It occurs to me that three weeks into the relaunched Speculative Faith, I don’t know two things:

1. Where the acronym WIP, Work in Progress, originated: an industry term, or informal?
2. What novels Speculative Faith readers, and my fellow contributors here, are writing.

So this is me asking everyone: pitch it. I believe that qualifies as proper etiquette. Don’t worry about sounding like a spammer if you write a comment and try to sell your story, because I’ve asked for it. Link to your own site or Amazon page if you wish. “Let’s see what’s out there.”

What is your genre, or what are your attempting-hybridized genres? What pictures were in your mind before you started work? Do you outline, and if so, how so? What has inspired you?

Moreover, of course, what do you think would make someone want to read your WIP?

I’m also curious about any informal “codes” when it comes to referring to projects. Especially if a project is unpublished, do you call it a book — as in, “My book is about …”? I ask this because I could be a bit silly about my own vocabulary; I usually don’t call my project a book because it isn’t technically a book. Calling it a book now could also sound pretentious; yet it comes to mind that although I prefer the term novel, that could also sound pretentious. …

Were you there? Authors aplenty at ACFW 2006 in Dallas, Texas.

With this year’s American Christian Fiction Writers conference coming up, this September in Indianapolis, it’s helpful to get these things straight. I haven’t been since the half-conference I attended in 2007 (had to meet a girl and get married, you see).

Agent Rachelle Gardner offers tips about pitching your project, impromptu, here. And from this I draw one overall conclusion: focus on your story’s plot, the conflict, not its Timeless Theme:

Over the weekend as I listened to writers’ pitches, I often heard something like (this is hypothetical):

A woman is distraught and angry about her teenage daughter’s drug use, but finally comes around to be able to forgive her and help her.

To this, I might ask, “Good, so what’s the story?”

Well, the mother has a hard time with this because of her own past drug use, and she vowed her own children would never use drugs, and she has to learn that we’re all human and that her daughter needs her help.

Me: “Okay, so how does all of this happen? What’s the story?”

Um, the mother finally forgives her daughter, and gets her into rehab.

Grrr. Can you see that this is not a novel? At this point, I’ve been given a premise and a resolution, but I still have no idea what happens between page 1 and page 400.

With that in mind — perhaps necessitating a rewritten pitch! — what is your story?

This is my copy of That Hideous Strength, the third of the “Space Trilogy” by C.S. Lewis. If for some reason the photo here isn’t showing or you can’t make out the words, here is this edition’s back-cover copy:

The final book in C.S. Lewis’s acclaimed Space Trilogy, which includes Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra, That Hideous Strength concludes the adventures of the matchless Dr. Ransom. Finding himself in a world of superior alien beings and scientific experiments run amok, Dr. Ransom struggles with questions of ethics and morality, applying age-old wisdom to a brave new universe dominated by science. His quest for truth is a journey filled with intrigue and suspense.

That’s a brilliant back cover, it is. Simply smashing, and quite accurate, if you don’t count the following parts:

• The world isn’t filled with “superior alien beings.”
• There is science, and an evil National Institute for Co-ordinated Experiments, but never “scientific experiments run amok.”
• Dr. Ransom hardly struggles with ethics and morality; he knows them.
• Dr. Ransom isn’t even the main character.

So other than that, the back cover is accurate.

Lest it be said that perhaps someone only read the book once, and based the description on dodgy memory — I’ve also read the book only once (excepting going back to review some parts), and remember better.

By the way, Hideous’s front cover isn’t much better. While the previous installments of this edition have included very “literal” illustrations, I’ve never been able to figure  this one out, and conclude it’s somehow metaphorical. (Who are the men in the middle? Ransom? Mark Studdock? The N.I.C.E. villains? Merlin? And what world is this?)

Yet what’s the deal with this strange back-cover description? Have you read other back covers that didn’t quite match the actual novel? What about those covers that either give away too many details, or don’t reveal enough about the story within? Have you, as an attempting or published novelist, found difficulty writing your own novel’s back-cover-style summary, or has someone else written that for you?

Nothing for the Christian is essentially secular. It can only be secularized by leaving God out of it or by engaging in that from which God, by his nature, must be excluded.

– The Real Face of Atheism by Ravi Zacharias (p. 145)

I’ve read any number of times that one of the problems in the church and in Christian fiction is a propensity to divide life into camps—secular over there, Christian over here. Often times this line of reasoning comes from someone decrying the term “Christian fiction.”

However, the thought usually goes more along these lines: God created the world and everything in it; therefore, everything has a touch of the divine if we will see it—mountains and mud puddles, priests and prostitutes.

Interestingly, the quote above from evangelist/apologist Ravi Zacharias agrees with the idea that we have constructed an artificial divide. There’s an interesting wording difference between Zacharias’s phrasing and what I’ve read before. Rather than saying all is sacred, he says none is secular. I think that might be significant.

On one hand, those suggesting we do away with the “Christian fiction” distinction say all is sacred. There seems to be a period there. The implication is that all can be enjoyed or utilized by a Christian whether or not God shows up.

In contrast, Mr. Zacharias stipulates that nothing is secular but anything can be secularized by leaving God out

But what does it mean to include God in the picture? Are we supposed to see Jesus in Avatar, for instance? Are we supposed to read Watership Down (Richard Adams) and see some end times message?

Not at all. I think including God means I first see the object or person or piece of writing before me for what or who they are. Jesus, for example, understood exactly who the woman at the well was—a Samaritan, a “seeker,” a divorcee, a sinner in need of a Savior. He didn’t dismiss her as too far gone for God and He didn’t dismiss her as already one of the family of God.

I guess what I’m thinking is this: we don’t need to force God into places.

I remember when I saw the first two Star Wars movies. I started to see Christian parallels and began to wonder if possibly Lucas was using intentional symbolism to convey a Christian message. Maybe he was saying the Force was God. Maybe our hero was a type of Christ.

In reality, I was forcing my worldview onto the movie.

Then where is God in Star Wars? Are they simply “secular,” something I can enjoy apart from my Christianity?

While I can enjoy them, I don’t think it’s necessary for me to do so apart from my Christianity but because of it. As I think on God and His Son, I am filtering my culture through the lens of my Christianity.

For example, I can look at the Force and compare that to God as He has revealed Himself in the Bible—a personal, loving Heavenly Father. While the Jedi knights could say, “May the Force be with you,” they could never say, “May the Force comfort you in your time of grief” or “May the Force hear your prayer” or “May the Force extend its grace and love to you.” God transcends the Force by His nature, by His personhood.

So I can come away from Star Wars entertained but also thankful that I know a personal loving God and do not have to trust to an impersonal, distant Force.

Or I might be convicted to commit myself to God … Or willing to mentor someone new in the faith … Or whatever.

You get the idea.

Nothing is secular unless I leave God out.

Originally posted at A Christian Worldview of Fiction, January 8, 2010

Coming soon (this Tuesday, shortly before 3:13 pm) to an inspirational shelf near you …

I’ve decided to give up on this whole speculative thing. Instead, it would much better serve Jesus, and the people in churches — at least, the ones who buy and read novels — if I just gave them what they want.

So, I’ve plotted a whole series, and even done a rudimentary cover design for volume 39 there.

Yes, it has a self-published-like flair. When the real cover is photographed, with models, edited and arranged, it will look much better.

…

Ha, ha! Just a little Friday-the-13th prank for all of you. As you’ve already guessed: not. Instead, that’s an image I put together a couple of years ago. The cover photo features myself and my then-fiancée, Lacy, in November 2008. My sister-in-law was taking engagement photos, and that one just happened to remind us perfectly of one of Those Covers. Ergo: Dawn’s Unending Horizon, volume 39 in the Sierra Samantha Series.

Yes, I know; I’m too often wont to make cheap jokes at the expense of Inspirational novels. I will stop now.

Instead, it’s your turn: for Dawn’s Unending Horizon, what should be the back-cover copy?

For years I’ve been keeping up with religious trends, wrong ideas and excesses among people who call themselves Christians. That’s my job, as a pastor. I show people truths they have not considered, open new worlds to them through preaching. So many people get stuck in their own ways of thinking, and maybe they need to be shown new ways of looking at the world through sermons and religious activities. That’s what God has called me to do.

Yes … no? Sort of, but sounds a little arrogant … very true, in many ways, but wouldn’t a dose of humility help? Do only church pastors know how to handle other Christians? Despite their high callings, oughtn’t they listen to other Christians, who may have different gifts and talents?

What happens if I replace the boldface words with other terms: artist, musician, or writer?

For years I’ve been keeping up with religious trends, wrong ideas and excesses among people who call themselves Christians. That’s my job, as a writer. I show people truths they have not considered, open new worlds to them through storytelling. So many people get stuck in their own ways of thinking, and maybe they need to be shown new ways of looking at the world through fictitious journeys in novels. That’s what God has called me to do.

For those gifted with writing or other artistic talents, who hope to use them to glorify God and improve the church: before God, are you immune to such notions?

Are you sure?

If you are, I’d like to know your secret, because I’m certainly not.

Following up from last week’s column, I also must wonder if novelist Anne Rice is immune.

A priesthood of artists?

Recap: last month Anne Rice posted on her Facebook wall that, in summary, she’s sick of being a “Christian,” and wants to leave the church and follow Jesus only, with none of that piled-on religious stuff.

Relevant links, and mostly nonfiction-level questions and rebuttals, are back here. (For more on the nonfiction, doctrine-based side, see also great columns by Rebecca Miller and Mike Duran.)

To be sure, Rice’s rant (which many professing Christians, including real ones, must have felt at some time in their life) can easily be shown to contain at least equal totals of un-Biblical beliefs as, say, treating a particular, extra-Biblical system of church authority as if it’s Biblical, or worse, requiring overseers not to marry at all (cf. 1 Timothy 3).

Yet are the same sorts of ideas prevalent even among more-Biblical artists?

Here I cite myself as an example only because I know for sure that I’m guilty of this. As a nonfiction writer, someone who gets paid to gather information, organize it and write about it for a newspaper, elitism can be so tempting. I know what’s going on in this town; others just live their lives in a bubble. The problem could be even worse when I’m writing about overt spiritual topics and truths. I’ve been around. My experiences are worth hearing about. I think I’m the only one who sees these unique perspectives. Other Christians just follow blindly.

Rarely do such thoughts echo directly in my head. But they are there, subtly hidden, just ready to spring out and claim more loudly, in the name of Helping Others, that I am so very cool.

Pride. As Lewis wrote, that’s the most insidious of sins. It’s how the Devil became the Devil.

And pride is how Christian artists and writers — I am not necessarily including here Anne Rice — can think of themselves more highly than they ought. We may criticize other Christians, including church leaders and pastors, and irksome church people who live in their bubbles and don’t know the dirt in the real world, and even (cringe) those people who can’t see that staying hooked on their tiny-world “inspirational” fiction is subtler escapism than sci-fi ever will be …

In so doing, we could do just what people fault the clique-ist Christians, the mean pastors and the hypocritical church attenders for doing: we set up a nice little Priesthood for ourselves — a Priesthood of Artists. And from our great exalted position of knowing how things really ought to be, we not only slam other Christians for the same sins we commit, but deny Christ’s love.

I can’t fault Anne Rice for this, without making sure I’m not also falling into that trap.

One Body: pastors, writers and all

It occurs to me also not to commit one of Rice’s mistakes: throwing up hands and giving up on the Church (or at least the, um, single version of it she’s seen) without suggesting alternatives.

Perhaps the Apostle Paul has already helped us with that.

Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone.

[…] For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit.

For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

1 Corinthians 12: 4-6, 12-26

If I might venture to paraphrase some of this wonderful, perfect wisdom: if the writer should say, “Because I am not a pastor, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were all about writing, where would the sense of preaching be? And if the whole body were about being artsy, who would pay the bills?

Stop for a second and imagine the abject horror of a church full of artsy, fiction-minded, writing Christians. Yes, aside from the lack of paid bills, getting something published would be even less possible than it is now. But worse than that, we’d have no preaching. No nonfiction.

Without that, we’d have nothing to write about anyway. Worse, we’d stray from the truth.

My church is comprised mostly of non-artsy Christians. By that I don’t mean they have no tastes in music, books or other media; it’s just that most of those in my church are nonfiction types.

I joke with one of my pastors that were it not for Jesus dying to save us both, we would have little in common. He likes golf, basketball and other jock-etry, and has only seen Iron Man (if that). I don’t see the point of sports, and I’m still dwelling on the finer points of Inception. He references Puritans and John Piper. So do I, sometimes, but at my baptism I quoted from Prince Caspian about Aslan appearing bigger as we grow older, and got teased almost as much as if I’d recited the Apostles’ Creed in Elvish.

We all need each other. They need me for — whatever it is. I need them to keep my feet on the ground, and to prevent me from sinking into any created-worlds of the Way Christianity Should Be. Fiction people need the nonfiction people. Maybe even speculative readers need the Amish-romance-clone readers. (And they need us; how can we better show them why?)

In all our right desires to exercise our gifts, let’s not forget others’ gifts — His one Body, with many members.

One of America’s most well-known megachurch pastors isn’t taking a shine to a certain teen-vampire megaseries.

That’s a ten-minute video, during which Driscoll mostly scrolls through slides showing teen clone fantasy/goth/horror titles, and mocks and slams each one of them. Most of the mocks are deserving. And many of his concerns are warranted, especially if these titles really are on Amazon’s recommended-reading list for teen girls.

But I wonder if Driscoll’s overdoing the whole demon thing.

1. Should a Christian claim to know exactly whether a book series, or even a false religion like Mormonism, was started by demons?
2. Doesn’t that fail to give “credit” to corrupt human beings, who are quite creative enough in writing bad stuff without demons’ help?
3. What about the apostle Paul’s reminders, in Romans 14 and especially 1 Corinthians 8, that “an idol has no real existence” (1 Cor. 8:4)? Should Christian leaders act as though behind every cult, lie and bad book series is a real demon? And if we can know that for sure, why would Paul not say that? (As to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that the princes of the power of the air work through personification of idols. …) Instead, the apostle based his case about avoiding idols on the fact that they’re utterly useless.

Even if demons do originate or spread lies in a particular instance, God has not revealed that to us. I argue He likely would not, given the sufficiency of Scripture to make discerning choices.

So Christians who choose to avoid Twilight or its many teen-vamp clone books should do that to glorify God, not just to Avoid Demons.

Driscoll is a solid pastor, and has built a Biblically grounded church in one of the most secular regions of the country (Seattle, Washington). Yet in this case, methinks he’s not basing discernment on the right reasons.

What do you think?

Does Jesus Christ “meet people where they are”?

If He did, should Christian artists do the same? If so, what does that involve?

Such questions affect all storytelling, music and films made by Christians, including our fantasy and science fiction.

I got to thinking about it today because last weekend, USA Today reported that actor Robert Duvall — though not a Christian, as far as I know — is making two films with themes about forgiveness and human kindness. But neither includes specific Christian elements.

These films don’t march viewers into church or drop them to their knees in prayer. Rather, they reveal broken people, lost in pain — anger, loneliness, addiction, poverty or staggering sadness — whose lives are rebuilt by small acts of love and kindness, what Psalm 51:1 calls “tender mercies.”

—From Holy-wood’s next big hits, USAWeekend.com, Aug. 8, 2010

That article notes the smaller successes of specifically-Christian-marketed films such as Facing the Giants and Fireproof, but contrasts those with the much-more-successful film The Blind Side, starring Sandra Bullock.

And it’s not just non-Christians who are making lower-case-I inspirational films with Christian-ish themes.

The next Blind Side may be Like Dandelion Dust, which opens nationwide in September. Mira Sorvino and Barry Pepper star in this wrenching adoption story in which no one prays, no one mentions Jesus by name, no one converts. But the millions of readers who scoop up every title from evangelical novelist Karen Kingsbury will recognize Like Dandelion Dust immediately as one of her many best sellers.

So that leads me to wonder … if a story includes moral values, but not even a hint of:

1. Prayer
2. Mention of Jesus Christ by Name
3. Conversion, past or present
4. Jesus’ goal to build His Kingdom through His Bride, the Church

… What, exactly, makes it a Christian story?

And by promoting such stories as Christian stories, are we not implying to those who have not repented and accepted Jesus that so long as they accept Moral Values such as love, forgiveness or even repenting (to one’s fellow man), they’re spiritually okay?

Two Christian brothers are helming the Kingsbury film adaptation, the article said. They want to make movies with “universal” themes, such as sacrificial love. That’s wonderful, and we need stories like that — stories that promote discussion about deeper truths, getting the conversation started. But it’s like the “intelligent design” movement: very helpful in getting the conversation started and even some controversy stirred, but what good does it do to know there’s a Designer if you don’t also know Who He is?

Few would argue that every single Christian story need to have the Gospel in it, start-to-finish. If they did, I would argue that Bible books themselves rarely do this. Instead they reveal more of the Gospel account, bit by bit, as God works His sovereign plan.

But shouldn’t some of our stories honor and include the start-to-finish Gospel, and even such cliched elements as prayer, church attendance and (gasp!) conversion? (I’d argue for more overtly Christian characters whose past conversion acted out in the present, instead of making every story’s climax a Pray This Prayer moment. This is more realistic, but not often done.)

If not, Christians may be guilty of overcorrecting too much toward the “Jesus met people where they were” side.

Yes, Jesus was the incarnate Word, God Himself,who physically met humans where they were. But even a summary reading of His Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) makes it clear He didn’t come to affirm people, emotionally and spiritually meeting them where they were. Rather, He raised the bar. He made it clear God expects more of them. His clear meaning: you can’t do this without Me.

For Christians even to imply otherwise in their preaching, music or storytelling is to be more “spiritual” than Jesus was. And as Rebecca Miller recently noted, it’s to fall into the same trend of “safe” storytelling that really isn’t safe.

… “[S]afe” fiction is the most dangerous kind because people are disarmed, no longer alert to possible ideas that may foster a false worldview.

Ideas, of themselves, are not dangerous. I can listen to atheist Christopher Hitchens in a debate about the existence of God and be unaffected by his worldview because I am alert.

Ideas that float in under the radar, however, are another thing. They enter unchallenged, co-exist with the truth, and someday after they’ve been fortified, may even challenge the truth to a shootout.

Media has taken this approach to introducing a shift in worldview through “safe” stories for the last thirty years at least. But the reality is, “safe” Christian fiction is no more safe than the media brand of safe.

Stories that show sin conquered by love and forgiveness, and even repentance, may have echoes of Christ. But if we’re all echoing, who will tell of the Source of the Gospel call?

Should we all be “good cop” Christian artists who get to tell the Good Parts Version of the Gospel, leaving it to “bad cop” pastors or evangelists to fill in the parts people don’t like as much? And if we don’t tell the whole story, aren’t we guilty of promoting only more Moralism?

Sherwood Pictures’ film Fireproof may have been corny in spots, obviously low-budget, slow-moving, and have dialogue with far too many name references (“Dad …” “Son …” “Dad …” “Son …”). But at least viewers got the Gospel in Fireproof. They may get the fruits of the Gospel, and even Hard Subjects, in any of Duvall’s films, or the apparently non-specifically-Christian Kingsbury story adaptation. But they won’t get the whole Gospel — with the much-tougher “your main problem is with God, not people” parts included.

Do we even need “Christian” movies to get the conversation started? Isn’t conversation already going, aided by epic stories such as Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, The Dark Knight, Star Wars and many others — or, for that matter, the death, sin and suffering we see in the real world?

Might we instead need more realistic, well-done, God-glorifying stories that specifically present Jesus, yes, by Name, and yes, with the Gospel?

One of the reasons I love to write fantasy is because of the good vs. evil conflict present in the stories. In most fantasy types—classic or high fantasy, adventure fantasy, even fairy-tale fantasy—good and evil are defined in rather stark, unyielding terms, based on what the author believes.

Philip Martin, editor of The Writer’s Guide to Fantasy Literature writes:

Fantasy, then, is speculative fiction that takes one giant step inward. It is highly imaginative, wondrous fiction, rooted in inner beliefs and values. Fantasy is about good and bad, right and wrong.

Martin makes a case for fantasy differing from science fiction because it is not tied to the rational.

Fantasy celebrates the nonrational. Wrapped in a cloak of magic, it dares a rational reader to object to a frog suddenly being turned into a prince. Where an explanation would be required in science fiction, fantasy says: “Because it did.” Though fantasy may offer some cause and effect—the prince probably did something wrong in the first place to cause him to be turned into a warty amphibian—no scientific rationale is required.

There is a reason, says science fiction. We believe says fantasy.

Surprisingly, this definition offers a couple of stumbling blocks to evangelical Christians in accepting fantasy as valuable. First is this contrast between belief and reason. Frankly, that bothers me, too, because I find my belief to be eminently reasonable. Faith is not faith based on nothing.

But true faith does admit that there are things in the world that are beyond a person’s ability to explain completely. Fantasy does nothing more than capitalize on this fact.

A reader of fantasy, then, enters a world constructed by an author’s beliefs. If the author is a student of God’s Word and relies on that source to inform his beliefs, then his world, his fantasy story, will be filled with truth. The kind of truth that can’t otherwise be explained.

Fantasy’s first value, therefore, is that it can give voice to a Christian’s deepest held beliefs.

Re-posted from A Christian Worldview of Fiction, May 13, 2006

Aside from my hand there, this photo is not arranged.

My wife and I spotted this last week at a Presbyterian church rummage sale. And we had to wonder if the same Presbyterian had read and enjoyed both books.

Ah, the blissful, delicious, passionate presence of plentiful ironies:

1. Safely Home, which I own and have read, is about an American businessman who reunites with an old friend in China. That man is now a Christian and a member of the persecuted Church. At the end (spoiler alert), Communist officials kill the man and he goes to Heaven.
2. Master of Desire, as far as we can tell, is about a man who is a master of desire.
3. “Safely Home is not only a first-class story; it’s a bracing wake-up call about Christian persecution in China. You’ll be challenged.” — Chuck Colson
4. “He is her hunter — and her slave …”!
5. The other book, to the left, is something called Wurst Case Scenario.

So for those of you hoping to write The Next Great Christ-Exalting Novel: this could also someday be you.