“Mommy, I’m scared to go to bed. What if there are ghosts in there?”

Should tell my daughter ghosts aren’t real? I’d believed that most of my life as do many Christians. But I stopped with the words dangling on the tip of my tongue. Saying ghosts don’t exist felt like a lie.

In 1 Samuel 28, Saul visited the medium at En-dor in order to gain counsel from a deceased Samuel. The medium was able to bring up the spirit, and the late prophet revealed Saul’s identity to the medium and prophesied about the coming battle. From my understanding, this passage implies that not only was Saul in sin when he visited the medium but was truly speaking with Samuel’s spirit.

Rather than go into the theology of ghosts with a seven year old, we talked about the power of God and the protection he gives us from bad guys. We even included Jr. Asparagus singing, “God is Bigger” in our bedtime devotions.

What does any of this have to do with the new Christian film, Breakthrough? Ask yourself this, “Does my lack of belief in the supernatural weaken my faith in God to work miracles?”

The theme of Breakthrough—based on real events—was faith and the power of prayer. We can ask God for miracles, and he is able to answer us in tangible, supernatural ways.

What was striking about this film was the contrast between the mother, Joyce Smith (Chrissy Metz), and father, Brian (Josh Lucas), of the sick boy, John (Marcel Ruiz). Joyce cried out for God to bring her child back from the brink of death throughout the film, while Brian didn’t think God was even capable of answering his wife’s prayers.

Sadly, Brian’s reaction to their situation is far more common within the Western Church than we would like to admit. With our culture’s bent toward materialism and a lack of spirituality, we can miss the working of God even when he punches us right in the gut with it. Even Christians who study the miracles of the Bible struggle to believe the same things are possible in modern times.

But the God who parted the Red Sea, bestowed Sampson with supernatural strength, and cast out demons through the hands of the disciples is still working in our lives today. As strange as it may seem, it is on God’s authority that Satan afflicted Job with such horrific suffering (Job 1:6-12, Isaiah 45:7), and it is on that same authority that the medium at En-dor successfully called forth Samuel’s spirit. Was it evil? Without a doubt! Samuel himself delivers the news to Saul that he’d become the Lord’s enemy. But despite that, God used that sin for his own purposes and glory.

Western believers tend to react to magic and Eastern spiritualism in one of two ways—fear or fake. Fear: The Bible says magic is real and evil, therefore we should teach our children to fear it. Fake: Magic and ghosts are secular myths and have no place within Christianity.

But do either of those produce a heart ready and able to ask God for big things? To pray for a loved one to be brought back to life as Joyce Smith did in Breakthrough?

Sometimes faith is a “leap” as the saying goes, but most of the time, it is based on experience and reason. I believe the chair will hold me when I sit down because of physics and my experience with chairs. Similarly, I have faith that God can work miracles because I know that supernatural things are real, because I have seen God work miracles in my life before, and much more.

It would have been easy for me to teach my child that ghosts aren’t real, and she has no reason to fear. But that wouldn’t have been the truth. Instead, look not to the material world to calm your fears and the fears of your children, but to an all-powerful, sovereign God who can and will raise people like John Smith from the grave. As we see in books like Job and the gospels, God has authority over all creation. He is our good Father who watches over us as we sleep.

Today is Memorial Day in the US. Consequently, as a compromise between taking the day off and writing new content on a holiday, I’ve decided to borrow an article from my blog which I’m including in the Writers’ Tool Chest. For a more traditional post on the subject of Memorial day, I recommend Travis Perry’s article “A Day to Remember,” posted last week.

Today’s article is part of a short series, Whose World Is It. The subtitle of the original is “Writing In Enemy Territory.” I entitled it here “Memorial Stones” because today is set aside to remember. Mostly we are to remember our country’s soldiers who fell in action. However, I think there’s an important spiritual component in remembering.

Jesus, for example, instituted the Lord’s Supper as a memorial for the purpose of remembering Him, His body broken for us, His blood, poured out for us.

But throughout the Old Testament, God gave His people admonitions to remember along with symbols to spark that remembrance. One such idem of note which I alluded to at the end of this article are stones God commanded the people of Israel to take from the middle of the Jordan River as they crossed on dry land. They were to take twelve of them and create a heap to be memorial stones that would always remind them of God’s miraculous provision which enabled them to cross into the Promised Land.

And now, the original article.

Clearly, someone writing from the position that this world is Christian will have an entirely different emphasis than someone who thinks this world is in the hands of the enemy.

Let me state, I understand this world is God’s by virtue of the fact that He made it and He holds it all together. Also, “He is the beginning, the first born from the dead so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything” (Col. 1:18b)—meaning that Satan will not successfully pull off his attempt at dethroning Jesus.

Meanwhile, however, we are living in enemy territory. Our citizenship is in heaven, unlike those who set their minds on earthly things. How you perceive enemy territory is very different than how you perceive your home.

If you’re in the hands of the enemy, for instance, you stay alert to deception, you steal yourself against depravity and suffering. You take nothing for granted. The things that appear harmless, you examine closely to see how they might be insidious traps. The outward appearance of a thing, therefore, is utterly untrustworthy. In fact, a disgusting bit of pulp might be medicinal, but a thick cut of meat might bring on death. Everything must be tried and measured and examined to see if it furthers the cause of the king or plays into the hands of the enemy.

So with stories. Some may be bold, assertive, overt declarations for the true king or about his enemy and his coming judgment. Some may be illustrative rather than declarative, but no less concerned with the truth.

Obviously these are broad strokes. Stories might be about individual skirmishes rather than about the entire scope of the war. Some might not show the end, but the successes during the battle.

I can’t help but think of Corrie ten Boom and her sister Betsy thrown into a German concentration camp towards the end of World War II. The world in which they lived was in the grip of the enemy—physically and spiritually. But in them resided the Spirit of the living God, and they had a clear choice whether to live by the evil principles of their environment or the life-giving principles of the Spirit.

Betsy never came out of the concentration camp. And yet she triumphed every day through her generosity and by her refusal to hate. She did not look at the concentration camp as Christian. She saw it for what it was—Satan’s playground. But greater was He who was in her than he who was in the world of that German camp.

Christians writing stories have the privilege of showing the way things are, both spiritually and physically. The small aren’t necessarily weak, and the strong aren’t necessarily victorious.

Someone may be a slave but able to bring healing to her master because of her willingness to testify about the Living God. The man who dies young might have more impact on the world than the one who lives into his nineties.

And the Christian writer gets to show this upside down way of seeing the world. We get to make sense of the senseless, to agree with Scripture in the telling of our tales, to serve as the memorial stones that remind readers of the King and His victory—won and yet, to be won.

Society today is fascinated by the paranormal. Ghost-hunter, occult, and UFO reality shows occupy virtually every channel.

Many Christians consider stories of specters and space aliens both non-biblical and equivalent to fairy tales. But we must acknowledge the fact that thousands of reports over the years have come from otherwise credible witnesses. These include members of law enforcement, the military, several NASA astronauts, and fellow Christians. Many of these claims have also been accompanied by compelling photos and/or video evidence.

How do we, as believers, deal with this growing phenomenon?

As an example, let’s take unidentified flying objects, or UFOs. Literally thousands of sightings of strange aerial craft have been reported since the middle of the twentieth century. These have been sparked by what some believe is the infamous alleged crash of an alien space ship at Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. Back then we had typically no video evidence of such claims. But with cell phones as ubiquitous as they are today, photographic and video evidence of UFOs has grown exponentially in recent years.

It should be also noted that references to extraterrestrial visitors are not a recent phenomenon.

Ancient texts such as the Sumerian tale of the Annunaki, Indian Sanskrit, Mayan Popol Vuh, and others go back thousands of years. These many refer to visitors from the heavens arriving in vehicles often described as flaming chariots. In each case these “gods” interacted with humankind and, in several cases according to their authors, were responsible for the creation of humankind.

Let’s look at this issue from a biblical standpoint. It may sound strange to some believers, but there’s nothing in the Bible stating unequivocally that God created intelligent life only on our planet. One of the most prolific Christian writers of all time, C. S. Lewis, addressed the subject in his essay entitled “Dogma and the Universe.” In it, Lewis wrote about the possibility of life on other planets formed in the image and likeness of our mutual Creator, as well as those created being’s relationship with the God of the universe.

However, even though the Bible does not preclude the possibility of intelligent life on other planets, I believe the likelihood of those life forms visiting our planet to be extremely remote. Assuming there are planets capable of supporting carbon-based life in the universe, and the sheer vastness of the universe would suggest “yes,” that same vastness and the resulting time it would take to reach even the closest star in our own galaxy would suggest an emphatic “no.”

For now, at least, there is no physical evidence we know of proving the existence of intelligent life on other planets…OR that they have visited us. Which begs the question: What are all these people seeing?

Looking at the ghost phenomenon from a Christian perspective, there are several references in both the Old and New Testament referring to spirit beings, but not like those created in the mind of a Dean Koontz or Stephen King. Biblical “ghosts” are not the spirits of the dead come back to haunt the living. Rather, according to Scripture, they are divided into two clear camps—angels and demons. Angels are spirit beings who serve God and are righteous, good, and holy. Demons are fallen angels who rebelled against God, and are evil, deceptive, and destructive.

However, many credible witnesses are also claiming to see and be haunted by spirits of the dead. What are they seeing?

Although many reports are coming in from less than reliable sources, I believe many of the people claiming to see spirits, demonic creatures, and space ships are credible and being completely honest in reporting exactly what they are seeing.  However, I also believe what these people are seeing may not be what they appear to be. Could all the paranormal sightings be, in fact, far more sinister than aliens and vengeful spirits? Could these visions be satanic in origin? Perhaps a carefully orchestrated deception put forth by the Great Deceiver himself?

This scenario is addressed in my latest novel, The Reluctant Disciple. The story follows the life of Ryan Kates, the host of a popular cable TV show focused on everything and anything that might prickle the tiny hairs on the back of his viewers necks. Ryan himself is not only a religious agnostic, but also a skeptic of anything he can’t touch or feel.

But when paranormal phenomena begin to rock the planet, he is faced with possibilities too fantastical and bizarre to comprehend. These end-times events challenge both his atrophied faith and personal beliefs, pushing him to the brink between heaven and hell.

Both The Reluctant Disciple and my first book The Linen God, a Dan Brown–style thriller based on the most studied religious relic in human history (the “Shroud of Turin”), can be found on Amazon and many other fine book retailers. My third book, Blood Sisters, will be available from The Pelican Book Group in the Fall.

It’s interesting to me that the United States has both a Memorial Day and a Veterans Day. It has seemed to me on many occasions one such holiday would be enough. That may seem especially strange to say given I’m a veteran. (Yes, I’m going to post more about a US holiday than about speculative fiction, though I will apply my comments to fiction as well.)

A natural division between Veterans/Memorial lies in the fact that not all the fallen we may wish to honor on Memorial Day are veterans and not all veterans who have died did so in combat. But veterans who died in combat are still the first people I think of on Memorial Day. Though this year, there will be two people that especially matter to me above all others this Memorial Day. Both were veterans but only one died in a war.

Major Wolfer, as he will always be remembered.

The first is Major Stuart Adam Wolfer, a friend of mine who died in Iraq in 2008, in an enemy rocket attack, while I happened to be less than a football field’s length away from him, an event that wounded 17 and killed 2. (I helped with the wounded but did not know until later that Stu had died.) His family founded an institute to remember him, MSAWI, that helps Jewish military members in combat zones (Major Wolfer was Jewish). He and I were friends but not the very best of friends (to simply tell the truth), but his untimely death and where it happened, that I was there and that I saw the aftermath of the attack (even though, thankfully perhaps, I didn’t see him), makes his death especially–shall I say “memorable”?

And Stuart Adam Wolfer reminds me that war costs lives, even lives you wouldn’t expect to lose. That responsible citizens who people admire are selectively killed in wars generally at higher rates than people everyone agrees are terrible. Which is one of war’s great tragedies.

The second name I will especially remember on Memorial Day is my son, Mikhail Daniel Perry, a US Marine Corps Reserve veteran who had a peacetime deployment that took him to South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, and Guam, all places I’ve never traveled, while serving as part of a maintenance crew for F-18 fighter jets. My son was willing to embrace discipline and sacrifice, though he had no desire to stay in the USMC beyond his initial enlistment.

Mik (as everyone called him) died in an accident, not in a war, but received a veteran’s burial at Fort Sill National Cemetery.

The thing his untimely death has in common with Stu’s is both deaths were of people almost everyone would agree were more decent and self-sacrificing than average, people willing to serve others. Men who were not selfish, or at least were significantly less so that people generally are.

Yet a strange thing is that both will not age any more…both will remain frozen in memory as they were, while the rest of us slowly move to join them, moment by moment approaching the time we will join them in our own graves. Their deaths are not less tragic because of that, but they remind us that all death is tragic, all human life ends with a potential for us to have done more, seen more, experienced more. Though of course some come much closer to a full life than others.

I put a verse referencing the resurrection from the dead on my son’s headstone because I believe our human desire for life after death is not just wishful thinking. It’s a desire put in us from the beginning, from the God who created us, who makes it available to us by his actions, not ours. I believe that resurrection will come, but death is still with us in the meantime. And it’s still right and appropriate to remember those who passed away before us, those who did great things for us, for our country, for our world, and even for our personal lives.

So how does this relate to speculative fiction, to the mission of Speculative Faith?

I first of all find some fictional portrayals of war rather too enthusiastic about it. War is ultimately the product of sin and kills good people. Yes, it is often necessary (and it isn’t a sin to kill in all cases in my view)–and at times is even glorious in that it can highlight human self-sacrifice and courage. But it’s still an ugly business. It costs the lives of good people like Major Stuart Adam Wolfer.

Obviously people are going to write what they write and read what they read and I can’t change that. But I hope people will write stories that feature warriors who in fact look forward to peace. Because there are many of us like that.

And I further hope our fiction points to the hope of the resurrection, even in worlds vastly unlike the one we inhabit. Because that longing for genuine life after death is a deep part of who human beings are–and that should be reflected in our fiction.

And a final tidbit I can offer to the world of writing is to point out that fictional cultures will have their own ways to remember their dead, both the valiant and the so-called “ordinary” deaths. So please don’t forget that.

When I saw these memes trolling Game of Thrones TV show fans, I laughed at first.

One version simply says, “Sorry your dragon show ended stupidly.”

Another one says, “sorry your kinky dragon show sucked.”

Ouch! Hotter dragon-show burn! It references the fact that Game of Thrones really does/did have porn in it, and enhances the diss with gratuitous lowercase.

Again, I laughed at first. In fact, I’ve shared a few similar memes, such as this one:

But then I kept seeing the mockery. And I realized something.

If we share the “sorry your dragon show . . .” meme, with that phrase, fantasy fans might actually hear an echo like this:

• I don’t care about the stories you’re interested in.
• Fantasy is intrinsically shallow, absurd, and stupid.
• By not caring about the stories you like, I care little about you.
• Hey, nerd! Put down your dopey comics and pay up yer lunch money. Haw, haw!

I kid with that last bit. But honestly, the “dragon show” part could sound like plain bullying. I see those non-fantasy “jocks”—possibly wearing ’90s faded-denim cutoff shorts and backward-turned baseball caps—harassing the “nerd” with thick glasses and knee-high socks.

Disclaimer: Yes, we know about the porn parts

Yes, Game of Thrones has actual porn in it. Here on Speculative Faith, we’ve condemned this porn and think you should too. We’ve quit watching Game of Thrones (and The Walking Dead). And we’ve explored how sex scenes aren’t just “awkward,” but actually violate these actors who are created in God’s image, and the fact that high fantasy can too easily become porn fantasy.¹

But.

I know plenty of Christian fans who enjoyed Game of Thrones. In their view, the gratuitous nudity isn’t a feature; it’s a bug.² These fans say they have grown attached to characters, plot twists, and what’s-gonna-happen-next. Some fans likely resonated, at least for a time, with the series’ commitment to high fantasy.

In other words—all controversy about the porn (sigh) aside—they’re behaving just like fans of any other series.

And if we dismiss their interest as mere enjoyment of a “dragon show,” we may end up saying, “I don’t care about what you like.”

Do we really want our neighbors to hear, ‘What you like is stupid’?

In principle, real Christians shouldn’t behave this way toward people created in God’s image.

Here’s why I say this. As I’ve announced, two coauthors and I—Ted Turnau and Jared Moore—have signed to release a new book next year from New Growth Press. It’s about how Christian parents can engage popular culture with their kids.³

In the book, we frequently recommend that parents show natural interest in the stories and songs their children enjoy. We’re not talking mainly about bad shows or straight-up evil content (such as pornography). Instead, we’re talking about the shows that people might call “useless.” Like a Disney channel sitcom. Or a weird-looking anime series about a boy who wants to be King of the Pirates.

Sure, we don’t always have time to watch or engage with every story in the world. But for parents who want to connect with their children, and explore their children’s hearts as revealed by the stories that capture their hearts? Well, you don’t have time not to engage this way.

At the very least, parents ought not erect walls between themselves and their children by saying, “Your show …” is stupid.

But this is exactly what grown-ups do, to other grown-ups, when they say, “Your show …” is stupid.

This makes even less sense about Game of Thrones. We’re talking about a very controversial show. It has proven to have culture-making power. It’s gained millions of fans. And these fans’ heart-level desires—both good and idolatrous—can be revealed by this story’s commitment to epic fantasy mixed with political intrigue, moral “gray areas,” and lotsa lotsa porn.

Fantasy isn’t stupid, but idols are

As a Christian, your mission is to engage with fans you know as their neighbor. That means we don’t minimize their favorite story as a “dragon show,” as if fantasy is always that silly. We also don’t sneer out fake apologies. And we don’t call our neighbor’s favorite story “stupid.”

Pornographic? Sure.

Controversial? Absolutely.

Self-defeating, like all idols are? Likely.

Something I wouldn’t myself watch? Definitely.

But not “stupid.” Please don’t put up that wall. Please don’t risk mocking fantasy fans just for being fantasy fans. Such mockery is not only absurd, because fantasy is the genre-of-genres in the real world. It’s also beyond foolish, because we risk getting distracted by our own human preferences rather than focusing on biblical rationale. As Scripture warns us, the worst challenge in popular cultural works is not particular genres of stories. It’s the evils of idolatry in stories, and in the hearts and actions of people who make them.

Don’t laugh. In the secular world of books, fantasy is under attack, and the father of fantasy has not escaped the accusations. Granted, contemporary writers face the accusation of being racist more than those of the classics, but not entirely. Some have claimed that Tolkien’s orcs in The Lord Of The Rings trilogy are “racialised.” (See “Writers blocked: Even fantasy fiction is now offensive; Persecution is endemic in the vicious world of Young Adult publishing” by Karen Yossman, The Spectator).

Yes, really. Of course author Phillip Pullman, years ago, accused C. S. Lewis of being “‘blatantly racist’ and misogynistic,” so an accusation against Tolkien should not be unexpected. But is there any truth to these charges?

A look at what’s behind the allegations first, will be helpful.

Primarily the condemnation of stories that once were considered classics, comes from other authors, particularly those in the secular young adult community. Fueled by Twitter attacks and chatter from liberal writers with an agenda, fantasy readers are being schooled to read—and review—stories through the lens of identity politics.

As a result some authors have experienced the vitriol turned against them, to the point that they have withdrawn books from publication, even turned the ones in print into pulp. (See Yossman’s article).

In some ways you might say Tolkien is getting off light.

But how could he be accused of being a racist when his races were, well, made up? No, there are no hobbits in the world. No, there are no elves. No, there are no goblins or orcs made be the magic of an evil wizard.

But apparently the suggestion of slavery—not any real, actual mention of it—is enough to bring about the charge that Tolkien is a racist.

I find this trend in the way the secular book world is going, to be rather chilling.

Beyond the issue of gender politics is the idea that ideas must be those that are approved or removed. In other words, a story that presents a different slant, from a different perspective, is not allowed. Concerning slavery, apparently the accepted position is that this is an American issue, suffered by African-Americans, who are then the only ones qualified to write about any type of slavery.

My agent and friend experienced this attitude first hand. Sally Apokedak, before self-publishing her award-winning novel The Button Girl (2018 Realm Award–Debut), submitted it to a number of secular publishers. Some of the remarks she received in return expressed this same idea that her story line about slavery and her attitudes toward male/female relationships made the book both racist and misogynist.

Apparently the two accusations come hand-in-hand because C. S. Lewis was accused of both as well.

The point is simple: from now on, even in fantasy, readers won’t find books from traditional secular publishers that elevate a traditional man-woman relationship or that shows a race of people that is in any way reminiscent of an oppressed people group. No Native Americans, then. No Africans. No Middle Easterners. And no made up races that remind these social justice warriors of any of these groups. Unless the author is from one of those groups. Then and only then can the writer create a story that involves another people group—unless it is a group, not the author’s own.

I suspect Christian authors and readers of Christian fiction will be affected less than others. After all, small press novels, ones self-published, or those published by a traditional Christian imprint, may not feel the same pressure as these authors in the general market have. But I wonder if that fact isn’t necessarily a good thing. Doesn’t it indicate that we Christian writers and readers are operating in our own safe bubble, immune from the slings and arrows of racism? Until we aren’t.

Why should we think we will remain immune to accusations of being racist or misogynist? I mean, if Tolkien was open to such a charge, can we think that the Christian addressing slavery to sin will not also face this same kind of vitriol, at some point? Even, perhaps, at the point that such ideas are deemed unlawful.

Am I being too much of a doomsayer? Ten years ago, I would have thought so. But when I read about the hate that is directed at people for their “hateful attitude toward people of another race,” it makes me wonder what has happened to the marketplace of ideas. Can we no longer hear each other? Can we no longer understand another’s perspective through an exchange of ideas? Is an exchange of ideas something that will no longer be tolerated?

I’m hoping that the Church universal—that stands on the sure word of God—will be a beacon to the rest of our culture as the counterpoint to the world’s rejection of free speech. Of course, free speech means we take the good with the bad.

But isn’t Christianity all about the freedom to admit our sin, to tell God about our struggles, to receive forgiveness, and in return to offer it? Isn’t it about our common need for Christ? Not just Americans need the Lordship of Jesus. And not just white Americans. Every tribe and tongue and nation will be represented at the great feast of the Lamb.

Think what this refusal to exchange ideas would have done to the spread of Christianity. Actually the early disciples struggled with the issue: was The Way only for Jews? Or could Gentiles also follow Christ. I, for one, am happy that Gentiles weren’t shut out from the kingdom of heaven! So may the Church continue to be the Church, even in our stories, even in the face of a secular world determined to permit only accepted ideas.

The title of this post unintentionally portrays science fiction as a unified front on the subject of what it has to say about Christianity in the future. Science fiction isn’t unified in reality–sci fi isn’t even always about the future, though more often than not it is. There have been a wide variety of ways in which Christianity has been shown in the future in so-called “mainstream” science fiction. Yet there are certain approaches that I’ve found to be more common than others. This post looks at what I see as the basic issue of how sci fi has seen the future of Christianity and also looks at how a number of Christian authors have responded to this challenge.

Star Trek exemplifies what I consider to be the most common approach science fiction takes to Christianity set in the future–Christianity, along with all other human religions, simply has ceased to exist at some point prior to the story setting, with very little commentary on how or why that happened. While some Star Trek has made certain references to Biblical ideas like heaven/hell, God/Satan, Genesis, original sin, paradise, and a few others, in spite of these references, not a single character, either major or minor, is openly stated to be a Christian in Star Trek (nor Jewish, nor Muslim, nor Hindu, nor any other human religion). Humanity has landed in a strictly secular future and religion is a thing of the past for our species. Other intelligent species, Klingons and Bajorans among them, have overt religious beliefs and practices. But humans do not.

Other stories, such as Frank Herbert’s Dune novels, portray a future of humanity in which humans remain as religious as we are now. Yet the religion(s) are no longer recognizable as stemming from faiths that exist today. Religion has changed, transformed, into something entirely new, even if human beings are still recognizably human. (The tribespeople of Hawaii worshiping Sonmi-451 in Cloud Atlas may be an even clearer example of this phenomenon.)

Some science fiction has vilified future religion (classic example: Robert Heinlein’s Revolt in 2100) and some have portrayed a small minority of Christian believers living in the future in a neutral or even positive way (classic example: Arthur C. Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama series). Among the classic sci fi novelists I know, only Jerry Pournelle (himself a practicing Catholic) portrayed futuristic space exploration in which Christianity retained an important cultural role in humanity’s future (as seen in the Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle novel, The Mote in God’s Eye).

In spite of many variations, including ones I haven’t named, science fiction usually portrays the future of Christianity in the following ways: 1) along with all other human religion, it doesn’t exist at all in the future, 2) religion exists, but Christianity doesn’t. 3) Christianity exists, but it’s the faith of a tiny minority and essentially insignificant.

While science fiction writers who in various ways erase Christianity from existence in the future don’t mean to be producing propaganda (as a general rule), I think such stories can have a propaganda effect, whether intentional or not. One of the things propaganda tries to do is shape the understanding of the future for those who hear it. The Nazis spoke of a thousand-year Reich. They tried to convince the German people of the inevitability of their (Nazi) destiny–in essence “Conform now, because the future is with us.”

I see a rather similar effect stemming from much of science fiction, even though sci fi stories are not produced by deliberate propagandists (with certain exceptions). Science fiction preaches future secularism to a large degree. Should we be surprised that in our time, the era of the rise of the popularity of largely-secular science fiction, has also seen a rise in people holding to non-religious (or non-Christian) worldviews?

Of course I’m not claiming that science fiction by itself is responsible for a general cultural turning away from all religion and Christianity in particular–but it seems reasonable to me to conclude science fiction has contributed to this effect.

In fact, the sense that science fiction engages in what is in effect propaganda is part of the reason why I write science fiction from a deliberately Christian point of view. Like Jerry Pournelle, I’m creating alternate views of the future other than what is commonly portrayed in sci fi. Some form of Secular Reich is not inevitable.

My approach has been to imagine that the future is even more Christian in important ways that in our present–i.e. I’ve imagined that the pendulum is swinging away from Christian faith now, but it will swing back again in the future. (Medieval Mars and Victorian Venus both conceive of a future more devoutly Christian than our present.) Lelia Rose Foreman has also written stories in which Christianity undergoes cultural changes in the future as human cultures change, but still remains Christian (in her Statterworld Trilogy), even though she has not imagined Christianity becoming important for the entire human race, just for a select group of future colonists.

Yet not all of our peers have taken this approach. While Kerry Nietz has written a Christian culture into the future with Amish Vampires in Space (and sequels) I would say his more distinctive series set in the future is the Dark Trench Shadow series (starting with Frayed), which portrays Islam as the religion of Earth’s future. No, that’s not a good thing in that story universe–Kerry’s method both runs counter to any assumption of a secular future and at the same time allows a direct comparison between Christian culture and its likely alternative, powerful even though the stories feature little direct commentary on religion.

Steve Rzasa in For Us Humans likewise sees a future decline in Christianity, but in his story, the act of meeting aliens in the near future is what damages religious belief for many Christians, shaking the sense that God has a special story of redemption for Planet Earth. Many humans, but definitely not all, turn away from religion–while in fact, the main alien character proves to be more interested in Christianity than most humans are. In short, in spite of a general decline, Christianity survives in unexpected ways in Steve’s tale.

In contrast to Mr. Rzasa, Joshua A. Johnston in his Chronicles of Sarco series (starting with Edge of Oblivion) takes an entirely different approach to the effect aliens would have on human religious belief. He imagines a future in which human beings have indeed abandoned Christianity to the point of essentially forgetting Christianity ever existed–only to travel to the stars to meet alien species who have religions with obvious parallels to the Christian faith. So humans come to know God primarily through aliens.

A Walker Scott takes a similar approach to Johnston’s in No Road Among the Stars. No, humanity has not entirely forgotten its religious past in Scott’s story, but in the view of the many alien races this novel portrays in interesting and varied ways, humanity is stuck in an “adolescent rebellion stage” when it comes to how humans feel about God. A stage all the other races grew out of, discovering their own versions of faith over again, so humans are the least religious of all intelligent species. With the consequence of the human protagonist learning about faith from his alien friends.

There are of course many other approaches Christian authors could take to offer alternative views of the future. We could, for example, imagine aliens converting to Christianity en masse and sending missionaries back to a mostly unbelieving human race. Or we could imagine a future that really is wholly secular, while at the same time revealing what such a society would actually be like (it wouldn’t be a utopia a-la-Star-Trek).

Have you as a reader of this post given much thought to how sci fi shows the future of Christianity? Do you agree with my assessment and if not, why not?

And have you seen other means Christian authors have used to respond to how the future of Christianity is normally portrayed in sci fi? Which method do you think is best, if any?

I recently returned from a week-long trip to Rome, Italy. It was an incredible experience and I saw places that I’d been dreaming of since I was just a boy (after my “Native Americans” and “dinosaurs” phases, I went through an “Ancient Rome and Egypt” phase). Walking in the Roman forum and standing beneath the arches of the Colosseum and craning my neck to view the ceiling of the Pantheon felt surreal but also gave me a deeper sense of reality of these historic places. These weren’t just vivid images in travel books or documentaries; I was there, looking at these stone marvels with my own eyes. My wife, children, and mother also joined me so it was especially wonderful to share these memories as a family.

Of all the wondrous places we visited, the highlight was the Vatican, and St. Peter’s Basilica in particular. The Vatican was incredibly crowded and it was impossible to fully appreciate the majesty of its miles of galleries and the glorious Sistine Chapel. But even a few minutes with those masterpieces stamped an indelible impression on my giddy imagination. And then we entered St. Peter’s. I’ve been a big fan of medieval and Renaissance architecture, especially churches and cathedrals, for a long time and I’ve seen a few spectacular buildings in my travels, but St. Peter’s left me speechless. Its dimensions were mind-boggling, and the incredible paintings on the ceiling and dome weren’t paintings, but mosaics composed of tiny colored tiles. Our tour guide informed us that the sanctuary ceiling bore more than six thousand pounds of gold, carved into delicate and intricate designs. If I had to sum up St. Peter’s Basilica in one word, it would be “sublime.” It truly felt like heaven on Earth, which was its creators’ intention.

Yet despite the opulence and majesty surrounding me, I also felt disquiet in my heart. It was very obvious that this church was an idol, and while it was claimed to have been built for the glory of God, it inspired feelings of awe for man instead, and for the Holy Roman Church. Imagine how a poor peasant from the countryside would feel stepping into the rapturous sanctuary. It would be simply overwhelming, and their spinning head would be subject to the whims of the church, which valued money over prayers and sound doctrine. St. Peter’s Basilica is a grand propaganda tool, a display of the might of the church and a testament to the power of the Pope, supposedly God’s voice on Earth.

The Bible admonishes Christians on multiple occasions that the Spirit-filled walk will be marked with persecution and trials. Never are we exhorted to seek out political or military power or to set up “Christian” empires. That’s not to say that worldly power is bad, and when Christians find themselves with that power, they are expected to use it for God’s glory and the good of the church. Yet it is a constant temptation to seek power, because let’s face it: no one likes persecution.

In nations with a strong Catholic tradition, the power of the church is more overt. In the USA, with our Protestant roots, we bristle at the thought of a massively powerful corporate religious entity, but we seek the same power in different ways. We try to keep our government as “Christian” as possible through our votes. We brainstorm ways to infiltrate secular strongholds like entertainment and media. We try to cultivate Christian “soft power” to counter the poisonous culture in which we live. All of these are noble pursuits but we need to first ask if we are doing so to increase our witness or simply to make our earthly lives more comfortable and/or profitable. The rallying cry of “We need more Christians in ______” isn’t automatically God’s will. It may very well be, but we need to remember whose glory is the most important. If you’ve ever walked into a grand cathedral, ask yourself: was your first thought “Wow, God is so wonderful!” or was it “Wow, these architects and craftsman were incredible!” The cathedrals we build today, whether real or virtual, should be subject to the same scrutiny.