The series on “What’s the Deal with the Devil” is nearing it’s end. The next-to-last topic will take last week’s post about the spiritual war through culture during the time of the Bible and fast forward to talking about the spiritual warfare through culture, including popular culture, that we fight today. But before we get there, there’s a topic that has to be addressed first. Perhaps two topics, but I’m making them one. First, what’s the downside to skepticism about the topic of spiritual war–which I’m calling “anti-pearl-clutching”–and second, what benefit can we gain from thinking about What Would Satan Do (WWSD)?

Anti-Pearl-Clutching

You know that aunt or great-aunt who reacts in horror, drawing in a deep breath, eyes wide in shock, at the mere mention of Harry Potter? Or the mention of many other things? She may or may not have any literal string of pearls to grasp as her far-too-easily-triggered shock reaction is set off, but you get the idea. She may not be your auntie (who is perhaps very cool),  but she’s somebody’s aunt or mother or grandmother and if you don’t personally know an example you at least know of the idea of someone who over-reacts to certain kinds of things. She and women like her–and yes, men like her too (indeed there are male “pearl-clutchers,” albeit almost always sans pearls) set the eyes of a certain group of people a-rolling. Sure, Auntie, whatever. Or perhaps: OK, boomer.

Who is the certain group of people I just mentioned? Let’s call them “anti-pearl-clutchers” and what they do when rolling their eyes in skepticism, “anti-pearl-clutching.”

Anti-pearl-clutchers perhaps have read Harry Potter or have played Dungeons and Dragons or maybe even messed with an Ouija board briefly and they are pretty sure Satan did not rip off the top of their skull when they did so and come to permanently reside inside their brain. They’re also pretty sure that claims about Satan/the Devil are grossly exaggerated in some circles, like, to the point of being ridiculous. To the point of making human choices seem unimportant, because so much evil is attributed to Satan. In contrast, we know for certain a lot of evil comes from things people decide to do, things people would perhaps do at least at times if Satan wasn’t even around.

By the way, the line I dropped into the paragraph about about messing with an Ouija board and nothing bad happening is not meant to be an endorsement of Ouija boards. That’s not where I’m going at all, since playing with the Occult is something the Bible very clearly forbids–but it is possible to goof around with a Ouija board and/or Tarot cards and similar things without anything noticeable happening. (Not that “anything noticeable” is always the same as “anything.”)

Since speculative fiction deals with topics that pearl-clutching avoids, like magic or aliens, it’s probable that the vast majority of readers of Speculative Faith are aligned with the anti-pearl-clutching crowd. At least a little bit. It could be in fact be the case right now that someone is reading this article and thinking concerning my comments here: OK, boomer (I’m actually an older Gen X member, not that when I was born is actually important to this topic). Or something similarly dismissive. There’s a reason for that.

You’ll shoot your eye out!

Image credit: Tenor.com

The movie A Christmas Story famously evokes Ralphie wanting to have a BB gun but being warned by all kinds of people that he shouldn’t have one because if he does, the risk is “you’ll shoot your eye out.” This idea is over-exaggerated to the point of being silly, this hypothetical risk that everyone clings to as if it were a fact showing a classic example of pearl-clutching in a story.

We in fact may know people who used BB guns or pellet guns or airsoft guns for years, perhaps even people who used them recklessly, who suffered nothing more than skin welts. Nothing serious happened to them. So clearly BB guns are safe, right?

Er, no. According to an article Google pulled up for me when I searched “BB gun injuries,” over 23,000 kids went to an emergency room in the nineties because of injuries sustained from a BB or pellet gun in the USA. In 1990 alone in the United States, 12 kids died from injuries sustained by BB guns. Died. (For the medically curious, my brief research on the topic found point-blank shots at the eye with a BB gun may go around the eye, through the eye socket, and into the brain–where is a potentially fatal wound if the BB or pellet hits a major blood vessel inside soft brain tissue.)

Realistic Safety

So in the case of BB guns I just touched on, while it may in fact be laughable to avoid them at all costs because of their dangers, there is actually middle ground between pearl-clutching forbidding any use of air rifles and freewheeling you-can-do-whatever-you-like-son. You can allow them to be used, but recommend caution. Maybe, quite seriously, some eye protection is in order. At least at times. Certainly kids need to be informed that a point blank shot at yourself, especially at your face, represents real danger and should be avoided. (True story, one of my children shot himself point-blank with an airsoft rifle in the face, punching right through his skin with a plastic pellet. He should have known better, but it happened anyway.)

To be clear, what I’m talking about with this What’s the Deal with the Devil series is not me endorsing pearl-clutching. It’s a call for realistic safety and realistic awareness of actual danger.

The Danger of Anti-Pearl-Clutching

We can perhaps compare anti-pearl-clutching to an adolescent phase in a person’s thinking. As a child, you know there are dangers and perhaps might be paralyzed by them. As an adolescent, you might laugh off danger and do some really risky stuff. This is especially common for testosterone-laden young men driving cars (among other things), but some young women are major risk-takers, too. Though of course not all adolescents are risk-takers, but for those who are, after they’ve been in some fender-benders or worse because of a lack of caution, as adults, they come to understand there’s such a thing as healthy fear. Not fear that paralyzes you so you can’t do anything, but a touch of fear that makes you more alert than you would otherwise be. A fear that causes you to put on your seat belt and slow down when road conditions are bad.

Since so many people have over-exaggerated the dangers of certain cultural influences and have over-exaggerated Satan’s power, the natural reaction to that is to go the opposite direction and think the Devil is a chump whom we can safely ignore. That we don’t need to think about Satan at all, that putting any emphasis on the Devil at all is a sheer waste of time, since we know that the cross of Christ has defeated Satan.

Yes, Satan is defeated, but from what the Bible actually says, as quoted throughout this series, he’s still active and still dangerous. My post on how to face the devil in combat (part 1) mentioned that the main thing we need to do to defeat Satan is live for God fully and truly.

Yes, that’s also true, in addition to Satan’s fate being already determined–but how we pray for other people (and ourselves) is affected by the realization that spiritual warfare is real, that Satan is real, that he is actively leading into sin and deceiving whomever he can. Satan is actively ruining the lives of some people and is a significant influence in our culture–we need to be aware of that and alert to the possibility of our own vulnerability. For own safety and the safety of others. Not in panic, but with alertness, trusting God to deliver us when we need him.

So What Would Satan Do (WWSD)?

I’m of course playing off the dead-now craze of WWJD, “What Would Jesus Do,” that for a time adorned bracelets and was on the mind of many Christians. (I’m not saying WWJD is totally dead, but I can’t recall the last time I saw a WWJD bracelet.)

Here’s a humorous take on WWSD. Image copyright by Pat Byrnes.

By the way, I never personally bought into WWJD because I keep seeing Jesus’s disciples being surprised at things Jesus did–such as meeting with the Samaritan woman, or driving money changers out of the temple, or even when he mentioned “the leaven of the Pharisees” (Matthew 16:6-9), they thought he was talking about provisions for a trip. He surprised them and can surprise us too–though if thinking WWJD is helpful to you, don’t let me stop you from doing so. I’d say though that one of the reasons the Holy Spirit was given to Christians was to guide us into what Jesus wants us to do–as opposed to us using our imagination to guess WWJD.

This is the apparently serious theological book on WWSD on Amazon. Image copyright: R.P. Nettlehorst.

Note that while writing this article for Speculative Faith I found four titles on Amazon for What Would Satan Do? One is a satirical novel that seems to glorify Satan, one is a set of comics full of dark humor that I made into the featured image for this post, one seems to be a serious book of theology about the Devil, and one is an odd bit of wacky theology and a story combined. So I’m not even close to being the first person to say “WWSD.”

But my reasons relate to military thinking. US Army doctrine includes sketching the terrain around you to identify what is there in a fixed position in a combat zone (part of a “range card”)–so if something changes, you’ll be aware of it. Military doctrine also encourages a person to consider probable “avenues of approach.” As in, “if an enemy is going to attack me here, what’s the most likely way they would get here?” Army operations orders include a section on enemy activity that lists both the most probable action the enemy will take and also the most dangerous action the enemy could take.

I don’t want to lead a descent into paranoia by suggesting Christians continually worry about what Satan would or could do–I’m saying this intended to shore up the “Realistic Safety” point I made above. A person who is going to be realistically safe is going to consider what could go wrong at appropriate moments and then take steps to avoid the worst, if at all possible. And if you have an active enemy trying to hurt you, it might be worthwhile to consider what the enemy would do under the circumstances, what the enemy would think–or in the case of spiritual warfare, WWSD.

Lest you think the idea of considering What Would Satan Do is unbiblical, note that in the context of discussing unforgiveness among Christians, the Apostle Paul (as inspired by the Holy Spirit) mentions an awareness of the schemes of the Devil (2 Corinthians 2:11). The context clearly suggests that being aware of the kinds of things Satan does helps a person avoid falling for Satan’s schemes.

So perhaps we ought to consider what is Satan could do in any given situation we face. Certainly the “Billy Graham rule” practiced by some Christian leaders in which male leaders refuse to meet with a woman alone would seem to account for WWSD. Because Satan is not only capable of provoking sexual temptation to sin when a man and a woman are together without anyone else around, he’s capable of putting it into someone’s mind to accuse the Christian leader of impropriety, even if he’s done nothing.

The Billy Graham rule or variations thereof should also be considered when dealing with other people’s children. Just sayin’.

Great advice, but do you “practice what you preach?”

In truth, I’m actually mediocre at WWSD thinking. At major points in my life I have failed to anticipate how I could come under attack by Satan. Or how other people would be attacked by the Devil, people I should have been praying for. I have as a result made some major mistakes and have been a sucker for common sins at times. And have failed to help other people the way I should have. (But I don’t always fail, thank God. 🙂 )

I talk about caution and thinking about what the enemy could do not because I’m a natural for pearl-clutching, but rather because I’m a natural risk-taker and have seen how my natural lack of caution has hurt me at times. In some aspects of my life, even though I talk about anti-pearl-clutching as a danger, I’m a de facto anti-pearl-clutcher. So what I’m writing is for me–even though I have learned to apply more caution to my spiritual life than I used to, I’ve still got to do better at applying what I know to be true. Some other people might not need to think along these lines any more than they already do–but what I mention here is important for me and people like me.

What about you? Do you ever think about the worst Satan could do in various situations (WWSD)? Do see a value in such thinking? What have I not mentioned that perhaps I should have? Other thoughts?

You have to take success where it comes, even if it happens to come on Netflix. That can be a little galling if what you really wanted was success on the silver screen, all across the United States. I learned that from Martin Scorsese, who has received a great deal of acclaim for The Irishman but wanted, in addition, a good, long theater run.

There was no room for him in the theater. This, at least, is Scorsese’s read on the situation. As he explained,

[T]he fact is that the screens in most multiplexes are crowded with franchise pictures.

And if you’re going to tell me that it’s simply a matter of supply and demand and giving the people what they want, I’m going to disagree. It’s a chicken-and-egg issue. If people are given only one kind of thing and endlessly sold only one kind of thing, of course they’re going to want more of that one kind of thing.

Scorsese is making two points here. Both are interesting; one is correct. He is saying, first of all, that franchise movies are not overwhelming our theaters because that is simply what people want. This statement rides on the implicit belief that the public taste is broader than that, that people can – and would, if Hollywood chose to offer them – enjoy films that break the ascendant formulas.

That belief does Scorsese credit. In the first place, it’s a compliment to his audience. In the second, it lays hands on a critical truth. Hollywood makes so much of its franchises and its formulas because they’re safe, not because they’re all the movie-going public wants. The studios are gambling millions on every film; naturally they are averse to unique formulations that have not been tested against public taste. But people are ready to enjoy, and to pay for, more than the current fads.

Still, it must be granted that the franchises and formulas are safe because people really do like them. Here we reach Scorsese’s second point. Scorsese argues that people want franchise films because they are given franchise films. No doubt Hollywood does help to create the demand it supplies. No doubt it doesn’t do so to the extent that Scorsese suggests. It is, as the cliche goes, a free country. The paying public is constantly allowing movies to hit the theater and flop. Why not the movies that so grieve cultured filmmakers?

Because people want those movies. At least, they want that sort of movie, and they will forgive failures in art to get it. This is a truth that critics, and artists with the souls of critics, have a tendency to miss: In terms of enjoyment, type matters as much as quality. If it’s comedy you want, then even bad comedy will do more for you than tragedy. The popularity of the franchise doesn’t prove that the movies are good. It doesn’t even prove that the public thinks the movies are good. But it does prove that the public wants them.

It is very profitable to find what people want and sell it to them. The whole aim of the franchise is to give the people what they want, and it hits the mark more often than not. Scorsese is wrong to believe that Hollywood creates the demand by supplying it. But he is right to believe that people want more than the franchise and the well-tried formula, that there is space yet for the different and bold. The public always holds surprises. You never know what people might like, or love, and even – for that is the way of things – turn into a new franchise.

I’ve returned to the Pop Culture Coram Deo podcast to talk about the #ReleaseTheSnyderCut fandom with Jeff Wright.

Good news: Jeff joins me on this quest to get director Zack Snyder’s original, complete, three-hour epic Justice League film released.

Bad news: He disagrees with me and believes Snyder’s challenges of Superman and Batman make their characters “irredeemable.”

Oh noes! Fans, even DC fans, disagree on a particular film. That means we must bite and devour one another on the social medias, yes?

Of course, in this case, no. Jeff and I want to disagree graciously, as disagreeing fans should. And in fact, a big part of this episode explores the nature of fandoms like these: their “stories,” worldbuilding, graces, idols, and solutions in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

‘Reboot the whole universe of expectations we have of stories’

Here’s one favorite moment. After I described the “worldbuilding” of the Snyder Cut fandom, including its flaws, Jeff asked me this:

So let me ask you. Just out of all that stuff you have raised . . . if you could change any of it, Twitter herd mentality, binary response to art, is there something you would just flip the switch and say, Things are going to be different in this way?

I replied:

I know exactly what I would change . . .

I would change our very expectation for what a story is supposed to do. I would take us back to the Bible’s portrayal of human culture and what that is for, going back to that first chapter of Genesis where God tells people to be fruitful and multiply, start families, fill the earth, steward the resources.

And then implicit in that command and explicit in later content of the Bible is that command to make culture. Which includes stories. Which would include technology. Put them both together, you get popular culture: mass media distribution, movies, radio, songs, computers, internet.

I would go back to the very beginning and reboot the whole universe of expectations we have of stories: superhero, fantasy, and otherwise, so that we at least have a better chance of appreciating what stories are for, and keeping them in perspective.

They’re gifts that God has given us, to be able to make these stories. They’re therefore going to be subject to the idols that we have and the graces that we have—those parts that God has put in the universe, versus the distortions that people come up with. And that also means that all of that is going to get into any story. Some more than others. But it’s also going to get the fandoms, the stories that we tell each other, that we create on our own, surrounding the stories.

I think if we were to reboot our perception of the whole thing, then we could probably avoid seeing stories as either “yes or no,” absolute good/absolute bad, thumbs up/thumbs down, or the nastiness that fans have if they’re for or against The Last Jedi or for or against The Rise of Skywalker. . . .

To spread it beyond the Snyder Cut or Justice League fandom: this happens with a lot of fandoms, particularly when the story choices that the creators make are not pleasing to everybody. Or if they’re perceived as subverting the old stories. . . .

Listen to the whole podcast at Pop Culture Coram Deo.

And watch this space for another podcast-related update, coming very soon.

The Spec Faith 2020 Winter Writing Challenge is now closed to new entries, and the evaluation phase is underway.

We want all the entries, even those that came in at the deadline, to have a fair shot at the finals, and an opportunity to receive the same kind of evaluation as the entries that came in earlier last week. Please take time to read and give your evaluation of the ones you haven’t seen yet. I’m speaking to myself here, because I have not had a chance to read and give feedback to all of them. You’ll find all 12 of the entries in comments to last Monday’s Challenge post.

Remember to indicate which you like best (no limit) by hitting the thumbs-up button, then reply to the entries with helpful comments as you see fit. In your replies, tell the authors what you like about their story or give them constructive criticism which might benefit them (whether you choose to give a thumb up or not). Remember, no thumbs down, please. Such negative feedback doesn’t help a writer know what they need to work on, so it is not helpful.

Next week I’ll announce the three finalists, based on your thumbs up during this evaluation phase and those given last week as the submissions came in. From those three finalists, I’ll create a poll, and we’ll vote for a winner.

The drawback of a readers’ choice challenge is that it might turn into a popularity contest. On the other hand, we need reader feedback for the challenge to be successful. With both these facts in mind, I think the best answer is for Spec Faith visitors to connect with family, friends, and followers (our share buttons make this quite easy) and encourage their fair and unbiased evaluation (as opposed to, “Vote for mine—you don’t really need to read any of the entries,” which I’ve seen from some other contests).

Thanks ahead of time for letting others know that their feedback is a helpful part of the contest.

And special thanks to each of the authors who shared their work with us. The variety of well-written entries will make choosing a winner a tough call. What a nice predicament! To find the entries, follow one of the links in this article (such as this one)—the entries are in the comments section of that post. You might consider reading them last to first.

Photo by Simon Matzinger from Pexels

This post returns to the What’s the Deal with the Devil series. I’m focusing on the idea that a clash of culture can be a reflection of a spiritual war, at least in part, and an excellent extended example that illustrates this point is in the pages of the Bible.

The first definition of culture offered by Webster’s dictionary is: the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group, also: the characteristic features of everyday existence (such as diversions or a way of life) shared by people in a place or time.

Some aspects of culture as mentioned in the definition above have little to no relationship with spiritual warfare, but some aspects do. In particular, while modern academia tends to support the idea that no one culture is ever better than another–with the idea that all should be seen from within the context of their own perspective–the idea that all cultures are equal in terms of moral beliefs and teachings isn’t Biblical. Some beliefs are better, more moral, than others–so the cultural beliefs of some groups have been better than others.

Note in practice, few people, even few academics who might defend multiculturalism, really believe that “all cultures are equally good.” Though their favorite cultures may be quite different from ones that reflect beliefs that at least in part match what’s true according to the Bible. So a matrilineal society might win the praise of some people, because it’s less patriarchal, and a society like the Sarmatians of ancient times might be considered better than our own because it had both male and female warriors in abundance and thus was more egalitarian. And on the flip side, few people defend cultural beliefs that supported offering a daily human sacrifice to the sun god as the Aztecs did or which sent millions to their deaths in labor or concentration camps as did the Nazis or Soviets.

Does the distinctly different culture of ancient Israel imply separation from the world?

A quick overview of the law and other writings of ancient Israel might lead a person to focus on how starkly different the Israelites were from their neighbors. Most of the surrounding peoples, while they tracked the movements of the moon, based their major holidays on a solar calendar. The Hebrews used a lunar calendar. While the surrounding peoples had a set of annual rituals that tended to look forward at the agricultural cycle to ensure, say, a good planting season and abundant fertility in celebrations at the Spring Equinox and a good harvest in the Fall (among many other forward-looking rituals), Ancient Israel had rituals that looked back to the past, some of which were in striking opposition to what their neighbors were doing.

So in the Spring, when the Pagans all around Israel were celebrating rituals to ensure fertility, Israelites were talking about slaying the Passover lamb, the Angel of Death, and deliverance from Egypt. At the harvest time in the Fall, in which Pagan people in some places were thinking about dead crops and therefore death in general, the Hebrews were thinking about atonement with God.

The Pagan peoples produced abundant images of the gods and many other things–whereas archaeological digs show ancient Israelite pottery was often unadorned. It seems the commandment of “making no image” (Exodus 20:4) was taken so seriously by the Hebrews that they made their entire culture different from every other nation.

Perhaps more basically, we can say that Ancient Israel represented people who reverenced written documents, the Law of Moses, wise sayings, and eventually the writings of the prophets and others. They also reverenced keeping the commandments and following laws handed down by God, as opposed to often arbitrary means of making decisions favored by Pagan peoples, such as divination.

So, it would seem, God’s plan for the ancient version of the nation of Israel was to make it as different as possible from every other nation. Which perhaps I or others could use as a launching point for the argument that Christian culture ought to be a different as possible from the “lost” culture surrounding us.

But hold on a minute:

Was Israelite culture actually that different? (Was Israelite “exceptionalism” really a thing? Or only in part?)

The overview I just gave is actually unfair. Other ancient peoples had written law codes, often with a great deal of similarity to the law of Moses (such as Hittite law and Babylonian law). Other peoples also had written wise sayings, collections of which are in fact very popular worldwide, from the ancient Egyptians to the Chinese. Other nations had prophets of various kinds, though Israelite prophets left a written legacy unlike any other nation. Though like other nations, ancient Hebrew people used the casting of lots at times to make decisions, which could be considered a form of divination–though they were supposed to go Jehovah to get the answers they sought, instead of other gods or spirits.

Worshiping the Golden Calf: A negative example of cultural influence on Ancient Israel. Source: Wikipedia Commons

Music was part of the worship of ancient Israel and was part of the worship of other nations, too. The few historic descriptions of ancient Israelite music imply it was different from other nations (for example, an ancient Assyrian king demanded tribute of musicians from Judah, presumably because they were distinct, as mentioned in the linked paper). But the instruments used in ancient Israel were similar to those of Egypt and Babylon and in fact the first reference to music in worship in the Bible is linked to the golden calf and the Pagan-influenced worship described in Exodus 32.

While we can say Israelite was past-focused in terms of rituals, the Israelite ceremonial calendar certainly did look forward to future blessings from God, even though it looked backward to past events. And the forward-looking Pagans did in fact remember legends of their gods and demi-gods during their annual rituals. And while the Egyptians were using a “lunisolar calendar” well before the time of the founding of the Israelite kingdom (the Egyptians may have switched to it as early as 2500 B.C.) they used a lunar calendar for religious celebrations.

While archaeological digs show the Ancient Israel using less imagery than surrounding nations, some images, that is, visual artwork, are found at Israelite archaeological sites, such as the winged sun seal of King Hezekiah, (which included two Egyptian ankhs as well!). Lest Hezekiah be accused of using artwork in a way not authorized by the Bible, the Bible itself records God commanding that images of angels would adorn the top of the Ark of the Covenant (Exodus 25:18-20), making it clear that the portrayal of anything at all was not forbidden by the Bible so much as the portrayal of anything intended to represent God.

Craftsmen from Tyre helped build the Jewish temple at the time of Solomon (of a culture today we’d call “Phoenician”), as recorded in I Kings 5. The temples of the Phoenicians as found in archaeological sites were laid out much like the Israelite temple–except for the Phoenicians, the inner “holy of holies” was occupied mainly by a statue of the god to be worshiped at any given temple. The Hebrews were distinct in having only one official temple for one official God (of course many other gods were worshiped in Israel in a way not authorized by the Bible). And in that temple, in the space where a statue would be, angels to the side of the space without outstretched wings surrounded–nothing. Emptiness. Showing the resounding power of the idea that God cannot be portrayed visually. Yet that space was outlined and highlighted by images of angels. Skillfully crafted images.

So the imagery we get of Elijah facing off with the prophets of Ba’al (I Kings 18), that zeal-inspiring historical reality, or the historical reality of King Josiah finally putting aside the nonsense of Israelite people worshiping other gods by physically destroying their altars (II Kings 23), that zeal is a reaction to a corruption of morals that had gone too far–but that zeal was not how the religion of ancient Israel always worked. Israel did in fact maintain separate traditions from the nations around them–but the things they did were not totally separate; they were not completely different.

What does this have to do with spiritual warfare?

My presumption not fully explained so far in this post is that Satan influences cultures to steer them away from believing there is just one good and holy God whenever possible. That the belief in human sacrifice and other culturally-accepted horrors like genocide isn’t a product of human imagination alone, that demonic powers are involved as well in influencing entire cultures to do evil, just as earlier posts in this series (parts 2 and 3) make it plain the Bible teaches tempting people to sin and getting them to believe false ideas are the primary objectives for Satan in the spiritual war (also, in a post from 2018 I made the case that the Pagan deities of the Old Testament and demons mentioned in the New represent the same sinister spiritual power). Though of course there are many ways to get people to stray from doing right and Satan isn’t locked into just one method (Matthew 7:13).

So we can say to a degree that the culture of Ancient Israel represented what God wanted to see a culture believe and the methods of self-expression he believed were acceptable. We can only say it to a degree because in one specific case, the issue of divorce, Jesus stated that the Law did not represent God’s original intent (Matthew 19:8) and certainly there are reasons to believe that in other areas the Law requires an understanding of its context and how it was actually applied. But still, generally speaking, the Scripture shows ancient Israel represented what God wanted to see in a nation and surrounding nations had practices the prophets of God justly condemned.

And notice how much the Israelites were influenced by surrounding cultures in a way that reflects spiritual war. Most especially in that they wanted to worship the same gods as everyone else, but also they adopted other practices of evil common  in other nations that God prohibited, things the prophets railed against, including the oppression of widows, orphans, and other poor and disadvantaged people (see Zechariah 7:10 and many other places). This clash of cultures was not just a clash of differing groups of humans–invisible to the human eye, spiritual forces were prodding people in addition to the actions human beings took.

The bottom-line lesson from Ancient Israel:

The culture of ancient Israel in the Bible, while it had difficulty not giving in to the pressures of nations around it (pressures egged on by the Devil, according reasonable interpretations of what the Bible teaches about Satan), represented a culture God generally approved of. While that culture was distinct from the nations around it, it wasn’t totally different. In fact, all the forms of popular expression, whether laws or wise sayings, or stories, or music, or artwork, that existed in other nations, also existed in Ancient Israel. It’s just the laws and sayings came from a different authority, the stories we know about were about heroes of the past rather than gods and demi-gods, the music praised Jehovah, and the artwork left an empty space in the temple for the presence of the invisible God. The forms of popular expression, of popular culture, were either the same or very similar. But the subjects were at least a little different–and at times, very much different.

Did the New Testament change the nature of the spiritual war reflected in the clash of cultures?

The Old Testament already showed an example of doing the same sort of thing as surrounding cultures but in a different way. The New Testament is only a little different.

Idolatry is still forbidden in the NT (I Corinthians 10:14, I John 5:21, Revelation 9:20), though the emphasis is changed perhaps, because eating meat sacrificed to idols is allowed for those who could do so without violating their conscience (Romans 14:14).

Under the new covenant, it’s permissible for some of the outward symbols of having a different culture from the surrounding world that the Jewish people embraced to be abandoned, like circumcision (Acts 15:24-29). Or keeping festival days, which became optional (Romans 14:5-6).

Though presumably, these outward signs of being different from the world could be abandoned because the fruit of the Spirit as mentioned in Galatians 5 would make a Christian’s inner self already distinctly different from the world around him or her to such a degree that outward symbols were superfluous.

As far as popular culture is concerned, some references to the sports of racing (including I Corinthians 9:24) and a possible reference to boxing (I Corinthians 9:26) and a quotation of a Greek poet (Acts 17:28) indicate that Christians certainly knew about some forms of entertainment of their day and most likely attended at times. Note though that not one clear reference to attending gladiatorial games exists in the New Testament and the temple prostitution involved in sexual worship was clearly forbidden by prohibitions against fornication and adultery (not to mention idolatry). So sorting out the best from the worst of popular culture seemed to exist in the New Testament examples we have, limited though they are.

But that distinction in effect already existed in Hebrew culture, in Ancient Israel. The Israelites took the best features of the surrounding cultures and rejected the worst (when doing right). Again, Phoenician craftsmen helped build a temple very similar to a design they would have used–but where they would have put a statue of a god, empty space outlined by images of angels pointed to the Creator beyond the ability of human beings to capture in any kind of media.

So what does that this look at “cultural war” in the Bible mean to you? Is it helpful to realize “popular culture” of Bible times was influenced by the world around it, yet remained distinct in some ways? What are your thoughts on this topic?

Now that 2019 is behind us, I just ran the numbers and learned which top ten articles got the most reads last year.¹

How haven’t we done this before?

Well, let’s do this for the first time.

BONUS: 11. Captain Marvel Left Me Baffled and Disappointed

Of course most of us here are MCU fans. But the Marvel fandom felt it when Captain Marvel powered up the universe with no small controversy, and even negative reviews from good-faith reviewers. This included Marian Jacobs, who couldn’t help not praising Carol Danvers, but instead pitying the heroine:

. . . There’s no need to pick on Brie Larson. Anyone who has seen the film Room will know she’s an amazing actress. This is a Marvel problem.

So let’s just say it straight: the writing for this film was a mess. They pitched Danvers’ character arc as first being abused by her so-called commander, Yon-Rogg. He told her repeatedly to suppress her emotions in order to have success in battle. And yet this was not believable. What emotions? She had some simmering-below-the-surface moments here and there, but was she a highly emotional female? Not even close. With a couple small (too small given the situation) emotional spikes when she learned more of her own backstory, Danvers remains, well . . . stoic throughout the entire film.

10. Why Rick Killed King Jellybean: Exploring ‘Rick and Morty’

This 2018 review from Parker J. Cole drew plenty more fans—presumably Rick and Morty web-searchers—last year.

Many Christians, and theists for that matter, would postulate the idea that a multiple universe, realities, and etc., would point to signs of a Creator. Although I do not believe a multiverse exists, I’m not completely against the idea because it would still have to come from the mind of our Creator, the God of the Bible. What the creators of the show want to show is that nothing matters. We’re not important. Dealing with tragedy and difficult situations have to be dealt with by either acknowledging our lives have little meaning or that in a different reality, your choices would be different and it wouldn’t matter in that world either. Instead of showing the awesomeness of a God who can create the complexities of a multiverse, instead, through nihilistic existentialism, they say, “See, there are a million of you in different realities. Who cares?”

9. Should Christians Enjoy Fantasy?

That’s just a fantastic, simple, very search-engine-indexable title from Pam Halter. So no wonder it trended again, despite being from 2014.

As Christian readers, how do we choose a fantasy novel to read for enjoyment? How well do we know ourselves? What can you handle in a speculative novel? Do we only read Christian spec? Is there good fantasy in the general market? How do we know what’s good and what’s not? Once you read something, it’s there in your brain – forever. Scripture tells us to think about “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable …” (Philippians 4:8) Are there fantasy novels like that? Of course, there are. Lots of them. If you love speculative fiction, do your research. Ask your friends. Read reviews. If you pick a novel and it doesn’t sit right with you, stop reading it. Yes, I heard some of you gasp. Stop reading a novel? Sacrilege! But if the Holy Spirit is poking you in the gut, yes, stop reading. Stop watching that movie. Stop going to that blog or website. It’s really okay.

8. ‘Game Of Thrones’ Sex: It’s Not Just Awkward, It’s Violation

Cap Stewart’s 2017 article trended again as the Game of Thrones TV series ended. Meanwhile, more Christians (including more Christian leaders) began sharing their concerns about the series’s indulgent exploitation. And more actors began sharing their real thoughts.

Game of Thrones is emblematic of a widespread moral epidemic. Sex is sacred, and yet we’re willing to put up with sexual sacrilege and manipulation of other human beings, so long as it provides us with a cathartic experience. The love we are to show to our neighbor, even at the expense of our own freedom, is mysteriously absent.

Taking into account how much sexual degradation actors go through for our amusement, I find it concerning that so many people—especially professing Christians—would not only excuse, but also defend such content.

7. 2019 Spec Faith Summer Writing Challenge

You folks love these writing challenges, and this is the first of several related articles to appear in the 2019 top-ten list. Rebecca LuElla Miller has been hosting these challenges twice every year! (The newest one is just out.) So of course, this second such challenge last year drew many readers, and of course writers who threw in their creative hats to finish this line:

Jag couldn’t be a part of the rebellion any more—not with what he knew now—but could he convince the other rebels to lay down their arms?

6. Finalists – 2019 Spec Faith Winter Writing Challenge

And this update from last year’s first writing challenge (again from Rebecca LuElla Miller) was widely read:

Special thanks to all who entered and all who gave their feedback in the preliminary round. We had some that came so close to making the finals—it was hard for me to follow the rules for the contest and include only three in this poll.

• Sarah Daffy
• Jay DiNitto
• L. G. McCary

By the way, the eventual winner was Sarah Daffy.

5. Six Christian White Magic Spells Worse Than Fantasy Magic

Here’s one of my articles. It’s from 2016. It still stays evergreen, probably and partly thanks to that provocative title. If I redid that, I’d grace it up a bit by putting “white magic” in quotes. But it remains true that even many thoughtful Christians, who keep guard against evil black magic (legit and otherwise) walking boldly up to the front door, just can’t seem to catch the very same occult practices disguised as light-angels sneaking in the back way:

God never establishes a magic system.

God never promised us that if we do X, we’ll achieve some reward—health or wealth, protection from evil influence, personal guidance, romance, or popularity in the world.

Instead He promises something better: Himself, with grace to meet every challenge.

What if we reject His real promises and substitute our own? What if we blame other things as if they are the worst sources of occult magic—things like fantasy stories? Then we’re not being spiritual or biblical. We’re acting like practitioners of the occult. Dare I say it, we’re acting like the diviners and sorcerers God has promised will not inherit eternal life.

4. Analysis Of ‘Hell Is The Absence Of God’ By Ted Chiang, Part 1

Almost every day I see this article appear in the “top searches” panel. This despite the fact that it’s one of our first-ever articles, from the old site’s archive. It dates back to 2006, by then-SpecFaith regular writer Mirtika Schulz:

This novelette won the Hugo and the Nebula awards. And what an exhilaratingly plotted story with a horrifying and perplexing and brilliant and vexing conclusion. It’s a complicated story told in a clean, simple prose. . . .

The “what if” behind it is simple: What if Hell, Heaven, Angels, and God were a reality, something factual, something you saw and experienced and that got reported on the news? What if faith was removed from the equation, because there was no longer room for doubt? What would the world be like? What would individual human reaction to the world be like?

When I kept seeing this article reappear, I did some research and discovered:

• SpecFaith’s article appears as the seventh result whenever people search for the story.
• That’s likely why the article has proven so popular.
• The author, Ted Chiang, also wrote a novella called “Story of Your Life.”
• That story was adapted for the screen under a different title for the 2016 science fiction film Arrival (with Amy Adams).

This makes me wonder what other amazing articles from SpecFaith’s early days might also have such staying power. Alas that some articles from that earlier version of the site (pre–2009) were lost. That site’s platform was an old and buggy blogging engine. Its content would not have easily transferred to the new host (and would have required hours and hours of manual conversion).

3. Standing Up to the YA Fantasy Impuritans

This is just the sort of guest article SpecFaith readers love. And guest writer L. Jagi Lamplighter did not disappoint in her firm yet gracious rebuke of “YA Twitter” activists. She identified the bullying, legalistic impulse behind these activists, who try to rally moralistic mobs on social media to “cancel” certain novelists—such as Amelie Wen Zhao—whom the aspiring moralizers find problematic.

If we modern Christians give way to this mob mentality of immorality and outrage, rather than standing up to those who abuse the truth, we could lose our promised land. America has been a promised land in many ways—a place of freedom and human dignity. These benefits have been vanishing in recent years, not because some tyrant has taken them from us with bayonets, but because we are ceding the willingly, due to the insistence of the Impuritans.

Amelie Wen Zhao has had her promised land, the happy future she had envisioned since she was eight years old, snatched from her. If we continue to allow this to happen, we, too, may find that we have lost ours.

2. ‘Sorry Your Dragon Show Ended Stupidly’ Meme May Insult ‘GOT’ Fans

Here’s another of my articles, this one from the actual current year. It left me in the unhappy place of saying something positive about people’s show, which I would never fault for being a “dragon show” but for being a naked show. Still, I found myself laughing at a short-lived meme trend before I realized that this may actually show a disrespectful attitude toward fantasy as a genre and its fans as people:

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.

1. 2019 Spec Faith Winter Writing Challenge

And last year’s unquestioned winner (atop from the homepage) was the intro to Rebecca LuElla Miller’s first 2019 writing challenge.

Nearly 300 commentators competed to continue or offer feedback for this starter sentence:

The guard would never let me enter if he knew what I was planning.

Again, the direct sequel just arrived yesterday. So why not go make that article the potential winner for the top ten most-read SpecFaith articles in 2020?

Thanks for reading Speculative Faith last year, and presumably long before and long after then.

For my individual part, thanks also for reading and subscribing to Lorehaven magazine, which will have its own update before long . . .

Godspeed in 2020!

Stephen

On to 2020—a leap year, an Olympics year, the beginning of a new decade, a Presidential election year in the US . . . and one that will again see Spec Faith host our traditional Winter Writing Challenge!

Certainly 2020 gives us much creative writing fodder, and some that might carry over to a piece of speculative fiction. But that’s for writers who wish to enter the challenge to decide.

As we have done in the past, Spec Faith will offer a prize for the winner of the 2020 Winter
Writing Challenge. Of course there’s also feedback from other Spec Faith visitors, which all entrants may enjoy, but there’s a $25 gift card from either Amazon or B&N for the winner. (For last year’s results, see this post). For readers, there are stories or story beginnings to enjoy. It’s all very win-win for all our visitors!

As a refresher, here’s how the 2020 Winter Writing Challenge works:

1. I’ll give a first line, and those who wish to accept the challenge will write what comes next—in 100 to 300 words, putting your entry into the comments section of this post.

“What comes next” may be the opening of a novel, a short story, or a completed piece of flash fiction—your choice.

In keeping with Spec Faith’s primary focus on the intersection of speculative fiction and the Christian faith, writers may wish to incorporate Christian elements or to write intentionally from a Christian worldview, but neither is required. Likewise, I’d expect speculative elements, or the suggestion of such, but entries will not be disqualified because of their omission.

1. Readers will give a thumbs up (NO THUMBS DOWN, PLEASE!) to the ones they like the most (unlimited number of thumbs up), and, if they wish, they may give a comment (please do!) to the various entries, identifying what elements particularly grabbed their attention or in what ways they can strengthen their writing.

I encourage such responses—it’s always helpful for entrants to know what they did right and what they could have done to improve.

1. After the designated time, I’ll re-post the top three (based on the number of thumbs up they receive) and visitors will have a chance to vote in a poll for the one which they believe to be the best 2020 entry (one vote only).

2. The entry which receives the most votes will earn a $25 gift card (from either Amazon or Barnes and Noble). In the event of a tie, a drawing will be held between the top vote getters to determine the winner.

And now, the first line:

The fact was, Kelly simply didn’t have time or opportunity to find out if the offense required the death penalty.

Finally, those silly little details we all need to know:

• You must include the given first line without changing it. Changes to the prompt will disqualify an entry

• Your word count does not include this first line.

• You will have between now and 8:00 AM (Pacific time) this coming Monday, January 13, 2020, to post your challenge entries in the comments section.

• You may reply to entries and give thumbs up, this week and next. To have your thumbs up counted to determine the top three entries, mark your favorite entries before Monday, January 27, at 8:00 AM (Pacific time).

• Voting begins Monday, January 27, after the poll is posted.

Feel free to invite your friends to participate, either as writers or readers. The more entries and the more feedback, the better the challenge.

However, please note, the challenge is not a popularity contest. We want to give writers a chance to find out what readers actually think of their writing. Consequently, please do not ask your social media followers to give your selection a vote unless they read the other entries as well. Thanks for making this little exercise a valuable help to all who enter.

Photo by Simon Matzinger from Pexels

In the year 2042, plague and war wipe out human civilization. From the ashes, new medieval-like societies arises, ignorant, violent, and steeped in superstition. These new societies remember little of the “ancients,” and nothing at all of their religion. Then one day a copy of the Bible is discovered, and it becomes a catalyst for societal rebirth.

This is the fantastic premise of the Chiveis Trilogy (comprised of The Sword, The Gift, and The Kingdom), by Bryan Litfin.

A post-apocalyptic adventure whose pivotal event is the discovery of a Bible? It’s almost a wish list of subjects that would interest a Christian science fiction enthusiast.

I started reading with high expectations.

The Trilogy starts out well enough, and for the first few chapters it seems that it might live up to the potential of its premise.

But, slowly at first, then with plummeting acceleration, Chiveis devolves from a mediocre adventure story into something that I can only describe as comprehensively bad. It is predictable to the point of self-parody, ridiculous to the point of surreality, and its presentation of Christianity is so poor and muddled that I suspect it would do more harm than good to non-Christian readers.

A world ‘without’ Christianity

Worldbuilding is essential to good speculative fiction, and Chiveis’s premise of a post-Christian post-apocalypse has great potential for a compelling world. This is supposed to be a future in which all knowledge of the Bible has been lost, where people have never heard of Christ, are unfamiliar with Christian symbols, and have no knowledge of Biblical history.

How surprising, then, that this future has a Pope! From Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome, he presides over a “universal fellowship” called the “Christiani” who worship “Deu,” the “one true god.” The Christiani have orders of monks and nuns, warriors called “Knights of the Cross,” and bishops who perform the Eucharist (in Latin).

The above paragraphs probably have you scratching your head. There are “Christiani,” yet no knowledge of Christ? There is a “Pope,” yet no knowledge of the Apostles? That doesn’t make sense!

No, it does not. The whole scenario is completely ridiculous, despite some belated attempts to rationalize it late in the story. Chiveis’s worldbuilding lacks any sort of unifying logic, to the point of being genuinely nonsensical. This is a world in which “Knights of the Cross” who literally tattoo crosses on their foreheads do not know what a cross is.

This fatally undermines the Trilogy’s premise. Time and again, the reader is told that this world knows nothing of Christianity, but time and again that is shown to be untrue. The culture and politics fo the Trilogy’s world are actually founded on longstanding tensions between pro-God and anti-God factions. The only reason the pro-God faction isn’t “Christian” is because it has–implausibly, impossibly–forgotten its Deity’s biography. To describe this as a world that has “forgotten Christianity” is a dishonest pretense.

Predictable protagonists

The plot is as ridiculous as the world it takes place in, but for almost the opposite reason. Rather than being disjointed, the plot is a tight nesting of cliches within cliches, so slavishly conventional, so completely unimaginative that there were times I laughed out loud at how predicable everything was.

There are two protagonists, Ana and Teo. You already know all about them because they are fairytale archetypes: Ana is the fair and virtuous maiden who get kidnapped, and Teo is the strong and noble knight who rescues her. This encapsulates a majority of the Trilogy’s plot. The inciting event in The Sword is Ana being kidnapped by barbarians who want her for a sex slave. Teo pursues them and rescues Ana moments before she is to be raped.

That specific scenario repeats over and over again. Ana is attacked by would-be rapists and is on the verge of being violated when Teo suddenly intervenes to save her virginity. By the time The Kingdom concludes, this has happened not once, not twice, but no less than six times. And that’s just when Teo saves Ana from rapists! He also saves her from assassins, drowning, wild animals, and being thrown into a volcano. Saving Ana takes up so much of Teo’s time that it is almost the only thing he does on purpose throughout the entire story. Virtually every other plot development (including finding copies of the Old and New Testaments) is either a side quest while saving Ana, or something that a character blunders into quite by accident.

One might assume that this “save the maiden” trope was recycled out of simple laziness if not for the fact that both Ana and Teo note and comment on it. Teo even has a catchphrase, “I will always come for you,” which he recites to Ana during and after rescues, and which she recites to herself while awaiting rescue. This cycle of rescue and abduction and rescue is evidently supposed to pass not only for plot development, but also for romance.

Christianity changes no one in Chiveis

But the worst thing about Chiveis is not its incompetent worldbuilding or its silly plot. The worst thing, ironically, is its presentation of Christianity.

Christianity is supposed to change people. Christians are supposed to be “born again.” But Christianity changes no one in Chiveis. With the exception of one deathbed conversion, every character who ultimately believes in God is already a “good person” when they are introduced. Ana and Teo are almost cartoonishly perfect, models of virtue and beauty too. Conversely, all of the characters who ultimately reject God are “bad people” from their introduction. This pattern is so consistent that the reader can generally predict which characters will become Christians after reading only one or two lines of their dialog.

This inverts the Gospel: rather than the Gospel making people good, it is portrayed as something that people who are already good are drawn to. Instead of a world where “all have sinned” and are on an equal footing before God, Chiveis presents a world in which good people inexorably mature into Christians, while bad people do not.

Another significant theological problem stems from the nature of the villains. The villains in Chiveis are not “regular” bad guys. They are Satanists, motivate by love for Satan, and eager to prove their devotion to the original dark lord by being as cartoonishly evil as possible. They wear black hooded robes. They torture animals. They summon demons. Their motto is “Cruelty is strength.” They are united in an ancient blood pact. The villains are so over-the-top evil that they are impossible to take seriously, much less empathize with as human beings.

This is bad writing, of course, but it has the consequence that Chiveis never really deals with the concepts of sin or repentance. The bad guys are so bad that there is never any prospect of their repenting, and the concept of sin seems too nuanced to apply to them. Conversely, the good guys are so good that they have nothing to repent of. Ana and Teo each commit a token sin in an evident attempt to give some arc to their otherwise flat characters, but in both cases the sin is such a sudden and brief aberration from their normal behavior that there is no sense of transformation, renewal, or struggle when they turn from it. They briefly swerve from their virtuous statī quo and then immediately swerve back, as if nothing had happened. There are two side characters who go through more realistic repentance, but in both cases they are repenting of collaboration with the Satanists, and their repentance is not a rejection of sin as such, but rather a rejection of the Satanists’s overtly sinister agenda.

It is this shallow reduction of Christianity that makes Chiveis a very bad story. Instead of explaining concepts like sin, repentance, atonement, or eternal life, Chiveis treats Christianity almost as a sort of white magic that empowers people who posses a sufficient level of virtue. While Christians might just roll their eyes at this simplistic and inaccurate depiction of their faith, this misinformation could be dangerous to a person who is genuinely ignorant of Christian doctrine.

The Chiveis Trilogy is comprehensively bad and was enormously disappointing. I give it zero stars, and I recommend it for no one. Its only redeeming quality is that it is so bad that many parts are inadvertently funny, and they can be enjoyed on a “so bad it’s good” basis.

So what did the fiction of the past predict would happen in 2020? Science fiction often sets stories in the future without specifying a date, but sometimes authors have specifically projected when they thought certain events would take place. 2020, that nice round repeating number (like 20/20 vision), has been the target for a number of science fiction predictions, through future references in novels, short stories, movies, TV series, comics, and video games. I’ll list the predictions I could find specifically linked to 2020, then make some comments about making predictions in science fiction below that.

1. Voyages to other worlds:

This is the poster for the Spanish sci-fi film (in English translation) Stranded, which predicted hardship exploring Mars in 2020.

VENUS: The 1965 B-movie Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet predicted that there would be a manned landing on Venus in 2020–and we’d find dinosaurs there!

MARS: Kim Stanley Robinson’s 1993 novel Red Mars predicted the first man on Mars would set foot on the red planet in 2020. The Spanish film Stranded, made in 2001, features a crew marooned on Mars in 2020. The movie Mission to Mars in 2000 predicted the same thing–and also imagined the “face” on Mars (now long since shown not to look like a face at all) was an alien spaceship in disguise!

SATURN: Someone in the Star Trek universe somewhere made reference to a manned mission to Saturn happening in 2020 (source Memory Beta).

2. Cyber, Artificial Intelligence, Tech, and Robotics:

INTERNET BRAIN: The 2005 novel Air (Geoff Ryman) predicted by 2020 human brains would routinely be permanently connected to the Internet.

CYBERPUNK: In 1988 the role-playing game Cyberpunk 2020 was created by Mike Pondsmith. Predicts completely immersive virtual reality in our time.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: Arthur C. Clarke (author of 2001: A Space Odyssey) specifically predicted that by 2020, devices built by human beings would have the same general intelligence as humans. (Which almost certainly will not happen this year.)

US ROBOTICS: The I, Robot film of 2004 predicted the founding of the US Robotics company in 2020. Decades before, Isaac Asimov, author of the I, Robot short story collection, had predicted that “by the early 21st Century” household robot servants able to carry out simple conversations would become common. Which he fictionally predicted would be built by the US Robotics Corporation.

Edge of Tomorrow, supposedly happening in 2020, features mechas in combat.

ROBOTIC SPORTS: The 2011 film Real Steel rather boldly predicted that boxing would be made illegal for human athletes (due to its brutality) in 2020. Why the 1991 video game Super Baseball 2020 would predict baseball likewise would be entirely played by robots and not humans, is a mystery to me.

WAR MECHAS: 2013’s Pacific Rim is set in 2020 and of course features giant mecha combat robotics fighting giant undersea creatures. In 2014, Edge of Tomorrow predicted that a global military alliance would develop mechas to fight aliens in 2020. But the Japanese anime cartoon Platinumhugen Ordian (in 2000) was already predicting that in 2020 Japanese high school students would pilot mechas.

OTHER TECHNOLOGY: The 1999 game Sim City 3000 predicted that microwave power plants would be invented in 2020. 2005’s movie Stealth predicted a new kind of ultimate stealth fighter jet in 2020. The film stinkeroo Thunderbirds (2004) directed by Johnathan Frakes of Star Trek The Next Generation fame (William Riker) was set in the year 2020, where a spaceship like the Thunderbird 5 (from an earlier cartoon) is a reality.

3. Dragons, Monsters, and Alien Invaders (oh my!):

DRAGONS: The Reign of Fire movie of 2002 is set in 2020, after decades of dragon rule over Planet Earth. Similarly the video game 7th Dragon from 2011 imagined dragons invading Tokyo in 2020.

Reign of Fire–nothing like a dragon Dystopia. Set in 2020.

MONSTERS: Godzilla: Final Wars Film (2004) features giant monsters and mutant superhumans recruited to fight them. The 1991 video game Beast Wrestler features fighting monsters including dragons in a ring–and is oddly set in the year 2020.

ALIEN INVADERS: I’ve already mentioned alien invaders with the Edge of Tomorrow, but the British TV puppet-based series Terrahawks (1983) was set in the year 2020, after an alien force has destroyed NASA’s Mars base and Earth is under threat.

4. Dystopia, Post-Apocalyptic, and Other Political Predictions:

DYSTOPIAN MEGACORPORATE: There have been many dystopian futures set in 2020 but a number were about corporations dominating the future.  Perfect Dark: Initial Vector, Greg Rucka’s novel published in 2005, the world is dominated by hyper-corporations recruiting their own military forces to fight in clandestine battles in order to gain power. Similar corporations dominate the world in 1984’s comic series Iron Man 2020. The video game Perfect Dark Zero (2005) likewise predicted a world largely controlled by powerful international business conglomerates.

RELIGIOUS DYSTOPIA: Robert A. Heinlein, “Golden Era” sci fi author, predicted in his Future History stories that the 2020’s in the United States would be dominated by a quasi-Christian Fundamentalist cult that would set back technological progress and space travel until the 2070s.

GENERAL DYSTOPIAN: In 1997-1998 a comic series called 2020 Visions based on the predictions of the future for this year mostly made dystopian predictions, such as Ellis Island becoming a plague colony, Detroit ruled by Sharia law, and unlicensed children becoming illegal. Likewise an even earlier short story anthology in 1974 called 2020 Vision (unrelated to the comic series) edited by sci-fi great Jerry Pournelle, including stories by famous authors of the past such as Poul Anderson, Harlan Ellison, Larry Niven, AE Van Vogt, Norman Spinrad, and Ben Bova, made mostly dystopian predictions for 2020. The British TV Series Knights of God in 1987 predicted a fascist and religious (but anti-Christian) order ruling most of Britain by 2020 (and was actually a show for kids!). Also note the events of 2019’s Terminator: Dark Fate, in which dystopia is at hand, are supposed to happen in 2020.

POST-APOCALYPTIC: The Dollhouse TV Series in 2010 had an episode set in 2020 (“Epitaph Two: Return”), which showed a post-apocalypse in which most of humanity have had their minds wiped. In 2009, the ridiculously bad TV movie Annihilation Earth opens as a team of scientists in the year 2020 wander through a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

WAR SIMULATIONS AND BATTLE GAMES: For whatever reason, a number of these video games have been set in the year 2020. Battlefield 4, made in 2013, is set in the fictional “War of 2020.” Crysis, made in 2007, is centered around a North Korean invasion happening in 2020. MAG: Massive Action Video game of 2010 portrayed a “second war of the S.V.E.R” starting this year. Tom Clancy’s EndWar (2008) imagined a European super-state called the European Federation and the militarization of space in 2020. Supreme Ruler 2020 (2008) was a grand strategy game about a protagonist’s quest to unify a region of fragmented states into a single government. And the Senran Kagura game (first released in 2011) predicted 2020 will be dominated by female ninja champions of good-versus-evil. (Senram Kagura seems in some ways similar to 2004’s Sekirei Manga, which produced a video game in 2009, which predicted “Sekirei,” women fighters, would battle to determine the fate of the world. Both series, from the few images I’ve seen of them, seem very interested in the portrayal of busty female combatants. Note the Sekirei anime was listed as for “Mature Audiences.”)

Senran Kagura, in which female ninjas fight evil…in 2020.

OTHER POLITICAL: The TV film from 2000 named Code Name Phoenix predicted world global peace by 2020–but that a genetically engineered virus that can stop the human aging process would threaten that peace. The Korean movie Yesterday (2002) was an action film set in 2020, in the backdrop of reunification of North and South Korea. And the campy cartoon from 1972, Sealab 2020, imagined undersea, quasi-utopian laboratories where people permanently live under the ocean as of 2020.

The futures that were almost close–and not close at all.

Looked at overall, the story predictions for 2020 mostly over-predicted change. We don’t have decent spaceships, interplanetary travel, artificial intelligence, good virtual reality, robot servants, robots playing sports, mechas, Korean reunification, undersea laboratories, or worldwide peace. On the other hand, neither do we have alien or dragon invaders, giant monsters, a religious dictatorship in the USA, Sharia in Detroit, a fascist government in Britain, our brains haven’t been wiped clean, our societies haven’t been reduced to a continual state of war, female ninjas are not running through the streets, and we aren’t wandering through a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

The actual future is mostly boring–which in a way is not a surprise. Of course storytellers are going to gravitate towards the most astounding predictions. But the corporate mega-conglomerate stuff is actually happening. Just in a way less interesting than predicted. The development of artificial intelligence is also taking place, but more stealthily, leading to what exactly we don’t know. Virtual reality is coming about, as is hooking up your brain to the Internet. Just more slowly than thought. And there sure is plenty of combat ongoing in 2020–though that’s pretty much always been true of the human race.

An interesting tidbit was my as-thorough-as-I-could-make-it sweep didn’t include any stories predicting climate change would destroy the Earth in 2020–though there were some stories that predicted the Earth would be destroyed before 2020 and some predict it afterwards.

For writers, maybe the best advice this review of already-existing stories gives you is that if you don’t want to seem too silly in your predictions of the future, perhaps it’s better not to tag them with a date. Though of course for story reasons of seeming both real and immediate, avoiding dates isn’t always possible.

What stories have you seen that made predictions for 2020 or the 2020s? What are your thoughts about writing near-future sci fi that makes predictions you might have to live with?

The New Year is a cheerful holiday. It’s more trifling, perhaps, than the sacred holidays and even weighty days of remembrance like Memorial Day and July Fourth. But if more trifling, it’s also lighter, and that also has its charm. The turn of the year is a hopeful time, turning people to to the future, to dreams and wishes and resolutions. The New Year is so cheerful it is, in fact, almost sad. We are a little too eager to sweep up the old year and discard it.

Some more eager than others, of course. Still, no one’s happiness is so pure as to entirely exclude relief. Welcome the New Year, and good riddance to the old. Everyone likes New Year’s because the New Year is about change, and we could all use some of that.

The celebration of New Year’s is more free-form than that of other major holidays – and, let us add, more voluntary (another reason for its popularity!). Our society has only a few broadly established traditions. There is, of course, the ball drop in Times Square, which has a rich history and symbolism and, anyway, it’s sort of fun to watch heavy, glittering objects fall. We have our one certified New Year’s song, “Auld Lang Syne”. Admittedly, no one understands more than two lines of the song, and sometimes one suspects that there are only two lines. Nevertheless, it’s nostalgic.

Even more universal: New Year’s resolutions. I am firmly opposed to breaking New Year’s resolutions, which is why I never make them. And I already think of things I ought to do and then don’t do them, so it doesn’t really seem necessary as a holiday tradition. Many people do make New Year’s resolutions, though. Sometimes the same ones, year after year, because the idea is good even if the flesh is weak. New Year’s resolutions come from that sense of change, that same stirring of hope, that makes the holiday so attractive. In this manifestation, though, it is change from ourselves and even change of ourselves. Here is another truth we edge up to on New Year’s: We could all be better, all try harder.

We probably won’t, of course. That’s another truth we come up against, usually shortly after the New Year. But every holiday consists at least half in remembering, in certain realities brought to celebration and thus, perforce, to mind. And for all we know – for, though the world is old, it is still a place of miracle and wonder – we may even keep those New Year’s resolutions.

So Happy New Year. I hope that 2019 was good to you, and 2020 will be even better. I hope that you will have the change you want, and the change that you need, and that your heart will be refreshed as the new year brings us that much closer to the day when everything will be new.

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:
“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”
And he replied:
“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”

– Minnie Louise Haskins, “God Knows”