An evaluation of how Christians are to think about Halloween.

This article has appeared here at Spec Faith in the past, but the celebration of Halloween continues to be a point of contention which I think a site about speculative literature should address. Consequently here is a revised version of a post that first appeared here six years ago.

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Introduction.

Every year around this time Christians begin a discussion about celebrating Halloween, but perhaps speculative writers, more so. The conversation is justifiable, especially in light of the fact that Halloween has become a highly commercial, and therefore, visible, holiday in the US. As a result, television programs, movies, and certainly commercials have some tie in to the weird, the supernatural.

For Christians, there seems to be a great divide when it comes to celebrating Halloween. Are we taking up the cause of the enemy if we carve a pumpkin and hand out candy to Trick-or-Treaters? Should we offer alternatives — a harvest festival instead of a haunted mansion — for our church activities? Should we seize the moment and build good will in our community by joining in wholeheartedly, or should we refuse to recognized the holiday, turn off the porch lights, and decline to answer the door when masquerading children arrive?

Satan.

As I see it, there are two critical issues that dictate our response to Halloween. The first is our attitude toward Satan and demons. Is he (and are they) real? How big a threat is he? How are we to respond/react to him?

Scripture gives clear answers to these questions. Satan is a real being, one referred to as the father of lies (see John 8:44) and as a being masquerading as an angel of light (see 2 Cor. 11:14).

In response to something Spec Faith co-contributor Stephen Burnett said in his article “Shooting at Halloween pumpkins”, I laid out an account of Old Testament references to Satan and his forces. For those who missed it, here, in part, is that comment:

Satan was abundantly active, starting in a certain garden where he brought his devilish behavior before Man and his wife. Another vivid depiction of Satan’s activity is detailed in the book of Job.

In Egypt, Moses faced Pharaoh’s conjurers. Certainly their source of power was not God, yet they duplicated a number of Moses’s miracles.

On the way to the Promised land, God instructed the people “They shall no longer sacrifice their sacrifices to the goat demons with which they play the harlot” (Lev. 17:7 a). Forty years later in Moses’s farewell speech, he described how the parents of the current generation had behaved:

They sacrificed to demons who were not God,
To gods whom they have not known,
New gods who came lately,
Whom your fathers did not dread.
(Deut. 32:17)

I think it’s clear that the gods Israel continued to worship — and the ones worshiped by the neighboring people — were demons. Hence the admonishing to excise sorcery from their midst.

Unfortunately they didn’t obey but continued to involve themselves in demon worship:

But they mingled with the nations
And learned their practices,
And served their idols,
Which became a snare to them.
They even sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons
(Ps. 106:35-37)

Then there was this verse in I Chronicles: “Then Satan stood up against Israel and moved David to number Israel.”

I could give you verses from Daniel too, showing that Satan was active in standing against his prayers, and that he was in fact “the prince” of, or had cohorts who were, known locations. Isaiah, too, and Zechariah had prophecies involving Satan.

The point is, Satan was very active in the Old Testament.

Scripture is also clear that Satan is a threat. He is described as an adversary and as a lion seeking to devour (see 1 Peter 5:8). He’s the accuser of the brethren (Rev. 12:10), the tempter (Mark 1:13), the one who snatches away the Word of God (Mark 4:15), the one who can bind (Luke 13:16) and destroy (1 Cor. 5:5) and torment the flesh (2 Cor. 12:7), who comes against us with schemes 2 Cor. 2:11), who demands to sift some (Luke 22:31) and possess others (John 13:27), who hinders believers in their ministry (1 Thess. 2:18).

Satan is real and he is a threat, but he is not greater than God. In fact his doom is sure. Scripture instructs us to be on the alert against him, to stand against him, to resist him, but Satan is a defeated foe (Col 2:15 and Rom. 16:20). We are never told to fear him.

The Imaginary.

The second critical issue when it comes to deciding how we are to deal with Halloween is our understanding of the imaginary. Dragons, vampires, cyclops, werewolves, zombies, goblins, orcs, trolls, and such are imaginary creatures from the pages of literature. Witches and wizards that wave magic wands and/or fly around on brooms are imaginary. Ghosts that float about like bedsheets and are friendly or who pop in and out of sight at will or move things about with a word are imaginary.

Are Christians ever instructed in Scripture to stand against the imaginary?

On the other hand, most of us recognize that these various creatures are or have been representative of evil. The question then becomes, are we handling evil correctly by giving attention to the things that have been used to represent it?

Along that line of thinking, I believe it’s fair to ask if we should avoid representations of snakes, because Satan entered one, lions because Scripture said he is one, and angels because he appears as one.

The greater question, it seems to me is whether or not dressing up in costumes of creatures that have an association with evil might trivialized evil, much the way the “red devil with horns and a pitch fork” image of Satan trivialized him so that fewer and fewer people believe he is a real being — not a good thing at all if we are to stand against him.

Halloween.

These two issues — what we believe about Satan and what we believe about the imaginary — collide in this one holiday. But there’s another element that must enter into the discussion because ultimately, what we do on Halloween is done in front of the watching world. We need to ask, what does our culture believe about Halloween?

As other comments to Stephen’s post reveal, some studying the holiday see its historical underpinnings — either pagan Celtic practices or early Church traditions. But what do ordinary people today see? Are our neighbors celebrating evil? Or are they having fun dressing up as something spooky? Are they going to haunted houses because they want to invoke the dead or because they want a shot of roller-coaster-ride-like adrenaline?

While we can’t deny that a fringe element — perhaps even a growing fringe element — see Halloween as a celebration of evil, I don’t think I’m wrong in saying that the majority of people in the US view it as nothing more than a reason to party. The activities are consistent with the day but have little or no meaning, much the way most people celebrate Christmas.

How we as Christians celebrate Halloween, then, hinges on these three factors — our view of Satan, our understanding of the imaginary, and what we want to say to our culture.

Is there one right way of doing Halloween? I don’t believe so. I do believe we should avoid pointing the finger at other Christians and saying that they’re doing it wrong. Paul speaks to this issue in Colossians 2: “Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath Day” (v. 16). Those who choose to celebrate are just as clearly not to point the finger at those who choose not to celebrate.

The only way we can insure that Satan has his day is by our disunity, our unloving attitude, our angry arguments over whether or not we celebrate Halloween.

This post first appeared here at Spec Faith in October 2011.

Terra Soul

by S. J. Abraham

INTRODUCTION—TERRA SOUL

Winner of the 2017 Realm Award in the Debut category

AYLA THINKS SHE’S JUST a comic-book geek with photophobia living in boring Colorado Springs until the day a space fold forms in her living room. When her father drags Ayla through to the other side, she discovers an alien world. Her birthplace. Karanik.

Everything should be great for Ayla, but it’s not. The boy who has been crushing on Ayla all summer was pulled through to Karanik too. Her long-lost sister thinks Ayla’s some sort of messiah. Her grandmother wants to shape Ayla into a ruthless leader and Earth is under attack.

It’s up to Ayla to stop millions of invincible alien creatures before they devour the souls of everyone on Earth.

TERRA SOUL BY S. J. ABRAHAM — EXCERPT

ONE
0920 HOURS

She stared vacantly up at one of the four security cameras trained on her, her mind miles away, atop a snowy peak stained with blood and ash. Despite trying to keep them open, her eyes closed and she rubbed them. The endless assault of the fluorescent lamps overhead was taking its toll. The jittery light hammered down on her, making her eyes burn like a pair of sizzling meatballs sunken into her skull.

This su-ucks! How’d I survive this before?

She looked down at her hands.

At least they’ve stopped shaking. Finally.

A streak of dried blood on her wrist peeked out from beneath the cuff of her shirt. Somehow she’d missed washing it off in the shower and during all the medical exams. Tears stung her eyes, but the door opened at that moment and she hurried to hide her emotion. She caught a glimpse of a stark hallway and military police officers flanking the door.

An Air Force officer stepped in, looking almost absurdly clean in his light blue shirt, dark pants, and rows of colorful ribbons on his chest. The name placard on his breast read “Tarver.” He was dark-skinned, tall, muscular and exotically handsome with a broad nose and strong jawline. His hair was little more than black fuzz beneath his dopey flat-sided cap. The poster child for Air Force recruitment.

Blinking her unshed tears away, she snuck her hand into her pocket. She groped blindly for the button to start the app recording and felt a tiny buzz beneath her finger as she fount it.

I hope this works.

Tarver sat down across from her, the silver leaf insignia on his collar flashing.

What is that? Major? Colonel? Something like that.

The officer paged through a blue leather folio thick with papers. Cl-click! went the silver pen in his hand. The officer looked up and gave a brief smile. It was thin, tense, an apology.

“I’m Lieutenant Colonel Tarver with US Northern Command. I’m here to debrief you.”

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AUTHOR BIO—S. J. Abraham

As a child raised in the Southwest United States on the border of one of the largest oil fields in the country, S.J. Abraham was a lonely nerd. With no interest in rodeo or baseball, he spent his time reading. His heroes were fictional characters and great novelists. It wasn’t long before he started scratching out his own stories.

In recent years he has embraced his geekieness and has set to work turning his writing hobby into a career as a novelist. While he originally wrote for adults, he has since realized he is still fifteen at heart, so he now focuses on writing for Young Adults.

S.J. lives in the beautiful city of Colorado Springs, where all the exciting outdoor activities are wasted on him, though the ever-changing views fire his creativity like few things can. He spends the shreds of his free time playing with his wife, children, brothers, sisters, friends, nephews and little nieces.

This Tuesday, Oct. 31, marks a holiday that strikes fear into the hearts of some Christians and has proved controversial for now exactly 500 years: Reformation Day.

On that Oct. 31, 1517, monk Martin Luther stuck his 95 theses to the church door at Wittenberg—that is, 95 ways the Catholic church was teaching wrongly.¹ Ever since, Christians who later became known by the term protestants (originally a legal term) have celebrated the Reformation and its emphasis on five solas:

Sola Scriptura (“Scripture alone”): The Bible alone is our highest authority.

Sola Fide (“faith alone”): We are saved through faith alone in Jesus Christ.

Sola Gratia (“grace alone”): We are saved by the grace of God alone.

Solus Christus (“Christ alone”): Jesus Christ alone is our Lord, Savior, and King.

Soli Deo Gloria (“to the glory of God alone”): We live for the glory of God alone.²

Of course, Christian fans of fantasy (or speculative) stories should want to embrace these five solas in their own nonfiction lives. But each statement can apply specifically to any other reformation-style project. This includes the reformation of Christian-made fiction that I’ve been arguing in this series, 95 Theses for Christian Fiction Reformation:

1. The purpose of Christian-made stories,
2. What’s wrong with Christian-made stories,
3. What’s right with Christian-made stories,
4. How Christian readers can reform these stories in the future.

We’ll now conclude with the final 20 theses, which apply not to the makers of these stories but first to the readers of these stories (to whom the makers can only respond).

Part 4: How Christians can reform Christian-made stories.

76. Christians must embrace sola Scriptura as a nonfiction principle that no Christian-made fictional work can contradict, in theme or in style. (This does not mean the work is full of verses or doctrine affirmations. It only means the work does not contradict)
77. Christian stories must embrace sola fide—faith alone—as the basis for any character’s salvation or state of faith. (We conclude this also applies to fantasy-world salvations.)
78. Christian stories ought not imply that any morality, culture, or action contradicts sola gratia, or salvation through grace alone. This is vital, in a Church and a world that are constantly tempted to presume our salvation or growth in holiness depends on us.
79. Christian stories must exalt Solus Christus, Jesus Christ, by name, fantasy-world symbol or supposal, or simply by portraying His truth, beauty, and goodness with excellence.
80. We must enjoy Christian stories soli Deo gloria, for the glory of God alone. This means we fight to enjoy them when they’re not so great, and delight in enjoying them when clearly the stories’ creators have striven to honor the Creator in styles and themes. In any case, we laugh and/or repent for our failings, and thank God for our successes.
81. We must maintain a high and biblical view of the capital-C church (all of Jesus’s people, wherever they are), and the lowercase-C local church we call home. In other words, we cannot skip over our churches’ key role in the world, including our creative works.
82. When Christian stories (or their authors) seem to clash with these solas, we must be careful to discern minor faults from major ones. We must also be careful to avoid acting like the author’s or publisher’s local church—e.g. the only institution Jesus has set up to help anyone grow in a faith community that offers membership and belief standards.
83. We need to celebrate publicly the Christian-made stories we love, even if our family or have ever heard or cared for these stories. (If nothing else, this kind of public sharing is great practice for sharing Jesus himself—who’s also often maligned—with others!)
84. This means we don’t feel silly about our “fandom” for these stories. We don’t hide this “light” under a bushel basket. We don’t partition our “Christian” and “normal” lives. This also means starting or joining a Christian fiction book club. (For example, the book clubs we are starting next year as part of the Lorehaven initiative and magazine.)
85. Especially for fans of Christian fantasy: we need to follow the apostle Paul’s commands about things we celebrate or happily consume. We need to “be fully convinced” in our own minds about these stories’ positive benefits, and not “let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil” (Romans 14: 5, 16).³
86. For fans of any fiction genre, but especially Christian-made fantasy: we need to recover some expectations shaped by classical fiction literature. We don’t mean that every book ought to be like Dickens. But at back of our minds, we ought to have read many old novels, so our preferences and hearts as readers are better trained to expect more.⁴
87. What about the continued presence of bad Christian fiction, some of which is marketed with nonfiction labels? Let’s graciously yet firmly critique it based solely on Scripture. But let’s mainly decrease the natural market for it, simply by living and becoming the next generation that declines to enable this kind of soft-soap “inspirational” religion.
88. However, let’s avoid a kind of iconoclasm, or smashing to bits the things we view as sinful relics of badly made Christian fiction. This means that if existing Christian fiction infrastructures fail (bookstores, publishers, and so on), we don’t celebrate.
89. We also avoid any kind of scorched-earth policy in our thinking, our rhetoric, and especially the ways we treat Christians who support or defend poorly made fiction for shallow reasons (e.g., it’s “inspirational” or “clean”). After all, Jesus doesn’t nuke people and things He loves from orbit and start over. He redeems and even reforms His creations.
90. To that end, let’s reform some specific Christian-made creative concepts that were just executed badly before. For example, Christian t-shirts. We’ve all seen bad ones. But this one is a great one, and we need to create and wear (non-ironically) designs like this one.
91. Let’s critique and gradually withdraw market support for Christian novels that obscure the Gospel even while attempting pseudo-“evangelism” on readers who will never actually read the book. But let’s preserve the heart of this goal of much Christian fiction: to share Jesus with the reader. We do need “explicit content” Christian works!
92. Push the frontiers. We can find freedom, not restriction, by going deeper into explicitly biblical views and overtly Christian content. In turn, we’ll grow to expect bigger themes, complex characters, and a robust vision of excellence for the stories we want to see.
93. Above all, keep an eternal perspective. This series began by opposing the notion that Christian-made creative works are little more than trivial “containers” for the real prize inside (e.g. truth or morals). Such a notion denies the biblical teaching that God created humans to glorify Him through our exploration of Earth and our creative acts (Genesis 1:26-28). In all likelihood, we will spend eternity worshiping God by acting as humans ought to act—enjoying and making stories and other creative works to reflect Him.⁵
94. Remember that for the present, our abilities are limited by sin and our groaning creation (Romans 8). But we have biblical cause to expect that even our sin-marred attempts at glorifying God today will have eternal rewards. Both our overtly “spiritual” acts, and our delight in creative works, can help point ourselves and other people toward our Creator.
95. Finally, we recall that it’s His sake alone that we ever try to “reform” anything, whether it’s the faith altogether or the fiction made by our brothers and sisters in the faith.

“But in general, take my advice, when you meet anything that is going to be Human and isn’t yet, or used to be Human once and isn’t now, or ought to be Human and isn’t, you keep your eyes on it and feel for your hatchet.”

― C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

I should say, in fairness, that every type of story opens windows on human nature. I hope I can add with accuracy, if not objectivity, that speculative fiction holds a special ability to highlight certain of humanity’s psychological quirks. It highlights, for example, the psychological quirk that humans are unnerved by things that ought to be human and don’t quite make it, both pretend-humans and ex-humans.

The horror genre makes the most hay of this phenomenon, what with zombies and vampires and ghosts – all ex-humans, in one way or another. It would be appropriate, given the season, to focus on horror and its almost epic exploitation, and thus illumination, of humanity’s dread of the almost-human. But I won’t, because I have never really liked any ghost story since A Christmas Carol, and I hate zombies beyond my power of expression, and although the memories will someday mercifully fade, vampires inevitably call up Twilight.

Other forms of speculative fiction make milder appeals to the same uneasiness. C.S. Lewis wove it into the White Witch. Folk lore and fairy tales, the progenitors of modern speculative fiction, have their own examples (including ghosts, of course, but I’m still not going to talk about them). Among the most compelling examples is that of the hollow women: beautiful and smiling, but their backs are hollow. At their worst, they are malevolent seductresses, and pitiless even when they are harmless. Changelings, both infant and adult, are in their own way even more sinister: The cold, creeping feeling of a stranger who should be human can’t match the horror of a loved one who isn’t.

Science fiction has made its own variation of the theme. The (in)famous Pod People are only a refitted version of changelings, replicas all the more chilling for their precision. Sci-fi has accumulated standbys and tropes for things that are, in Lewis’ words, going to be human and aren’t yet: aliens that sham humanity, human bodies hijacked by parasites, robots that are human at the first glance and not at the second.

Robots merit particular attention because here science caught up with fiction. Masahiro Mori, a Japanese roboticist, theorized nearly fifty years ago that robots, approaching human likeness but not quite reaching it, would fall into the uncanny valley. In the uncanny valley, both too much and not enough like humans, robots provoke unease and revulsion. Mori speculated that our “eerie sensation” is an instinct that protects us from the proximal dangers of corpses and members of different species. Some think it may be the dissonance between the human and inhuman mingled together.

Whether dissonance, survival instinct, or a deeper, more mysterious instinct, the phenomenon is real. There is a queasy line between us and not-us, between human and once-human. We felt it in our stories long before scientists tried to explain it.

If you’ve been on Facebook or Twitter in the last couple weeks, you’ve probably noticed it.

The #MeToo campaign that swept through social media channels, calling attention to sexual harassment and abuse. My goal isn’t to wade into a debate about the effectiveness or necessity of viral campaigns, or to discuss the hows and whys and pros and cons of #MeToo.

Rather, I think there’s more to the story. And that’s not at all to trivialize or downplay people’s experiences. The problem is real, as the flood of #MeToo responses has shown. But it’s also real in unlooked-for places.

Books, video games, movies.

Themes in stories often reflect trends in the real world. And it can be argued that entertainment plays a central role in shaping culture. Which is why we shouldn’t ignore the #MeToo realities lurking in stories all around us.

The Deeper Issue Behind #MeToo

The goal, as I understand it, of the #MeToo trend is twofold: to raise awareness and embolden people to speak out. It gives people a voice and sheds light into the shadowy corner of a sensitive but important issue.

Perhaps we should look deeper. To the pages of stories, the scenes of movies, the virtual reality world of video games.

For there we find the same issue, cast in a different light but just as potent. Not because we find victims at every turn (though certainly in the realm of Hollywood that can and does happen), but because entertainment, like our mothers, holds influence.

When Spider-Man: Homecoming released in July, I dutifully headed to the theater. The movie, definitely aimed at a teen audience, contains a rather flippant porn joke, one that caused a loud ripple of laughter to course through the theater.

The problem isn’t so much the inclusion of crude humor as the desensitized response. A response born of an entertainment culture saturated by sexual exploitation.

Movies: Real Abuse

The easiest target to identify is Hollywood, and not just the Harvey Weinsteins and Bill Cosbys, the real-life perpetrators. The root is buried more deeply, in that sexual exploitation has become integral to filmmaking. It’s not something that merely happens out in the world, away from the film set.

Nudity, sex scenes—movies have them by the dozen. Plenty of opinions and arguments exist around the topic, from both sides. I don’t have time to delve into the debate, though I’d suggest checking out Cap Stewart’s site. He’s written extensively on the Hollywood sex trend.

However, what are we to make of “abuse” in Hollywood? Does it really have any bearing on #MeToo? Could we consider it exploitation when the script reaches the bedroom scene?

It’s undeniable that such demands have a profound (and not in a positive way) effect. Not on everyone, but that’s not the point. If even one actor or actress felt unduly exposed, it should be enough to call foul.

When Jennifer Lawrence had to film the sex scene for Passengers, it didn’t come easily:

I got really, really drunk. But then that led to more anxiety when I got home because I was like, “What have I done? I don’t know.” And he was married. And it was going to be my first time kissing a married man, and guilt is the worst feeling in your stomach. And I knew it was my job, but I couldn’t tell my stomach that. So I called my mom, and I was like, “Will you just tell me it’s OK?” It was just very vulnerable.  And you don’t know what’s too much. You want to do it real, you want everything to be real, but then … That was the most vulnerable I’ve ever been.

It doesn’t stop there. Other actresses have expressed similar qualms about the expectations that come with the territory.

Hollywood sparked the #MeToo blaze, but perhaps we should take it beyond the brass and tacks of everyday life and into the ubiquitous world of storytelling. At what cost—emotional, psychological, physical—is the industry churning out films filled with sex and nudity?

Video Games: All the Visuals

Like movies, video games contain an inherently visual aspect. Fortunately, no real people are involved. But that doesn’t lessen the reality of an industry once again saturated by tantalizing visuals.

It’s become something of a stereotype: the hot warrior chick whose armor (can we even call it that?) would stop nothing beyond an attack of chopsticks. Which basically means it’s useless for anything but drawing the eye. And that’s the goal.

Even if abuse, exploitation, or harassment happening in video games is nothing more than simulation, it contributes to the problem by conditioning gamers to view scanty covering and risqué exploits as fine and natural. It’s almost an expected default.

And since entertainment holds such power, that expectation can roll over into the real world. Suddenly there’s a growing mindset that this stereotype is normal, acceptable. Without problems or any hint of exploitation.

To paraphrase Digory in The Last Battle, “What do they teach them with entertainment these days?”

Unfortunately, more than we realize.

Books: A Vicarious Experience

Books are the least likely culprit, since they don’t contain any pictures. But that doesn’t mean they’re squeaky clean. Far from it. Plenty of books contain sexual content, abusive characters and victims, the list goes on.

Fifty Shades of Grey, anyone?

We all know the power of words, and that reading something can make it burst to life almost as clearly as if we were actually seeing it. Even if it’s “not real,” readers are still participating vicariously.

Now, I’m not saying we should turn a blind eye to reality and create stories that blithely gallivant into escapism. They need to be raw and real, boldly dealing with the harsh truths surrounding us. But always with a purpose.

In one of my yet-to-be-published stories, one of the main characters suffers from abuse—though hers is more physical and emotional, not sexual. Yet the darkness plays a key part in her character arc, one that ultimately leads to redemption. It’s not that stories include abusive situations, it’s what the author uses them for.

To titillate, tempt, and seduce? Or to throw back the curtain and let the light pour into the shadows?

The World of #MeToo

Constantly surrounded as we are by entertainment that shows, even encourages, sexual exploitation, it’s no wonder we live in a society where #MeToo is a sad reality.

That’s the takeaway here. Beyond the abuse and harassment that happens every day to actual humans, we need to be aware of what’s taking place in the entertainment we consume. And more importantly, how that shapes people’s outlook on the world.

For some, entertainment is merely that. The content is a non-issue. The problem is that stories with such content support and perpetuate an “it’s okay” attitude.

And if it’s okay in fiction, it becomes okay in reality.

How (or should) we view books, movies, and video games in light of the #MeToo trend? How much does the content in entertainment add to the problem?

Ghosts are Biblical. Who knew? Who actually believes that? I’m aware of at least three references to ghosts in Scripture, one in the Old Testament and two in the New.

The first may be the most disquieting. King Saul, having disobeyed a command from God and having received the pronouncement from the prophet/judge Samuel that God would replace him with a man after His own heart, still clings to his throne. He says it’s for the sake of his descendants, but at one point he threatens to kill Jonathan, the son who should inherit the throne, for being friends with David. He was jealous, fearful, angry, and still expecting God to answer him, protect him, bless him, despite all the evidence to the contrary. In this respect he reminds me of Samson who was unaware that the Spirit of God had left him.

But back to Saul. He faced enemy encroachment of his kingdom pretty much from day one. For a time, God was with him and even fought for him, but toward the end of his reign, Samuel died and God went silent. No prayer or sacrifice Saul performed brought him any clarity concerning the present adversity he faced. He wasn’t used to going it alone when he was faced with an enemy army that far outnumbered his own.

Saul’s answer was to hold a seance.

Without too much trouble he found a medium who knew how to bring up the dead. Today most people go to seances to hear from a dead relative, but Saul wanted to know God’s mind. So he told the medium to bring back the prophet Samuel. And he showed up.

She did not bring him back to life, so how else are we to understand this appearance of Samuel after he died? I don’t think there’s really any doubt that if we were present, we’d have said we saw Samuel’s ghost. You can read the account in 1 Samuel 28:3-20.

The other instances are not actual appearances of a ghost but they are people thinking they saw a ghost. The people in question were the disciples, and the ghost they thought they saw was Jesus, once before he’d died and once after.

The first account was after Jesus had fed 5000 men and an uncounted number of women and children with a few loaves of bread and some fish. Jesus sent his disciples away and the people then left. It was late at night and the disciples were struggling against the wind as they tried to navigate their boat across the sea. Jesus came to them walking on water. As you can expect, since they’d never heard of or seen a man walk on water, they were afraid and came to the conclusion that they were seeing a ghost. Though Jesus had not yet died. He assured them that no, He wasn’t a ghost. You can read this account in several of the gospels: Matthew 14:22-33 and Mark 6:47-52.

The third account was similar in nature—the disciples saw Jesus and thought they were seeing a ghost, but this time He actually was dead. He was also raised from the dead and had His glorified body. So he said in no uncertain terms that he was not a ghost. Interestingly, he did not say, There are no such things as ghosts.

All this to point out that the portrayal of the supernatural at Halloween is not necessarily of creatures or beings that do not exist. Ghosts apparently do exist. The Bible also makes it clear we aren’t to solicit them for whatever purpose. Like Saul’s medium did.

These accounts bring up a lot of questions for me. For instance, what kind of power did that medium have that she could communicate with the dead and call them up so she could have a conversation with them?

These Biblical accounts make me realize that 99.9 percent of the depictions of ghosts in fiction are categorically wrong. Ghosts don’t apparently have a will to come back, to warn people, to scare people. They aren’t shapeless nothings floating through they air, and they don’t look like bed sheets with eye and mouth holes.

Of course fiction aims to be realistic, not real, so does it matter that authors have, for centuries, depicted ghosts in ways that don’t square with what the Bible says? Shakespeare did it, and just as famously, so did Charles Dickens (see “A Ghost Story Of Christmas“). Hundreds of other writers have done so in the years that followed, some with more success than others.

Ghost stories, to me, are much like demon and angel stories. Real angels and demons do exist, but few stories stick to the Biblical narrative that show us what those supernatural beings are like.

Does it matter?

I’m of the mind set that most readers can discern what’s pretend and what isn’t. But the water is a little muddy when angels or ghosts or demons can be real but also pretend.

Vampires only belong in the pretend category. Same with dragons or orcs or zombies. All the magical beasts J. K. Rowling envisioned in her Magical Beasts film series are also pretend, from nifflers to swooping evils to bowtrucklers (for more information, see Pottermore).

The question is, what does using the supernatural as pretend accomplish? Some authors undoubtedly do not believe in the reality of supernatural beings, so they consider them as fair game, in the same way as other mythical creatures. Others use supernatural creatures for the fright value or the comfort value they can add to a story. Still a few want to convey their reality.

Here’s the final question, should Christians take real supernatural beings, like ghosts, and write about them as if they are pretend? What are your thoughts?

Here’s the article of this series voted least likely to become clickbait. That’s because, unlike the first two articles in this series about reforming Christian fiction, this article emphasizes what’s right about Christian fiction. Yes, by that, I mean today’s industry, today’s beliefs, today’s books right there on those cheesy Christian bookstore shelves right now.

Five hundred years ago, Martin Luther didn’t set out to split the Church. He wanted to reform it. And reformation proper means to keep what works while throwing out what doesn’t. In Luther’s case, it wasn’t just abuse he wanted gone, but unbiblical teaching.

However, if we don’t affirm what’s right with some thing, we can’t expect people to listen when we criticize what’s wrong with some thing. This applies whether the thing is the capital-C Church (all of God’s people organized to glorify Him), or a local church, or the fiction-making industries run by Christians.

Be sure to read the complete series, 95 Theses for Christian Fiction Reformation:

1. The purpose of Christian-made stories,
2. What’s wrong with Christian-made stories,
3. What’s right with Christian-made stories,
4. How Christian readers can reform these stories in the future.

Part 3: What’s right with Christian-made stories

51. Christian-made stories are often labeled as being made by Christians. In a world with popular culture shared by all people, yet in which every cultural “group” has its own cultural works to enjoy, having uniquely labeled “Christian” works can be very helpful.
52. Many Christian novels affirm that God, not man, is Creator of our world and morality.
53. Many Christian novels specifically and naturally affirm the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
54. Many Christian novels assume the basic necessity of God’s people, the Church, made of local churches whose members preach and live according to the Gospel in the world.
55. By having fiction at all, Christians prove we don’t believe man can live by dutiful work or spiritual activities alone. Deep down, we all rightly suspect that God has made us not only to labor six days every week, but to “rest” creatively for Sabbaths of recreation.
56. Christian novels span a variety of common genres—including some fantasy and science fiction—and have created new genres, such as Amish romance and end-times thrillers.
57. Even secular culture has caught up to modern Christian tropes, such as the Rapture.
58. Christian fiction may include great characters, original plots, and unique style.
59. Christian fiction may show the world truthfully. Many novels explore topics that secular creators declare “unclean,” such as sin’s results. Even “clean” stories remind us that people do exist who don’t swear or fornicate, either out of tradition or love for Jesus.
60. Really great Christian novels inherit a tradition of showing the absolute victory of God over evil—making evil look very powerful so that we can rightly see God as superior.
61. Some Christian stories explore the fact that “moral relativism” is comically absurd.
62. Some novels explicitly test moralistic or prosperity “gospels” and show how they fail.
63. Quite a few Christian novels have intentionally explored issues relating to social justice, including not only abortion but racism and discrimination. Others overtly challenge the myths Christians may have in the west, such as confusing their nation with the Church.
64. Some Christian novels don’t make their highest purpose to evangelize the non-Christian reader.
65. In fact, these novels can be made by Christians, for Christians, with lesser appeal for the casual reader—again, like any ethnic or cultural group has “their own” creative works.
66. The Christian obsession with prophecy or “end times” novel series has, for now, ended.
67. Some Christian novels, even if they are not in speculative or “fantastical” genres, affirm a supernatural worldview, that is, a realistic worldview. Even in small ways these novels assume God exists and works providentially, or even miraculously, in the world.
68. Modern Christian fantasy may struggle to find its audience, but Christians can still boast “our people’s” legacy of popular fantasy authors, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis.
69. We also have Frank Peretti, who succeeded by writing explicitly about Christian ideas.
70. The most popular authors, past and present, aren’t pastors or spiritual leaders who try to “write” novels (often with help) in their spare time; they’re actual Christian novelists.
71. Bless their hearts, but many Christian novels do try to explore cultures and individuals who are different from modern American Christians. For example, some novels really like exploring Amish culture, or a reasonable facsimile of it. But seriously, it’s a start.
72. 

    For example, this work of Christian fiction was popular last Christmas.

    Christian romance may outsell Christian fantasy. But we do have other popular fiction genres, such as mysteries. (We also have prophetic speculation and Heaven speculation. Yes, that’s a backhanded compliment. Evangelical imagination is alive and well, often to an unbiblical fault. Our secondary problem there is the mislabeling of genres.)

73. By now we may reasonably suspect that even older Christians, who support the above-mentioned genres, aren’t really that opposed to fantasy. They just don’t like it as much themselves. Or they may be like younger Christians, and get their fantasy fix elsewhere.
74. Growing numbers of young Christians don’t want traditional genres. We want fantasy!
75. The decline of traditional Christian bookstores reveals a potential shakeup in Christian fiction, perhaps one to build on today’s publishing structure for a Christian Fiction 2.0.

We’ll wrap this series next week with part 4: How can readers reform Christian fiction?

I didn’t catch Tom Cruise’s The Mummy in theaters, so I watched it on DVD when it came out last week. It wasn’t as awful as I was expecting, though it doesn’t hold a candle to the Brendan Fraser films (the first two, anyway). In this new film, Cruise Missile does battle against a rag-wrapped Egyptian hottie made immortal by the power of Set, the god of death. In actual Egyptian mythology, Set is a god of disorder and violence rather than outright death, but the fact remains that he was a villain of the Egyptian supernatural world, and it’s no surprise that Hollywood came a-callin’ for an adventure film involving Egyptian mythology.

Books, movies, film, and stories in general have always been the domain of “gods” (plural, lowercase g). Naturally, they make frequent appearances in comic books and superhero franchises (gods and demigods were the original superheroes, after all). Stories like those that involve Thor and Wonder Woman take substantial liberties with the original source material but the creators’ reverence of that source material is quite evident. Greek and Roman gods get the most screen time but every culture has its mythical heroes and villains doing battle in exotic lands and using supernatural weaponry, usually for the love or control of us mortal weaklings.

This tendency doesn’t occur as often in monotheistic religions like Christianity or Islam, since there isn’t much competition with an omnipotent, omnipresent Creator of the universe. Plus, it’s usually perceived as blasphemous to make God (or even his “prophet”) a character in our entertainment. But in the heavily populated mythical realms of ancient cultures such as Greece, Rome, and Egypt, there is quite a cast of characters to choose from and no one will get particularly upset if you tweak the narrative.

As Christians, we believe in one God in three Persons, the unchanging and eternal God of the Old and New Testaments. He is all-knowing and all-powerful, and all things are created by Him. We know there are no other gods besides Him. Yet there is no denying that other so-called “gods” have acted with great and miraculous power in the cultures that worshiped them. Is the God of the Bible merely the “top god” and the other gods are lesser gods, but still gods nonetheless?

Let’s look at what the Scriptures have to say. In 1 Corinthians 8, Paul talks about eating food sacrificed to idols. In verse four, he says that “we know that there is no such thing as an idol in the world, and that there is no God but one.” Basically, all of these statues and totems are just inert works of art with no real power in them. Listen the words of God Himself in Isaiah 44:6: “I am the first and the last; besides me there is no god.”

Pretty straightforward. Yet consider the miraculous wonders performed in the names of these non-existent gods. One of the most shocking examples is in the book of Exodus where Pharaoh’s magicians are able to replicate the miraculous signs done by Aaron to demonstrate God’s power (though we all know who had the biggest snake in that contest). Did other “gods” gives these sorcerers their power?

Deuteronomy 32:17 says that the wayward Israelites “sacrificed to demons who were not God.” The Bible never acknowledges the legitimate power of other gods, and dozens of passages reaffirm the declaration that there is only one God. That means that anything else pretending to be a god is either an impotent creation of human hands or is a demonic power. In my post about magic a few months ago, I laid out the argument that there is no such thing as “good magic” in real life, that all supernatural power comes either from God or Satan. The same goes for gods. While it’s easy for us to sit in our supposedly enlightened throne of rational, Western knowledge and wisdom, we must not forget that there are billions of people in the world who wholeheartedly believe in false gods.

And then there’s the new movie with Thor sporting a boy band haircut and cracking jokes…