Donita Paul is the author of the popular DragonKeeper Chronicles and her current series, The Chiril Chronicles. In addition she has authored the children’s book The Dragon and the Turtle and the soon to be released The Dragon & the Turtle
Go on Safari (there’s still time to enter the Creative Cakes Contest held in conjunction with this series).

Donita lives in Colorado where she mentors writers of all ages, teaching teenagers and weekly adult writing workshops.
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Donita Paul Answers

How does your world view affect your story, characters, plot, and setting?

I approach a story purely interested in how the characters will react to the obstacles they must overcome. I don’t set out to preach. But I have a Christian worldview, and therefore, when my characters who represent good encounter adversity, they also encounter God. It is pretty much the same in the real world. God is always there when I need Him.

I don’t see that my worldview impacts my setting at all. I’m not afraid of placing my characters in a fantasy world where dragons exist and magic takes place. I know that bothers some people, but I just don’t think God shakes in His boots when I use a little literary license. After all this is fiction, and most believers understand that unicorns don’t hang out looking for young maidens and hobgoblins don’t live under the sink. One of my favorite movies is Miracle on 34th Street. Santa Claus is proven to be real, with a wink to all the adults in the audience. But then there is Kris Kringle’s cane in the perfect house for the new couple and the little girl. Magic? Maybe. But there is no outrage from by-the-Book Christians. (BTW, I’m pretty much a btB person myself and often have scenes of my story read by my pastor or equivalent to make sure I am not promoting heresy by accident.)

I don’t think my worldview stretches, shrinks, or does any damage to my storyline. I am a seat-of-the-pantser (a writer who doesn’t outline) and only have vague ideas about what is happening in the next few scenes. When I’m stuck, I lean back, close my eyes, and watch my characters as if they were in a movie. What will they do next? I follow them and find out. How do they feel at any given moment? I listen and find out.

As for worldview influencing my characters, of course, it does. Like I said at the beginning of this article, I watch closely how a character reacts to a problem. Without a doubt, the Christian character reacts differently than the non-believer. And when the Christian blows it, he knows it, is sorry and must show it. (Sorry, a throwback to teaching Sunday school in that last sentence.)

Which comes first: the theme or the story idea?

For me it is the story idea. I know other authors who begin with the theme, but I discover the theme God has me working on while I am writing. Sometimes I have to go back and insert a little text that makes the idea come out a bit more naturally, but I just can’t start with a theme. Every time I do, my writing comes out stilted, didactic, and in-your-face instructive. Not good. Not good at all.

I use humor because a happy brain is open to new ideas, like God Loves You.

I reference music because music is a language that bridges gaps, from one nationality to another, and even from man to God. I can’t imagine worship without praise music.

I emphasize food because snacks, high tea, a hearty meal after a daunting adventure, and a cozy breakfast with family or friends are all symbols of replenishing what has been drained. We all need to be like Jeremiah and eat the word.

I use colors to reflect moods, talents, and aesthetic qualities.

I hope you enjoy my two sets of Chronicles. I have grown through writing them, and there have been times when God reveals to me through the story a truth I need to apply to my life. So, even if nobody ever read them, they would have helped one person. Me.

This column may seem schizophrenic — likeunto a theme of one the most Google-able Christian novel titles of the past decade, Ted Dekker’s Thr3e, in which an evil serial killer is shown able to threaten women, blow up a city bus, and abduct the main character’s mother, but never, ever, not once, say any word worse then puke.

Meanwhile, if you’re on the other side, schizophrenic may to you describe a Christian who cusses in streaks of all the colors of the rainbow, or even occasionally — such as author/pastor Mark Driscoll — to make a point. To you, they’re claiming Christ, but saying un-Christlike words.

Here I hope to represent and discuss both sides of the Fictitious Cussing debate. Why? Because I’m still sorting through it all myself. And last year I thought a little differently than I do today.

So let’s bring up talking points, for and against, and of course continue in the comments …

Against: ‘Cussing is not Christian’

I bring this up first because honestly, so far, I keep hearing this implied or said directly, and it is not a Biblical argument. What if some word uses aren’t sin? Either way, Christians do sin.

If Paul wrote to the Corinthian church as brothers who weren’t acting like it (1 Corinthians), and publicly called down the apostle Peter for being cliquish with legalistic leaders (Galatians 2), then surely a real Christian may struggle with anger-induced swearing.

Other Christians may have thought things through and concluded it’s okay for them to use some words, in certain contexts, without this being sin. People may disagree with, say, Driscoll for his vocabulary, but to slander him as a non-Christian or false teacher is not Biblical and does not honor truth. I’d like to hear better arguments against Fictitious Cussing than that.

And remember, the topic is not whether I should be allowed to commit actual swearing myself, but whether Christian novelists should have the freedom to decide on their own: to “quote” what a character said, fictitious cussing, regardless of whether it’s a sin or shown as sin.

Furthermore, at issue here are not only verses such as Ephesians 5:4 (in which Paul discourages “foolish talk” and “crude joking”) but passages such as Romans 14, 1 Corinthians 8-10 and Colossians 2:16-22. All of those remind us that some things that cause sin for some Christians are not themselves evil, but matters of conscience. And any arguments against Fictitious Cussing must offer gracious reasoning based on the whole counsel of Scripture, not merely proof-texts.

For: ‘Christian fiction is lame because of no-swearing rules’

I haven’t heard this argument made so directly, but some may think Mike Duran made it back here. That’s not how I had read what he said (though I’m open to correction). Instead Mike seems to make the points that Christian fiction is lame for many reasons, among them the ban against saying Bad Words. And who here wouldn’t agree with him, at least the first part?

Yet my take (so far) would be different: picking on the Bad Words Ban seems a minor issue. With so much Christian fiction catering to readers who follow not so much Christ but a uniquely American-evangelical Churchianity, the real problem is far deeper: it’s a lack of understanding the Gospel. And springing from that: failure to comprehend where sin comes from, not Stuff but our own hearts, and failure to see that Christ has redeemed us to make us strong in Him.

I think once more writers, editors, publishers and especially readers begin to believe these Biblical truths and see the joy in exploring them through fiction, the bad fruits will fade away.

For/against: ‘Why not use substitutes?’

“He swore.” I don’t mind a Christian novel that phrases an action like that. Bad characters swear. Sometimes good characters swear. If a novelist’s worldview presents this as wrong, even if much less wrong than other horrors a character may commit (murder, etc.) why not include this? If anything, the real revealed sin is a character’s anger anyway — just as my real sin, if I let out a four-letter one, comes first from the heart, then escapes my mouth (Matthew 12: 33-34).

But “he swore,” “she swore,” “he swore over and over,” etc., can sound silly after a while. And the argument does seem to hold: should all writers be restricted by the personal beliefs of a few?

“Make up new cusswords.” That works, if you’re in a fantasy or sci-fi setting. But what about a contemporary fantasy or alternate-Earth novel? What about a thriller set in our world? This may take care of the problem in an imagined universe, but not in this one.

“What the $*!&?” Frank Peretti got away with this in some of his early novels. A similar method (often employed by Christian film reviewers) involves the ingenious substitution of hyphens for the Bad Word, or even only some of its Bad Letters. I say “ingenious” sarcastically because it’s silly. Who are we trying to kid? I know exactly how to translate my own comic-strip-style substitution up there, or at least have narrowed the Secret Letters to two common cusswords.

I can understand the base logic. But which Christians who are actually tempted to imitate that language would be “protected” by showing part of the word, letting the mind fill in the rest?

Figure A: “Death Cop 9 contains 14 F-words, 9 instances apiece of h— and d—, 6.5 S-words, one interrupted g—–n and several scatological terms and crude slang referencing anatomy.”

I know every single word the Discerning Movie Reviewer means. So why the hyphens?  If writing “what the —-”  is acceptable, why not just spell it out? Who are we pretending to protect?

In cases like this, it’s really become a great game: we are all pretending to protect an Invisible Sensitive Choir out there somewhere, who indeed don’t want to see films with that kind of sinful content. But if that’s true, aren’t the bad-word-hyphenators naïvely conceding their critics’ point? — that some Christians can indeed hear those words in order to know what Bad Stuff is out there, while themselves resisting the temptation to do the same un-Godly stuff?

Next week: why do we or don’t we need Fictitious Cussing? And what about conscience issues?

C. S. Lewis and his theology; Narnia and its impact on writers, on believers; the movies and the ways they diverged from the books. All of it is interesting to speculative writers, and in particular to Christian speculative writers. But all of it seems to pale in importance compared to the news I heard this weekend.

The co-producer of the three Narnia movies, Perry Moore, was found dead in his apartment last Thursday. Some news agencies reported that suicide is suspected — he apparently died of an overdose of pain killers.

Honestly, I’d never heard of Perry Moore before, but now I’m learning a few facts about him. For one, he was gay. In 2007 he published a YA novel, Hero, about a gay teen superhero. And before he got involved in the film industry, he interned in the White House for Bill Clinton. He also received the distinc … uh, the privil … let’s say, notoriety in one of People Magazines’s Sexiest Man of the Week spots. One more item. Reportedly he suffered from near debilitating back pain. Hence a prescription for OxyContin, the drug that apparently killed him. Oh yes, Mr. Moore was 39.

All this leaves me incredibly sad — his death, his lifestyle, his apparent worldview.

I believe in the power of story. God can and does move in our hearts through stories. Yet here was a man who had a passion to make the Narnia books into movies while he himself, it would seem, did not apprehend the truth they reveal.

Not that I know the man’s heart. One site, GayNZ, called him a “proud Christian.” But that makes me sad, too.

Was he as proud of being a Christian as of being gay? Then why not a novel featuring a Christian superhero? And if he was a Christian, proud or otherwise, why not a mention of his faith somewhere at his website?

He did say this about the books C. S. Lewis wrote: “The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe was my absolute favorite book as a kid. It is to this day what inspires me to write.”

So he loved the story about sacrifice and redemption and forgiveness, but did he understand it? It breaks my heart to think that he could have been so close to a story filled with Truth and very well may not have seen it.

But that, I suspect, is something we writers must face. Not everyone is going to understand what we write, and not everyone touched by our stories will respond as we hope. I understand this but can’t help but be sad.

Narnia points to a reality Mr. Moore apparently longed for, but unless he did indeed apprehend Christ, not Aslan, as the One who made the sacrifice and who offered him, not the imaginary Edmund, forgiveness and new life, then he will never enjoy the reality “Aslan’s country” or Narnia, further up and in, points to.

Last night I was shown another one — a website whose evangelical authors, surely with the best of intentions, ripped not only multiple C.S. Lewis quotes, but his whole life, out of context.

If I met the person who wrote this material, I would try to be gracious. After all, Christ saved me from so much worse; I was not, as the site’s authors seem to have expected of Lewis, free from un-Godly thoughts and impulses before He saved me, and I’m certainly still working on them! Still, I’d challenge such Christians to survey the contents of this series’ parts one and two, attacking the notion that Lewis was a heretic and/or accepted universalism:

1. Lewis clearly believed in Hell, and was not a universalist as some falsely accuse. Thus we must address his direct, written agreement that Hell is real, just and permanent.
2. The character Emeth going to “heaven” in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Last Battle is at best unclear, given that Narnia is a supposal, not allegory, and the variety of themes and interpretations that can be drawn from the vaguer-in-a-story Emeth Element.

Real Christians read Scripture (or should read it!) with right hermeneutics, not basing a whole System of ideas upon obscure verses, but instead seeking to let clearer passages interpret unclear ones, with heed to the original culture in which a book/text was written. Similarly, those who accuse Lewis of being a universalist need to survey his whole life and direction, and not let certain story tenets (which could “go” one way or the other!) not define his clearer statements.

Not universalist; still slightly fuzzy

That alone could refute C.S.-Lewis-was-a-universalist. Still let’s be fair: from what I have found, apparently Lewis did believe that God might provide some way to reach “good” people who actually did desire to know the true God. This seems close to the modern term anonymous Christians — that is, that some people may be covered by Christ’s grace without having directly embraced Him. Such was Kevin DeYoung’s reminder last month, after quoting Lewis:

There are people who do not accept the full Christian doctrine about Christ but who are so strongly attracted by Him that they are His in a much deeper sense than they themselves understand. There are people in other religions who are being led by God’s secret influence to concentrate on those parts of their religion which are in agreement with Christianity, and who thus belong to Christ without knowing it. For example, a Buddhist of good will may be led to concentrate more and more on the Buddhist teaching about mercy and to leave in the background (though he might still say he believed) the Buddhist teaching on certain other points. [from Mere Christianity]

No matter how much we may like Lewis, this is simply a profound misunderstanding of the Spirit’s mission (and a rejection of John 14:6). The work of the Holy Spirit is to bring glory to Christ by taking what is his–his teaching, the truth about his death and resurrection–and making it known. The Spirit does not work indiscriminately without the revelation of Christ in view.

Whether or not Lewis later revised his view, it is impossible to resolve it with Scripture. But is it heresy? After all, many Christians have similar-sounding beliefs about people born with mental issues, or children who’ve died in infancy. And as a scholar in such a secular realm, with even more anti-Biblical ideas about, should Lewis be faulted too much for buying into one early on?

In 2008 during a discussion on this, a friend of mine, Phillip Pugh, summarized Lewis like this:

One has to remember when reading Lewis that he is at heart a Medievalist even if his theology is basically Anglican. When reading Medieval works like Dante’s Divine Comedy (which had a profound effect on Lewis) we find that the “Noble pagans” like Socrates, Plato, and Virgil, are placed in a sort of limbo where they are not suffering and yet there is no light. I think Lewis has something of this in mind, taking some cues from George MacDonald to embellish it (though not taking it to MacDonald’s universalist extreme).

He is saying that Emeth had Tash and Aslan confused because of his cultural background. I disagree, but it’s not as bad as many would think.

I also disagree, but reiterate this: it’s not as bad as many would think. True Christians may believe wacky and/or un-Biblical things, such as: the King James Version (which one?) is God’s inspired Word even more than the manuscripts from which it was translated; the sun orbits the Earth; Madalyn Murray O’Hair and the FCC tried to ban Christian television in 1996 (sadly, they did not succeed); or Christians who read Harry Potter open themselves to demons.

More specifically about salvation, true Christians who understand that Jesus, God’s Son, died for their sins, may also believe that if you don’t speak in tongues, you don’t have the Holy Spirit. They may, out of ignorance, disbelieve in the Trinity — a crucial doctrine for understanding how God works. They may be even fuzzy about the doctrine that Christ was born of a virgin.

But does that automatically rule out their salvation status?

Aiming for essential Christian beliefs

Author and professor Mike Wittmer suggests no. Why? There’s an ignorance clause. Christians may not know some crucial Biblical truths, but they must not willfully reject them. His beliefs-target diagram has gotten about the internet: showing, in the center, truths that Christians must believe to be saved; in the middle, truths that Christians must not reject if they hear and understand them; and in the outside, truths that Christians should believe and study.

In the book of Acts, the bare minimum that a person must know and believe to be saved was that he was a sinner and that Jesus saved him from his sin. As Paul told the Philippian jailer, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved” (Acts 16:29-31; cf. 10:43). This is enough to counter the postmodern innovator argument that we can be saved without knowing and believing in Jesus.

But any thinking convert will inquire further about this Jesus. While he may not know much more at the point of conversion than Jesus is the Lord who has saved him, he will quickly learn about Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, deity and humanity, and relation to the other two members of the Trinity. Anyone who rejects these core doctrines should fear for their soul.

According to the Athanasian Creed, whoever does not believe in the Trinity and the two natures of Jesus is damned. However, since it seems possible for a child to come to faith without knowing much about the Trinity or the hypostatic union (this is likely not the place where most parents begin), I take the Creed’s warning in a more benign way—that we do not need to know and believe in the Trinity and two natures of Christ to be saved, but that anyone who knowingly rejects them cannot be saved.

The final category is important doctrines which genuine Christians may unfortunately misconstrue. I think that every Christian should believe that Scripture is God’s Word, know its story of creation, fall, redemption, and consummation, and know something about the nature of God, what it means to be human, and what Jesus is doing through his church. However, many people have been genuine Christians without knowing or believing these things (though their ignorance or disbelief in these facts significantly diminished their Christian faith).

Thus, I believe that every doctrine in this diagram is crucially important for sound Christian faith. And some are so important that we cannot even be saved without them.

— from An Interview with Michael Wittmer, Between Two Worlds blog, Justin Taylor, Dec. 8, 2008 (boldface emphases added)

So — perhaps after checking that suggested diagram to ensure we’re in the faith! — I would put Lewis through these questions. For the center circle: Did he believe he was a sinner and that the Lord Jesus saved him from his sin? Most assuredly. From the outside circle: Did he accept the orthodox (though slightly less vital) beliefs about final redemption in a physical New Earth and the Church’s nature? Not all of it. He also smoked tobacco all his life (!), as the Lewis-criticizing website I mentioned above gravely notes. But that doesn’t make him a heretic.

The most interesting part comes in that center area of things Christians must not reject. Lewis was fuzzy about the Atonement, the nature of the Trinity, and — I would add this to it — the ultimate cause of Hell and sinners’ eternal punishment, and what “total depravity” means. He did not have access to the same resources that more-Biblical Christians may have today.

Therefore, I contend, Lewis was likely not directly exposed to those ideas and did not knowingly reject them for the reasons we hear from actual “heretics” today: humph, that’s not “my” God.

The same is true of a Oneness Pentecostal acquaintance I have, who I think simply hasn’t seen what the Trinity doctrine really states and defines. It’s true of Christians who are hooked on conspiracy theories about Satanism and C.S. Lewis, and for whatever reason refuse to let the God of truth sanctify how they practice truth-telling in those areas. And let’s admit it: this is also true of so many of the early Church fathers, whose beliefs excelled amidst the doctrinal conflicts of their days, defending the faith in those areas, even if they faltered in other fields.

Conclusion: Lewis, though sometimes confused, a Christian

C.S. Lewis, though not a theologian and not a church father, is very similar to them: in the doctrinal areas under greatest assault in his society, he excelled. Rebutting unimaginative Christianity, he gave us The Chronicles of Narnia. Striking back against intellectual attacks on Christianity and anti-intellectual responses from other Christians, he gave us brilliant nonfiction.

He was not a universalist. He was not a closet compromising-with-Satan “pagan” either (that could be another series). From what we can tell, he believed the essentials of the faith: that he was a sinner and that Christ, by grace, saved him. That, at the core, makes one a Christian.

What does that mean for those who insist he was a heretic and/or a universalist? It means that if they’ve read this far, God bless ‘em, they’re now responsible for what they’ve read — just as Lewis would be, had he read and engaged a firm defense of Christ’s absolutely-exclusive claims and rejected them. Here I’ve attempted to show specifically that Lewis did not accept the false notion of universalism. The other attacks I may handle another time, such as the “pagan” thing.

But on this issue, if you go on from here and say again “Lewis was a heretic” or “Lewis believed in universalism,” etc., after already having been corrected and told how to verify it yourself — that is not Biblical discernment or even understandable ignorance. Instead, at best it’s willful ignorance; at worst, God-dishonoring slander of a fellow believer.

Yes, I know that it can be tempting to push back against Lewis’ popularity, especially because of many evangelicals who may actually over-value his works, quote them nonstop, or use his views in defense of anti-Biblical ideas and practices. And yes, as a general rule, if someone or something is popular with The World, that’s a good signal for Christians to push back. But that alone is no reason to reject all of Lewis’ life and works. Christians should not live as if they must constantly Avoid Whatever is Popular in Culture, but instead live according to Christ. If culture happens to echo that, great; if culture doesn’t, we oppose that. But our goal is to be for the Biblical Christ who’s saved us, not merely Against All of The World. His popularity aside, Lewis was and remains a voice that glorifies God. Truth-minded Christians should thank Him for that.

I suppose first I need to define my terms. Fiction can include short stories available at places like Residential Aliens or Digital Dragon or it can refer to novel-length stories for middle graders, young adults, or adults.

The term speculative includes the various forms of fantasy (urban, epic, dystopian, etc.), science fiction (space opera, techno, cyberpunk, etc.), and supernatural suspense or thriller (terms for types of horror).

Christian as an adjective describing fiction refers to the substance. As a given, Christian speculative fiction is written by a Christian, but not everything written by Christians qualifies as “Christian.” Rather some element of the story needs to be distinctly connected with what it means to be Christian. Perhaps the characters are predominantly Christian. The plot might revolve around something distinctly Christian. Or the themes may relate in a specific way to the Christian faith.

So my question: are you reading Christian speculative fiction?

I’ve been surprised in some of the Christian sci fi or fantasy writer forums and/or email groups I’m in when “what are you reading” comes up. Christian writers aspiring to publish with a Christian publishing house are too often reading anything but Christian speculative fiction.

Furthermore, there seems to be little talk about what author is writing compelling fiction. In other words, there’s little genuine “buzz” being generated.

What’s more, writers don’t seem to be communicating with their readers about what other writers in the genre are producing. I say this because of the latest Clive Staples Award that required voters to read two … just two … of the nominated books. Sadly, a number of ballots were discarded because this stipulation was not met. In addition, the number of voters dropped from the previous year when only one book was required reading.

I’ve heard from time to time the argument that there aren’t really many Christian speculative fiction readers. Rather, our “small” niche is simply vocal.

I’ve not bought into that theory for a multitude of reasons. But I can’t help but wonder — if there are as many Christian readers who love speculative fiction, why hasn’t some book in the genre become a big seller?

Are the really good writers simply bad at promoting their work? Are readers so hardened by the barrage of ads we all endure, that a genuine endorsement falls on deaf ears? Or is the Christian speculative fiction that’s out there missing something that readers are looking for?

What are readers looking for? A compelling character, I’d say, or a compelling place, like Narnia. An attention-holding plot with some unpredictable turns. Is that it?

I’ve read books like that and they haven’t generated buzz.

Does just the right person (whoever that may be) have to start the talk? Perhaps that’s it — besides their quality, the stories that will catch fire must first catch fire with influential talkers.

I wonder what Oprah thinks of Christian speculative fiction. 😆

Jeff Gerke has been called the de facto gatekeeper of Christian speculative fiction. After writing his own speculative fiction and spearheading the launch of a fiction imprint dedicated to Christian speculative fiction at a major Christian publishing company, Jeff branched out on his own to launch Marcher Lord Press, an Indie publishing house whose several major awards lend credence to its claim of being the premier publisher of Christian speculative fiction. His fiction how-to book The Art & Craft of Writing Christian Fiction is available through Amazon or Marcher Lord Press, and Plot Versus Character, his first craft book from Writer’s Digest Books, released in 2010. His new WD fiction craft book, The First 50 Pages, releases in late 2011. Jeff lives in Colorado Springs with his wife, teenage daughter, 10-year-old son, and 2-year-old adoptive daughter from China.
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The Birth of Marcher Lord Press
by Jeff Gerke

Sometimes I’m asked why I created Marcher Lord Press. Not only in the “Why did you do it?” sense, but also in the “Why did you do it like that?” sense. Back in 2007 when I was strategizing all this, I was pretty much making up a new publishing model. Some other folks had pioneered something like it before I had, but I wasn’t aware of them then.

People wondered why I would create a publishing company and not try to get the books into bookstores. Some people understood why I would try to avoid Christian bookstores, but not why I’d want to avoid all bookstores entirely—or vice versa. Others wondered why I would use print-on-demand technology instead of going the more traditional route. Many wondered how much I was going to charge my authors. Most assumed my covers would be awful—or that I was creating this just as a way publish my own books and make it look a little less like self-publishing.

I did a lot of explaining in the early days. Many, after hearing the explanation, would shake their heads and go, “Well, good luck with that.” It wasn’t until the books started coming out—with great covers and at no charge to my authors, and garnering positive reviews and major awards, that the tone of the questions began to change. Now it wasn’t “Why in the world would you want to sabotage yourself by doing X?” Now it was more, “Wow, I never would’ve thought of doing X. What was your rationale there?”

The main reason I formed the publishing model as I did was because of the challenges I saw before me. I’d realized that getting into Christian bookstores would be not only difficult but inadvisable, as my target audience had given up on finding Christian SF and fantasy in those places. Why should I do all the work and make the sacrifices and pay the costs to try to get somewhere my market wasn’t going? As for getting into secular bookstores, the reasoning was pretty much the same. If my books would be shelved in the religious fiction aisles (“death row”), as I knew they would, the same question remained: why try to get my books there? Besides, I didn’t want to play the “returns” game.

The reasons not to get into bookstores meshed well with the strategy of using POD technology instead of regular offset printing. It would cost more per book to print just one copy or only a few copies as opposed to printing a ton—but then where would I put all those cheaper copies? My garage? My bedroom? Would I have to rent out warehouse space? And if I made a change to a book’s interior (as with a correction) or the cover (as with putting the Christy Award emblem on our winner), I’d be stuck with boxes and boxes of the old version.

The last thing people asked me in 2008 (when MLP officially launched) was “Why would you create a new publishing company now, during a recession?” Of course I hadn’t known, in 2007 and before, that the downturn was coming. But in the years since, as the recession has lengthened and traditional publishing companies have gone belly up, my model is looking smarter and smarter. Which is how I know I didn’t come up with it.

The publishing paradigm has changed. We are now in the age of the niche publisher and the micro-publisher. I have been so pleased to see several new Christian publishing companies spring up—many of them dedicated to SF and fantasy, but not all (because other genres are in need of small presses too)—that are using something like the MLP model. We’re going to see more and more of this in the next five years at least.

What idea do you have? Maybe your story or business idea is so different from the norm that no one gets it. Sometimes that’s a sign that it’s a bad idea (LOL). But other times it’s an indicator that you’re onto something new. Maybe the thing that is next. Just because it doesn’t fit or people don’t understand it, it may not mean you shouldn’t do it.

C.S. Lewis had some issues. Every Christian author has them, right? And we need not die on a hill to defend everything he wrote or believed any more than we ought to shun him and call him a heretic. Still, it would be sinful and slanderous to repeat things like “Lewis didn’t believe in the Biblical Hell” or “Lewis was a universalist” without reading reminders from those better informed about what the fantasy and nonfiction author wrote in his full body of work.

Last week I started with reminders that Lewis clearly stated in his nonfiction that he believed in a final punishment in Hell for those who refuse to repent of their evils. That’s indisputable. Call him fuzzy on why Christ died on the cross or on the Bible’s inerrancy, but he wasn’t universalist.

Now we come to one of the trickier issues: the seemingly strongest place, in Lewis’s fiction, in which he seemed to say you didn’t need to be “saved” to enter “heaven.” That is, in The Last Battle, Emeth, a “noble pagan,” did not at first believe in Aslan, yet still somehow crossed over from old Narnia into the lower parts of the new Narnia. Christians get confused about this, perhaps bypass it as a quirk; others use it to reject Lewis entirely as a heretic or universalist.

But readers ought to apply right “hermeneutics” to Lewis the same as we should with Scripture.

Reading Lewis rightly

Christians who profess to follow Scripture must remember how they’re meant to read the Word: mindful of the whole picture, seeking the original meaning of a text, and reading in context.

That’s hermeneutics. We should not salvage pieces of the Bible for alternate intents. Similarly, readers should not salvage Lewis quotes merely to prove him a false teacher or heretic, or to imply that he was Saint C.S. without any doctrine issues. Whether reading Lewis’s nonfiction or his fiction, we must stay mindful of the whole picture, following the genre’s rules.

This applies when answering this common accusation about Lewis’s beliefs: Lewis believed universalism, because in The Last Battle, a pagan character goes to heaven.

Another Scripture reading rule applies to Lewis’s works: clear parts interpret not-so-clear parts.

So if you’re reading The Last Battle and it seems to be showing universalism — that Emeth got into the paradise of Aslan’s Country even though he was a pagan — bear in mind that Lewis more clearly wrote elsewhere that universalism was a lie. That’s clear enough from The Problem of Pain. And in his allegorical story The Great Divorce he repudiated the notion by name.

By contrast, the Emeth Element is more vague, and many other interpretations could be pulled from it. But none of them will make sense unless readers are willing to see that The Chronicles of Narnia are not meant to be allegorical, but a supposal. Lewis asked (and directly made known his mindset in several quotes) What would happen if God made another world, like Narnia, and Jesus appeared and acted there similarly to how He works in our world?

If Aslan represented the immaterial Deity in the same way in which the Giant Despair [from Pilgrim’s Progress] represents despair, he would be an allegorical figure. In reality however he is an invention giving and imaginary answer to the question “What might Christ become like if there really were a world like Narnia and He chose to be incarnate and die and rise again in that world as He actually has done in ours?” This is not an allegory at all.

— The Letters of C.S. Lewis, page 283 (boldface emphasis added).

Thus in Narnia, salvation works differently. There’s no metanarrative of redemption throughout an Old and New Covenant, no sacraments of Communion or baptism, no official Church. Christian readers who try to find these ideas in Narnia will be frustrated — and worse, contradict the author’s intention, the same way we should avoid doing with the Bible itself.

Exploring with Emeth

Now let’s get this specific story straight. Emeth, a pagan but noble Calormene who devoted his life to service of the evil entity Tash, somehow makes his way into Aslan’s Country. But he’s in a kind of in-between status. There Aslan meets him and Emeth immediately repents, sorry he has lived all his life for Tash. Aslan, though, reassures Emeth that Aslan has nevertheless counted his good deeds as service to Aslan instead of Tash. Then Aslan leaves Emeth to ponder that.

Is Lewis hinting only that a nonbeliever could go to Narnian-style heaven? That’s one possible interpretation, but it has competition. For example, Isaac McPheeters suggested this about Emeth (he and I in 2009 also hosted a NarniaWeb podcast about the Emeth Element):

If you read what Emeth says, he’s talking not about people but about worship and actions that are good and evil. Nothing truly evil can give glory to God, and nothing truly good can ever be used in Satan’s service, no matter who might try and claim them. Besides, Lewis only gives a few examples of the process of salvation in the books. Shasta is sinful in the stories, yet he’s in Aslan’s country at the end. How? There’s nothing in the books alluding to Aslan’s sacrifice in [Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe] to be for anyone than Edmund. How is his blood paid for? In short, it’s not necessary for the purpose of the story. It would make the stories too convoluted if every character’s conversion experience was elaborated on in that way or if the process was explained ad nauseum.

But even if that’s not Lewis’s only intent with Emeth, some other idea is being shown here. What he says can’t be supporting universalism — not when we see happens just a few pages before. (‘Ware The Last Battle spoilers.) Aslan ends the first world of Narnia, and hordes of creatures rush to a gateway between that world and the next. And many of them fear and hate him. They turn away and are forever lost in “his huge black shadow.”

“The children never saw them again,” Lewis notes. “I don’t know what became of them.”

Is it heresy to humbly wonder or ask what-if?

Still, Lewis writes elsewhere of his wish that somehow, in some way, all people might be saved. Unlike some, I don’t automatically consider him beneath other Christians who might not have (or admit that they have!) the same secret wish. Yes, it may be a failing of Lewis, but if so it’s a failing common to us all because of our flawed awareness of how bad human sin is and how holy and just God is. Admitting our weakness is not sin. Wondering what-if-in-another-world is also not sinful, so long as we, in our hearts, love the truthful Gospel.

Does that secret hope or those what-if questions make someone a heretic? Not if they’re said out of ignorance and without willful rejection of clear Biblical truth. I seriously wonder if Lewis ever found either on this old Earth, and thus was open to other ideas — even while affirming enough of the Gospel to count for salvation: Christ died for my sins. More on that, next week.

In Wednesday’s post, Becky Miller responded to Mike Duran’s guest post (“Is Christian Speculative Fiction an Oxymoron?“) by writing,

In fact I’m saying “speculative fiction” is incongruous. Novelists of any strip only “speculate” within the parameters of their belief system, Christians not more so than any others.

If I may, I’d like to run off with this in a different direction. I use the label “speculative fiction” because it’s handy, but privately, I think it’s very, very redundant. Let me tell you a story:

Years ago, someone asked me why I, as a Christian, would write fantasy. In this person’s mind, “real-life” fiction was more honouring to God and had more power to impact people than this made-up stuff I muck about with. I try to give all questions serious, sincere thought, so I wrestled with the question a bit. And then the light dawned:

All fiction is fantasy.

That is, all fiction is speculative–to some extent.

As Becky pointed out, when we tell stories, we tell them through the lenses of our belief systems. In some cases, the things we believe are true; in other cases, they are not. Sometimes we write things we know are not true–like truly heroic, sinless characters who are not God. Such characters are inspiring and comforting and have their place. But they’re fantasy, whether they live in Brooklyn or the Elven world of Allyra.

Nobody–not one single fiction author on this planet–actually writes about the real world. We write about the world we see, or cynically believe in, or wish existed, or hope to create, or what-have-you.

Fantasy–and other “spec” genres–are actually more honest and open about this. People KNOW we are speculating. They get that we are making things up. An author whose story is set in Brooklyn, on the other hand, can make up all kinds of things without anyone noticing–they might make up the idea that adultery can make a person happy, for example, or that lying is a good way to fix things, or that happiness is to be found only in the past or in the “simplicity” of an Amish community.

Speculating in the open the way fantasy and other weird-genre writers do actually puts our worldviews on display in a more obvious manner, because we’re not pretending to be writing “reality.” And because of that, I would answer Mike Duran’s original question like this:

Christian speculative fiction is not an oxymoron because it is not, finally, any different from other forms of fiction. Our worldview will always limit what we write–or give it wings. Christians are as free to speculate as anyone else, and we can do it openly in this crazy genre we all love. Our speculations will cast light in some way on reality, but they needn’t try to BE reality. They can’t be.

Now, whether or not readers will LIKE what we speculate is whole other question. As Kaci Hill recently wrote, we should read like Jesus, with compassion and grace–but I’m not sure most of us do.

Thoughts?

In Friday’s guest post, “Is ‘Christian Speculative Fiction’ an Oxymoron?” debut novelist Mike Duran (if I “got” him correctly 😉 ) hypothesized that a Christian’s theology may get in the way of speculating about our world — that which is seen and that which is unseen.

I had to think about the question for some time and finally decided my thoughts about the subject would be too lengthy for a comment. Hence, I’ve opted for this blog post.

My initial reaction was this: all writers are “limited” in our speculation by what we believe. Consequently, atheist Phillip Pullman (His Dark Materials) couldn’t (or wouldn’t) speculate that there is a loving, sovereign, eternal God who created the world and wants to be known by Mankind. This concept would clash with what he believes to be true.

This realization led to another important point — novelists, no matter the genre, desire to reveal the truth. The problem is, not all novelists know the truth.

Thomas Hardy (Far from the Madding Crowd, The Return of the Native, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Jude the Obscure), for example, wrote stories in which fate — pure happenstance — turned success into failure, hope into despair, joy into grief. Truth? Hardly. Yet I think it’s safe to say Hardy didn’t set out to write stories that were untrue in the ultimate sense. He, in fact, believed in “supernatural forces that control the universe, more through indifference or caprice than any firm will” (Wikipedia).

My point is that whatever a novelist deems as true puts natural constraints upon his writing.

For we Christians, then, our theology is the “constraint” with which we must write.

So far, you might think I made a mistake in writing the title of this post, because undoubtedly I’m sounding more like I do think Christian speculative fiction is a marriage between two incongruous concepts. In fact I’m saying “speculative fiction” is incongruous. Novelists of any strip only “speculate” within the parameters of their belief system, Christians not more so than any others.

In fact, I would venture to say that Christians have a greater opportunity to speculate than any other writer. Yes, greater.

L. Frank Baum, author of The Wizard of Oz, created an imaginative world with a talking lion; a living, breathing scarecrow; and a similar tin man. When it came to the wizard, however, the best he could come up with was a fraud. Not a real being of power who could do miraculous things in the fight against evil. Instead, sweet Dorothy and each in her company were as good as it got. Whatever “miracle” that was to happen would come from within them. How limiting!

Christians, on the other hand, believe in an all powerful God. What can’t He do? Think of what a Christian Wizard of Oz story might have looked like. How would the wizard have intervened on Dorothy’s behalf? Or would he? How would she, a stranger, find access to the ruler of Oz? By completing a near-impossible task? By putting on glasses that turned the city into pretend emerald? I think we could do better than that.

We know the truth about how we as actual humans have access to the Throne of Grace — not by what we do but by what God did for us. If we would apply C. S. Lewis’s method of “supposal” to the world of Oz, might we not find a creative way of giving the lion courage, the scarecrow a brain, the tin man a heart, and sending Dorothy home that would be More, not less, than Baum’s humanistic reveal? What would an all powerful Wizard in Oz have done?

The only thing I can think of that God can’t do, is violate His nature. Does that mean a Christian can’t write a story in which the ruler is a liar, unkind, or selfish? Not at all. In that story, however, the ruler would not be God. A human ruler, sure, or one with a demon; or the ruler might even be a demon or a monster or an alien, maybe from a world Satan tried to create after God made this one (hmmm, has that story been written already? 😉 )

And of course the “ruler” could be a scientist or a drug lord or the CEO of a respected business. He could be a she.

The point is, the characters are important on the story level, but when it comes to the theme, they shrink.

Hence, in reading The Shack, I was much less bothered by the representation of God as a big black woman than I was about the things the book said about God’s character.

C. S. Lewis used a lion to represent God in the fantasy world he created. I know and understand that God is not an actual lion, even though the Bible calls Him a lion (and Jesus a Lamb). These are metaphoric representations. Why can’t Paul Young use a metaphoric representation of God as a big black woman, if he sees similarities? (If you’d like to know my complete thoughts about The Shack, you can find my ten-part series at A Christian Worldview of Fiction, starting with this one.)

As I see it, all the world, and all the pretend worlds we can imagine, are before us to people as our imagination allows. And we can infuse those worlds with a Being capable of coloring outside all boxes — because He made the boxes and the colors. How unlimiting for a writer. How speculative. And how Christian.