into — and which we might need to remember to laugh at ourselves about. Oh yeah, I have done that before, haven’t I?

It’ll help add humility, just as a well-written, gracious, negative review could help an author.

Moreover, knowing of potential parody red-zones could help an author find and eliminate them in advance, along with grammar and character development errors, eh wot?

Earlier I mentioned two reasons for enjoying affectionate parody. The second is this: I’ve written parody myself. Even Left Behind parody. I loved Left Behind years ago — and to some extent still do, though I’ve re-thought some end-times views — but still had to spoof it. However, like other fanfiction for a beloved franchise, mine was more a spoof of what would happen if Disney (despised more back then, thanks to the boycotts) got ahold of Left Behind.

Observe:

(SCENE 20: The evil and mean-spirited secretary general for the U.N.—now called the ET—Nicolae Carpathia, and his cute but sinister wisecracking demon sidekick/henchman, Leonardo “Slimer” Fortunato, are both in their office at a top-secret military base in the ET [Earth Takeover] building.)

NICOLAE CARPATHIA: Moo-hoo-ha-ha-ah-ah-ee-ee-eeee!

LEONARDO “SLIMER” FORTUNATO: Ya-ha-ha-ah-ah-ee-ee-eeee!

NICOLAE: Well, Slimer, we done heard lotsa news about them American folks storin’ up them weapons ta shoot at me, but we got ‘em first! We done gots rid of that stinkin’ White House thingy and kilt that sissy patriotic president o’ theirs, Bill Clinton.

SLIMER: And Viccce Presssident Al Gore too, Missster Carpathia. We will not have to worry about them ever again.

[Note: actually the rest of the scene shows that they magically escaped and joined the good guys.]

NICOLAE: Yah, an’ that finally makes my takeover o’ the U.S. complete! But now we gots to blow up s’more stuff in other places so everybody knows that I gots more special effects than they do.

SLIMER: Now we will presss the buttonsss that will activate our sssecret arsssenal of computer-generated exxxplosssionsss, flying bodiesss and their ressspective partsss, and, of courssse, lotsss of fireballsss and noissse. (reaches for control panel)

NICOLAE: Yah, le’s do it! I’ll blow up the Great Wall of China and the Taj Mahal, and you take Buckingham Palace and the Statue of Liberty.

SLIMER: Okay, and I will alssso blow up the Sssearsss Tower.

NICOLAE: Nuh-uh! I wanna blow up the Sears Tower!

SLIMER: No, me!

NICOLAE: Me!

SLIMER: Me!

NICOLAE: But I get to hit them there Great Pyramid things!

SLIMER: No! Thossse are mine!

(Both of them jump onto the control panel and begin pushing buttons at random.)

So far I believe this is still something I would not mind the Left Behind series authors seeing. It’s affectionate, not hostile, and helps us humbly see flaws while having fun.

The same held true when in 1999, on the Left Behind series online bulletin board, I wrote a “proof” that the end of the world was coming on April 1, 2000. Hundreds posted in response, among them dozens who clamored to cry out: You can’t predict the date of Jesus’ return!

But one of the good guys, in response, recalled how while he was editing a magazine some years ago, the publication ran a bit of satirical fiction: about a woman who couldn’t get her non-Christian husband to come to church, no matter how much she nagged and cajoled him. People wrote to the magazine and insisted That’s not how you do it at all!

“Lots of people don’t get it,” he observed about both spoofs.

That man was Jerry Jenkins. And he and the Left Behind series are largely responsible for my love of visionary fiction today — and for Speculative Faith version 2.0 being here.

Given all that, what do you think about affectionate/hostile parody, takeoff and satire? Have I missed something? Is it okay to spoof something we enjoy? What if we actually did get to know the person whose work you once spoofed or critiqued? Has this ever happened to you?

On Sunday, I noticed more than ever that when we sing about God, we mostly sing romantic songs.

Old hymns weren’t like this, so much, but modern praise music is. We worship our loving, gentle, intimate, beautiful, wooing, dancing, serenading God.

Last Sunday in my church, that sort of praise music–with all that is good and right about it–was followed by a hard-hitting sermon on the jealousy and wrath of God.

That juxtaposition put the powerful paradoxes of God on display in a very good way. But it also made me wonder if God wouldn’t like us to sing about His other qualities sometimes. If we couldn’t more accurately celebrate His whole nature; if we couldn’t more effectively worship everything He is.

Recently I’ve been reading a lot of CBA historical fiction, which, the market being what it is, means I’ve been reading a lot of Christian romance. While the times and places of these stories influence the action, the action isn’t about those times and places–it’s about women and men and falling in love, attendant with lots of blushes and stomach quiverings.

And I can’t help wondering if the supremacy of romantic women’s fiction in the CBA is a symptom of our romantic view of God.

A church that views God primarily as a patient (if sometimes boyishly irascible) Lover, one who comes to gratify our desires, bestow worth upon us, make our insides quiver, and woo us into a close personal relationship with Him, has no better genre to give image to its understanding.

A romantic view of God can tell us true things. God is, in fact, a lover. He does bestow worth upon us, He gratifies our holiest desires, He woos us into relationship with Him–though we do nothing to deserve it. And no man has ever made my insides quiver like God has!

But that’s not all He is. And if those are the only images we create, the only terms in which we couch our faith, we will worship a lopsided view of God and not God as He really is. We need to do what my pastor did as well: move beyond the love songs and deal with God’s wrath and justice and jealousy and frightening holiness.

Here is where I think speculative fiction is positioned especially well. Romantic fiction tends to stay within the sphere of “personal relationship,” while speculative fiction has the power (or perhaps just the newness) to range much farther afield.

In speculative fiction, Christian authors wrestle with suffering, mercy, and justice (Polivka’s Blaggard’s Moon), the relationship between art, beauty, and truth (Overstreet’s Auralia Thread), the presence of God in whole nations and cultures (Summa Elvetica, The Lord of the Rings), atonement (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe), the gospel in the darkness of human nature (Schooley’s The Dark Man; Hancock’s The Enclave).

Fantasy especially can give voice to a whole raft of biblical concepts we’ve almost lost in our modern American culture: kingship, holiness, the power of the sword. When I read of Christ our coming King, who will sit on the Throne of David to judge the nations, I know that my concepts of my King are at least partially shaped by authors like Tolkien and Lewis; Stephen Lawhead and George MacDonald.

One of the things storytellers do is use images and characters and unforgettable plots to give form to the things we believe–and to shape the things we believe. Jesus did this with parables. I don’t think a nonfiction work of theology could do in seven hundred pages what Jesus did in a few minutes with the parable of the prodigal son, for example.

As writers, then, we can and should take opportunity to explore the whole nature and character of God in our stories.

And as readers, we should pay attention to what stories we are using to understand and shape our own faith.

Thoughts?