Halloween stories in American literature aren’t always about Halloween. More often they are about the things Halloween invokes.

Christians don’t always know what to do with Halloween, but there’s no doubt it’s a part of western culture. The suggested retail price of the holiday here in the US seems to be $6 billion—nearly half for costumes, a third for decorations, and the rest spent on candy. It’s the second most commercial holiday, next to Christmas. So we can assume Halloween isn’t going anywhere any time soon.

It might be interesting to delve into the various traditions that have cropped up around the holiday over the years—bobbing for apples, carving pumpkins, making candied apples, trick-or-treating, wearing costumes, going to haunted houses, and storytelling.

When I was a kid, one particular story became a traditional part of Halloween: “The Legend Of Sleepy Hallow,” by Washington Irving. It’s still a favorite, but there’s a collection of stories that some identify with Halloween, largely because they induce the element of the supernatural coupled with fear that seems so Halloween-ish. Here’s one list:

The Furnished Room – O. Henry
Sredni Vashtar – H.H. Munro (SAKI)
Lost Hearts – M.R. James
‘Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You My Lad’ – M.R. James
The Phantom Coach – Amelia B. Edwards
Luella Miller – Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
The Hand – Guy de Maupassant
The Pale Man – Julius Long
Afterward – Edith Wharton
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow – Washington Irving
The Black Cat – Edgar Allan Poe
The Cats of Ulthar – H.P. Lovecraft
The Great God Pan – Arthur Machen
The Monkey’s Paw – W.W. Jacobs
The Beast With Five Fingers – W.F. Harvey
The Tell-Tale Heart – Edgar Allan Poe
The Phantom Rickshaw – Rudyard Kipling
The Romance of Certain Old Clothes – Henry James
Camilla – Joseph Sheriden le Fanu
The Death of Halpin Frayser – Ambrose Bierce
Count Magnus – M.R. James
The Cask of Amontillado – Edgar Allan Poe
The Middle Toe of the Right Foot; The Damned Thing ; The Moonlit Road – Ambrose Bierce
Skeleton Lake; The Empty House – Algernon Blackwood
Shadows on the Wall – Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
The King in Yellow – Robert W. Chambers
The Terrible Old Man – H.P. Lovecraft
The Body-Snatchers – Robert Louis Stevenson
The Mortal Immortal – Mary Shelley
August Heat – W.F. Harvey (Links to all stories at American Literature which compiled this list)

I thought I’d share one in particular, not because it’s better than the rest but because the title has a Halloween association, it’s by one of the most famous American horror writers, and it’s shorter (but not short). As I believe are all these on the list, this one is in the public domain, and so I share it in its entirety.

The Black Cat by Edgar Allan Poe

FOR the most wild, yet most homely narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own evidence. Yet, mad am I not – and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburthen my soul. My immediate purpose is to place before the world, plainly, succinctly, and without comment, a series of mere household events. In their consequences, these events have terrified – have tortured – have destroyed me. Yet I will not attempt to expound them. To me, they have presented little but Horror – to many they will seem less terrible than barroques. Hereafter, perhaps, some intellect may be found which will reduce my phantasm to the common-place – some intellect more calm, more logical, and far less excitable than my own, which will perceive, in the circumstances I detail with awe, nothing more than an ordinary succession of very natural causes and effects.

From my infancy I was noted for the docility and humanity of my disposition. My tenderness of heart was even so conspicuous as to make me the jest of my companions. I was especially fond of animals, and was indulged by my parents with a great variety of pets. With these I spent most of my time, and never was so happy as when feeding and caressing them. This peculiarity of character grew with my growth, and in my manhood, I derived from it one of my principal sources of pleasure. To those who have cherished an affection for a faithful and sagacious dog, I need hardly be at the trouble of explaining the nature or the intensity of the gratification thus derivable. There is something in the unselfish and self-sacrificing love of a brute, which goes directly to the heart of him who has had frequent occasion to test the paltry friendship and gossamer fidelity of mere Man .

I married early, and was happy to find in my wife a disposition not uncongenial with my own. Observing my partiality for domestic pets, she lost no opportunity of procuring those of the most agreeable kind. We had birds, gold-fish, a fine dog, rabbits, a small monkey, and a cat.

This latter was a remarkably large and beautiful animal, entirely black, and sagacious to an astonishing degree. In speaking of his intelligence, my wife, who at heart was not a little tinctured with superstition, made frequent allusion to the ancient popular notion, which regarded all black cats as witches in disguise. Not that she was ever serious upon this point – and I mention the matter at all for no better reason than that it happens, just now, to be remembered.

Pluto – this was the cat’s name – was my favorite pet and playmate. I alone fed him, and he attended me wherever I went about the house. It was even with difficulty that I could prevent him from following me through the streets.

Our friendship lasted, in this manner, for several years, during which my general temperament and character – through the instrumentality of the Fiend Intemperance – had (I blush to confess it) experienced a radical alteration for the worse. I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others. I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife. At length, I even offered her personal violence. My pets, of course, were made to feel the change in my disposition. I not only neglected, but ill-used them. For Pluto, however, I still retained sufficient regard to restrain me from maltreating him, as I made no scruple of maltreating the rabbits, the monkey, or even the dog, when by accident, or through affection, they came in my way. But my disease grew upon me – for what disease is like Alcohol! – and at length even Pluto, who was now becoming old, and consequently somewhat peevish – even Pluto began to experience the effects of my ill temper.

One night, returning home, much intoxicated, from one of my haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided my presence. I seized him; when, in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a slight wound upon my hand with his teeth. The fury of a demon instantly possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to take its flight from my body and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nurtured, thrilled every fibre of my frame. I took from my waistcoat-pocket a pen-knife, opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket! I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable atrocity.

When reason returned with the morning – when I had slept off the fumes of the night’s debauch – I experienced a sentiment half of horror, half of remorse, for the crime of which I had been guilty; but it was, at best, a feeble and equivocal feeling, and the soul remained untouched. I again plunged into excess, and soon drowned in wine all memory of the deed.

In the meantime the cat slowly recovered. The socket of the lost eye presented, it is true, a frightful appearance, but he no longer appeared to suffer any pain. He went about the house as usual, but, as might be expected, fled in extreme terror at my approach. I had so much of my old heart left, as to be at first grieved by this evident dislike on the part of a creature which had once so loved me. But this feeling soon gave place to irritation. And then came, as if to my final and irrevocable overthrow, the spirit of PERVERSENESS. Of this spirit philosophy takes no account. Yet I am not more sure that my soul lives, than I am that perverseness is one of the primitive impulses of the human heart – one of the indivisible primary faculties, or sentiments, which give direction to the character of Man. Who has not, a hundred times, found himself committing a vile or a silly action, for no other reason than because he knows he should not? Have we not a perpetual inclination, in the teeth of our best judgment, to violate that which is Law, merely because we understand it to be such? This spirit of perverseness, I say, came to my final overthrow. It was this unfathomable longing of the soul to vex itself – to offer violence to its own nature – to do wrong for the wrong’s sake only – that urged me to continue and finally to consummate the injury I had inflicted upon the unoffending brute. One morning, in cool blood, I slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree; – hung it with the tears streaming from my eyes, and with the bitterest remorse at my heart; – hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason of offence; – hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin – a deadly sin that would so jeopardize my immortal soul as to place it – if such a thing wore possible – even beyond the reach of the infinite mercy of the Most Merciful and Most Terrible God.

On the night of the day on which this cruel deed was done, I was aroused from sleep by the cry of fire. The curtains of my bed were in flames. The whole house was blazing. It was with great difficulty that my wife, a servant, and myself, made our escape from the conflagration. The destruction was complete. My entire worldly wealth was swallowed up, and I resigned myself thenceforward to despair.

I am above the weakness of seeking to establish a sequence of cause and effect, between the disaster and the atrocity. But I am detailing a chain of facts – and wish not to leave even a possible link imperfect. On the day succeeding the fire, I visited the ruins. The walls, with one exception, had fallen in. This exception was found in a compartment wall, not very thick, which stood about the middle of the house, and against which had rested the head of my bed. The plastering had here, in great measure, resisted the action of the fire – a fact which I attributed to its having been recently spread. About this wall a dense crowd were collected, and many persons seemed to be examining a particular portion of it with very minute and eager attention. The words “strange!” “singular!” and other similar expressions, excited my curiosity. I approached and saw, as if graven in bas relief upon the white surface, the figure of a gigantic cat. The impression was given with an accuracy truly marvellous. There was a rope about the animal’s neck.

When I first beheld this apparition – for I could scarcely regard it as less – my wonder and my terror were extreme. But at length reflection came to my aid. The cat, I remembered, had been hung in a garden adjacent to the house. Upon the alarm of fire, this garden had been immediately filled by the crowd – by some one of whom the animal must have been cut from the tree and thrown, through an open window, into my chamber. This had probably been done with the view of arousing me from sleep. The falling of other walls had compressed the victim of my cruelty into the substance of the freshly-spread plaster; the lime of which, with the flames, and the ammonia from the carcass, had then accomplished the portraiture as I saw it.

Although I thus readily accounted to my reason, if not altogether to my conscience, for the startling fact just detailed, it did not the less fail to make a deep impression upon my fancy. For months I could not rid myself of the phantasm of the cat; and, during this period, there came back into my spirit a half-sentiment that seemed, but was not, remorse. I went so far as to regret the loss of the animal, and to look about me, among the vile haunts which I now habitually frequented, for another pet of the same species, and of somewhat similar appearance, with which to supply its place.

One night as I sat, half stupified, in a den of more than infamy, my attention was suddenly drawn to some black object, reposing upon the head of one of the immense hogsheads of Gin, or of Rum, which constituted the chief furniture of the apartment. I had been looking steadily at the top of this hogshead for some minutes, and what now caused me surprise was the fact that I had not sooner perceived the object thereupon. I approached it, and touched it with my hand. It was a black cat – a very large one – fully as large as Pluto, and closely resembling him in every respect but one. Pluto had not a white hair upon any portion of his body; but this cat had a large, although indefinite splotch of white, covering nearly the whole region of the breast. Upon my touching him, he immediately arose, purred loudly, rubbed against my hand, and appeared delighted with my notice. This, then, was the very creature of which I was in search. I at once offered to purchase it of the landlord; but this person made no claim to it – knew nothing of it – had never seen it before.

I continued my caresses, and, when I prepared to go home, the animal evinced a disposition to accompany me. I permitted it to do so; occasionally stooping and patting it as I proceeded. When it reached the house it domesticated itself at once, and became immediately a great favorite with my wife.

For my own part, I soon found a dislike to it arising within me. This was just the reverse of what I had anticipated; but – I know not how or why it was – its evident fondness for myself rather disgusted and annoyed. By slow degrees, these feelings of disgust and annoyance rose into the bitterness of hatred. I avoided the creature; a certain sense of shame, and the remembrance of my former deed of cruelty, preventing me from physically abusing it. I did not, for some weeks, strike, or otherwise violently ill use it; but gradually – very gradually – I came to look upon it with unutterable loathing, and to flee silently from its odious presence, as from the breath of a pestilence.

What added, no doubt, to my hatred of the beast, was the discovery, on the morning after I brought it home, that, like Pluto, it also had been deprived of one of its eyes. This circumstance, however, only endeared it to my wife, who, as I have already said, possessed, in a high degree, that humanity of feeling which had once been my distinguishing trait, and the source of many of my simplest and purest pleasures.

With my aversion to this cat, however, its partiality for myself seemed to increase. It followed my footsteps with a pertinacity which it would be difficult to make the reader comprehend. Whenever I sat, it would crouch beneath my chair, or spring upon my knees, covering me with its loathsome caresses. If I arose to walk it would get between my feet and thus nearly throw me down, or, fastening its long and sharp claws in my dress, clamber, in this manner, to my breast. At such times, although I longed to destroy it with a blow, I was yet withheld from so doing, partly by a memory of my former crime, but chiefly – let me confess it at once – by absolute dread of the beast.

This dread was not exactly a dread of physical evil – and yet I should be at a loss how otherwise to define it. I am almost ashamed to own – yes, even in this felon’s cell, I am almost ashamed to own – that the terror and horror with which the animal inspired me, had been heightened by one of the merest chimaeras it would be possible to conceive. My wife had called my attention, more than once, to the character of the mark of white hair, of which I have spoken, and which constituted the sole visible difference between the strange beast and the one I had destroyed. The reader will remember that this mark, although large, had been originally very indefinite; but, by slow degrees – degrees nearly imperceptible, and which for a long time my Reason struggled to reject as fanciful – it had, at length, assumed a rigorous distinctness of outline. It was now the representation of an object that I shudder to name – and for this, above all, I loathed, and dreaded, and would have rid myself of the monster had I dared – it was now, I say, the image of a hideous – of a ghastly thing – of the GALLOWS ! – oh, mournful and terrible engine of Horror and of Crime – of Agony and of Death !

And now was I indeed wretched beyond the wretchedness of mere Humanity. And a brute beast – whose fellow I had contemptuously destroyed – a brute beast to work out for me – for me a man, fashioned in the image of the High God – so much of insufferable wo! Alas! neither by day nor by night knew I the blessing of Rest any more! During the former the creature left me no moment alone; and, in the latter, I started, hourly, from dreams of unutterable fear, to find the hot breath of the thing upon my face, and its vast weight – an incarnate Night-Mare that I had no power to shake off – incumbent eternally upon my heart!

Beneath the pressure of torments such as these, the feeble remnant of the good within me succumbed. Evil thoughts became my sole intimates – the darkest and most evil of thoughts. The moodiness of my usual temper increased to hatred of all things and of all mankind; while, from the sudden, frequent, and ungovernable outbursts of a fury to which I now blindly abandoned myself, my uncomplaining wife, alas! was the most usual and the most patient of sufferers.

One day she accompanied me, upon some household errand, into the cellar of the old building which our poverty compelled us to inhabit. The cat followed me down the steep stairs, and, nearly throwing me headlong, exasperated me to madness. Uplifting an axe, and forgetting, in my wrath, the childish dread which had hitherto stayed my hand, I aimed a blow at the animal which, of course, would have proved instantly fatal had it descended as I wished. But this blow was arrested by the hand of my wife. Goaded, by the interference, into a rage more than demoniacal, I withdrew my arm from her grasp and buried the axe in her brain. She fell dead upon the spot, without a groan.

This hideous murder accomplished, I set myself forthwith, and with entire deliberation, to the task of concealing the body. I knew that I could not remove it from the house, either by day or by night, without the risk of being observed by the neighbors. Many projects entered my mind. At one period I thought of cutting the corpse into minute fragments, and destroying them by fire. At another, I resolved to dig a grave for it in the floor of the cellar. Again, I deliberated about casting it in the well in the yard – about packing it in a box, as if merchandize, with the usual arrangements, and so getting a porter to take it from the house. Finally I hit upon what I considered a far better expedient than either of these. I determined to wall it up in the cellar – as the monks of the middle ages are recorded to have walled up their victims.

For a purpose such as this the cellar was well adapted. Its walls were loosely constructed, and had lately been plastered throughout with a rough plaster, which the dampness of the atmosphere had prevented from hardening. Moreover, in one of the walls was a projection, caused by a false chimney, or fireplace, that had been filled up, and made to resemble the red of the cellar. I made no doubt that I could readily displace the bricks at this point, insert the corpse, and wall the whole up as before, so that no eye could detect any thing suspicious. And in this calculation I was not deceived. By means of a crow-bar I easily dislodged the bricks, and, having carefully deposited the body against the inner wall, I propped it in that position, while, with little trouble, I re-laid the whole structure as it originally stood. Having procured mortar, sand, and hair, with every possible precaution, I prepared a plaster which could not be distinguished from the old, and with this I very carefully went over the new brickwork. When I had finished, I felt satisfied that all was right. The wall did not present the slightest appearance of having been disturbed. The rubbish on the floor was picked up with the minutest care. I looked around triumphantly, and said to myself – “Here at least, then, my labor has not been in vain.”

My next step was to look for the beast which had been the cause of so much wretchedness; for I had, at length, firmly resolved to put it to death. Had I been able to meet with it, at the moment, there could have been no doubt of its fate; but it appeared that the crafty animal had been alarmed at the violence of my previous anger, and forebore to present itself in my present mood. It is impossible to describe, or to imagine, the deep, the blissful sense of relief which the absence of the detested creature occasioned in my bosom. It did not make its appearance during the night – and thus for one night at least, since its introduction into the house, I soundly and tranquilly slept; aye, slept even with the burden of murder upon my soul!

The second and the third day passed, and still my tormentor came not. Once again I breathed as a freeman. The monster, in terror, had fled the premises forever! I should behold it no more! My happiness was supreme! The guilt of my dark deed disturbed me but little. Some few inquiries had been made, but these had been readily answered. Even a search had been instituted – but of course nothing was to be discovered. I looked upon my future felicity as secured.

Upon the fourth day of the assassination, a party of the police came, very unexpectedly, into the house, and proceeded again to make rigorous investigation of the premises. Secure, however, in the inscrutability of my place of concealment, I felt no embarrassment whatever. The officers bade me accompany them in their search. They left no nook or corner unexplored. At length, for the third or fourth time, they descended into the cellar. I quivered not in a muscle. My heart beat calmly as that of one who slumbers in innocence. I walked the cellar from end to end. I folded my arms upon my bosom, and roamed easily to and fro. The police were thoroughly satisfied and prepared to depart. The glee at my heart was too strong to be restrained. I burned to say if but one word, by way of triumph, and to render doubly sure their assurance of my guiltlessness.

“Gentlemen,” I said at last, as the party ascended the steps, “I delight to have allayed your suspicions. I wish you all health, and a little more courtesy. By the bye, gentlemen, this – this is a very well constructed house.” [In the rabid desire to say something easily, I scarcely knew what I uttered at all.] – “I may say an excellently well constructed house. These walls are you going, gentlemen? – these walls are solidly put together;” and here, through the mere phrenzy of bravado, I rapped heavily, with a cane which I held in my hand, upon that very portion of the brick-work behind which stood the corpse of the wife of my bosom.

But may God shield and deliver me from the fangs of the Arch-Fiend ! No sooner had the reverberation of my blows sunk into silence, than I was answered by a voice from within the tomb! – by a cry, at first muffled and broken, like the sobbing of a child, and then quickly swelling into one long, loud, and continuous scream, utterly anomalous and inhuman – a howl – a wailing shriek, half of horror and half of triumph, such as might have arisen only out of hell, conjointly from the throats of the dammed in their agony and of the demons that exult in the damnation.

Of my own thoughts it is folly to speak. Swooning, I staggered to the opposite wall. For one instant the party upon the stairs remained motionless, through extremity of terror and of awe. In the next, a dozen stout arms were toiling at the wall. It fell bodily. The corpse, already greatly decayed and clotted with gore, stood erect before the eyes of the spectators. Upon its head, with red extended mouth and solitary eye of fire, sat the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder, and whose informing voice had consigned me to the hangman. I had walled the monster up within the tomb!

Conventional wisdom says Christian fiction is lame, unrealistic, unhelpful, unneeded.

It says: “We don’t need more ‘Christian fiction.’ We need more Christians writing fiction.”¹

But the conventional wisdom is wrong.

In fact, we actually need deeply real Christian fiction now more than ever.

Why?

Let’s consider this. Biblical Christians have already been a minority in other countries for decades, sometimes centuries. Now, even in the supposed “Christian nation,” the United States, Biblical Christians realize they’ve also become a minority.

We’ve surrendered cultural influence, or else have seen others take it away from us.

We break apart our own many colorful cultures, starting with the saving gospel of Jesus Christ at the heart of all of them, because we’ve felt this strategy will attract more people.  And we’ve used too much of our own fiction not to explore and share and reflect Christians’ real cultures, but to explore idealized, saccharine-fairy-tale versions of Christianity.

I will certainly agree that we don’t need more of Christian fiction like this:

1. Morality fables, in which the Lesson or lack of Bad Content stands in for “Christian.”
2. Faux evangelistic novels, in which the main character is the author’s best version of a “nonbeliever” who meets Christians and/or Jesus and learns to have faith again.
3. Rage-rousing movies that stoke Christians’ anger against real or imagined enemies.
4. Strange alien worlds, supposedly like our own, neatly divided between “Christian” and not-Christian, with no room for strange people, false teachers, and confused elderly souls, bless their hearts, who love Jesus but keep televangelists in business.
5. Strange alien worlds in which Christians don’t even have denominations.

Instead, I call for deeply Christian fiction—stories that are almost scarily saturated in the world of real Christianity. A world in which real Christians, who believe the real gospel, have real disagreements even while they try to gather in real churches, denominations, and groups, and preach the gospel, fight their sin, raise their families, care for the poor, and await Jesus and Heaven (or, to go deeper, our resurrection and Jesus’ renewal of creation).

These stories will not only aim to glorify God in general ways, such as through already God-reflecting acts of artistry and imaginary world-creating.² And these stories will not be labeled “Christian” mainly to bait-and-switch, then feign to sort-of preach a sort-of gospel to some non-Christian reader who is not in the room at the time.

Instead, deeply Christian fiction will explore, challenge, reflect, and celebrate the actual, real-world Christian culture (even in fantastical stories) in which this fiction was made.

I thought of this while viewing the first few episodes of the Netflix series “Luke Cage.”³ Some critics complain about this show being “too black” (I suppose in cast and aesthetics) or “too white” (I suppose in themes of justice and heroism). I find both critiques bizarre. As far as I can tell, the show is absolutely saturated in the symbols and ambiance of African-Americana: people, music, culture, clubs, temptations, heroes, villains, good, and evil. The story-makers don’t shy from showing this culture. They go all-in. And they should.

Because when you are a minority group, your popular culture becomes more important.

Thus, as Biblical Christians are becoming a minority, they will need their own deeply Christian popular culture more than ever before—including deeply Christian novels and stories.

In practice, here are a few starter attributes of deeply Christian fiction:

1. Explicit about the gospel. In reality, serious Christians don’t go about nuancing the gospel in shady allegories or oblique hints. We are (or should be) clear about what we believe. We do quote verses and argue gospel doctrines. We do preach. And we don’t replace the gospel with moralism, but rebuke these things.
2. Truly evangelistic. Biblical Christians believe non-Christians should get saved. Evangelism is our culture. We don’t want people to fall under God’s wrath. We want them to share in God’s grace. So these novels will be very clear about that. But they will show how Christians struggle to follow Christ’s Great Commission, from the inside.
3. Honest about enemies. Some enemies really do want to see the Christian world burn. They don’t simply hate Christians because they haven’t heard about how much Jesus loves them. But many enemies also don’t simply hate Christians because they are simplistically evil. Often they have a relatable backstory. Often Christians have done them wrong. Sometimes Christians themselves are the villains. Admitting this is essential for a story that deeply, realistically reflects the story’s cultural origin.
4. Clear about human weirdness. These stories will reflect bizarre cases not often seen in novels, such as when you can’t tell if someone is a Christian, or when a real Christian who loves Jesus buys into horrid theology or conspiracy theories. There are no easy answers to these quandaries. Stories can help us concede these faults.
5. Direct about denominations. Christians have long and glorious traditions of various church organizations that believe and act differently in many ways. These must be reflected in Christian fiction. If not, the story is not authentically Christian. It is an Earth-2 “Christianity” that readers only pretend to sort-of recognize. (And eventually we complain that our churches don’t look like these airbrushed models.)

Sure, we need Christians active in general-market stories. We do need “more Christians making great stories.” But we also need “Christian fiction” from Christian authors, from Christian-run publishers, for Christian readers—who are becoming a minority in American culture and need their own popular culture to survive and grow strong. Yes, the “Christian fiction” label still needs redeeming and many of those “rules” must be abolished. But every other group of people gets a popular culture to explore, challenge, and celebrate itself. How much more so should we, who serve the ultimate Author who provides us stories to enjoy? ⁴

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Remember those cartoon evangelism tracts by Jack Chick, who most famously wrote “This Was Your Life” and other comic-strip-oriented literature intended to help save souls?

On Monday Chick Tracts announced Chick had died. Christianity Today later reported it.

Perhaps now, as the Facebook post implied, Jack Chick himself is that man in silhouette before the giant robed faceless God on a throne, awaiting entrance into the clouded kingdom.

Alas, Jack Chick left behind a legacy of wild and harmful Christian speculative fantasy.

This Was Your Life

Chick’s “This Was Your Life” was one of the first tracts I ever read. At the time my family was attending a conservative/fundamentalist church, one in which women wore head coverings in addition to their natural long hair. Post-service conversation must have been dull. So child-me meandered into the lobby. I found reading material? Hurrah! But it was boring: evangelism tracts full of words. Wait! What’s this? Comic-strip tracts?

I was intrigued. I read the only ones they had. Later more copies ended up in that certain drawer in my mother’s desk. We never passed them out. They were there in case of tract-evangelism emergency, along with more-staid offerings like “The Four Spiritual Laws.”¹

Of course, our tracts included at least one copy of Jack Chick’s “This Was Your Life.”

In “This Was Your Life,” a worldly man dies and an angel takes him to heaven. He skips directly to the Great White Throne judgment predicted in Rev. 20 (after the Millennium, whatever that is). God sits there, a giant faceless robed figure looking somewhat like a 1950s propaganda poster. The Lord calls for nervous protag: “Next! Review his life!”

All of heaven watches a giant movie screen review every sinful moment of protag’s life. It starts with his childhood (he is rather ugly even as a baby), then moves forward. Heaven’s archives single out egregious sinful moments such as: telling a dirty joke, lusting after a woman, and going to church but caring more about a ballgame. “Bunk,” protag decides, “I don’t need Christ! There’s nothing wrong with me! I’ll make it MY way!”

None of this part is unbiblical. Scripture does say that at God’s judgment, “The dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.”² A separate book, “the book of life,” records names of the saved—just as the tract shows.

An alternate-universe version of the story follows: protag repents and believes in Jesus, lives a transformed and godly life, then exits Earth and heads into eternity saved.

The world of Jack Chick: faith, fantasy, fallacy

“This Was Your Life” is highly fanciful speculation, with only a few biblical details fudged:

• Protag undergoes a kind of unconscious “soul sleep” until God’s future judgment.
• When protag awakens to the word “Arise!”, this refers to the future resurrection. But he ascends in a ghostly form out of his body. Resurrection = bodily. There’s no in-between.

Other tracts went even further afield, with questionable to outright false notions, such as:

• Humans can cast curses or be cursed (other than being under the curse of God’s wrath).
• “Harry Potter” books teach people to use Ouija boards (the books never mention these).
• If you die without evangelizing enough, you’ll feel bad about it in Heaven.
• The Roman Catholic pope is the Beast of Revelation 13.
• Non-Christians frequently say, “HAW, HAW!”

Far more interesting is Chick’s fantastic ability to show things and engage speculations that Christianity or else his own culture—or “Chickverse”—would ordinarily forbid:

• It’s okay to draw or look at images of God on the throne (but what about Exodus 20:4?).
• It’s okay to draw or look at images of sexy women (within certain parameters).
• It’s okay to draw or look at images of demons or Satanic(?) creatures, complete with traditional bat-winged things as well as vampires, ghoulish witches, and werewolves.
• It’s okay to write/draw fanfiction about Heaven, Hell, and false religions’ origin stories.

This leads to a fascinating contradiction:

1. Chick Tracts preached against—and were set in a Christian subculture that discouraged—good things like fantasy, and bad things like lust, obsession with demons, and deception.
2. Chick Tracts showed some of the most fantastical imaginings of biblical ideas, while also showing images that (by their own logic) could promote idolatry and lust. Meanwhile, the tracts contained plain lies against other people, not only Roman Catholics and Muslims, but fans of fantasy stories such as “Dungeons and Dragons” or “Harry Potter.”

So what should we make of Chick’s legacy?

For me, the tracts were a curiosity. I enjoyed reading the ones I’d found. But even as an older child, I never tried to give them to anyone; I doubted they were suitable for that. But other people report these tracts really messed some people up. Or perhaps rather, the toxic and un-biblical Christian subculture they associate with the tracts messed them up.

And make no mistake, this kind of fundamentalist culture is harmful. To “evangelize,” its members promote slander of already-false religions’ backstories (when mere comparison to God’s word would do the job). This culture says “thus saith the Lord” when in fact the Lord has never saith (about the Beast being Catholic, the Rapture, legalistic notions, and King James Version-only-ism). And this culture implicitly promotes hypocrisy by saying, “It’s okay for Jack Chick to draw fairly awesome cartoons for fantastical stories and falsely claim they are fact, but you’re not allowed similar stories even under the label ‘fantasy.’”

At the end, I cannot render final judgment: Jack Chick went to hell, or Jack Chick went to Heaven. But I do suspect he’s in Heaven. Because crazy Christians sometimes do mean well. Yes, even if they claim Catholics eat “death cookies,” or “Harry Potter” fans worship Satan.

Like Catholicism and fantasy novels themselves, Chick Tracts are an absurd mess of grace and idolatry, truth and lies, and artistic skills that reflect God versus artful lies that do not.

What is your experience with Chick tracts or the Chickverse, particularly given these tracts’ bizarre role in Christian fantasy?

A notable lack in speculative fiction, and one that cuts across the divide between Christian and secular, is that of genuine, fully-realized religion. There may be religious belief and religious feeling; in Christian speculative fiction, there usually is. There may be scraps of religion – vague expressions of faith, a benevolent priest, a fanatic, a cross or a stray invocation of the gods. But genuine religion – religion that possesses a structure, doctrines, holidays, customs, stories and rules, and all the physical artifacts from temples to jewelry? That is rare.

This lack is hardly crippling. Great speculative fiction may exist without practical religion and even be deeply spiritual. Lord of the Rings and Chronicles of Narnia exhibit little of religion as it is practiced in actual life and possess spiritual depths rarely matched. Complete religion isn’t necessary. But its scarcity in our novels is a loss.

To gain an idea of the loss, let us consider Halloween, because ’tis the season. There are surely people in this great nation whose favorite holiday is Halloween, and I frankly worry about these people. At best, it’s a half-holiday. There is a version of Halloween for children, and a version for adults, but no version for everyone. As a popular holiday, it makes no pretense of religion or meaning; it has no songs and most Halloween stories could be told without Halloween and probably would be.

And out of even this poor half-holiday you could dig a tale that teaches us who we are. The origin of Halloween is taken to be Samhain, the Celtic holiday that marked the journey of the dead into the otherworld. Ghosts were near on Samhain, too near for anyone’s comfort. The inhuman, both demons and fairies, were also believed to be abroad with power, perhaps because the journey from this world to the next suggested a general weakening of boundaries. A spiritual anarchy hangs about the whole day, and to the extent that there was real belief there must have been real fear.

The Catholic Church later established All Saints Day and All Souls Day, days that commemorate the dead without fear of the dead, or horror of death. It’s long been said – very plausibly, though I admit I don’t know on what evidence – that the Catholic Church did this to replace Samhain. And Samhain did fade away, leaving only vestiges of customs and superstition where powerful belief once ruled. Yet All Saints Day and All Souls Day never replaced it. These are just days on the church calendar, occasionally observed but never celebrated.

Much can be gleaned from the history of Halloween – the revolution of a civilization changing from one religion to another, humanity’s elemental horror of the dead who do not stay properly dead, the dread of the inhuman, the evolution and mixing of beliefs and practices. It is strange that, although many people believe the saints are happy in heaven and few think ghosts travel on Halloween, Halloween has so much greater a presence than All Saints Day. An empty holiday with concrete practices has more power than a holy day with abstract joy, and we see how instinctively humanity demands, and perhaps even needs, physical expression of spiritual things.

What can be illustrated through a holiday – from the history of a civilization to religious beliefs to fundamental human nature – is extraordinary. Holidays, and all the expressions of a whole and genuine religion, offer a wide and rich opportunity to speculative fiction authors. I don’t demand that they take it, but – well, would you consider it?

Unicorns have been spotted roaming the streets of Midwest towns.

Contrary to popular belief, President Snow is still alive.

S.H.I.E.L.D. exists. (shhhh, don’t tell anyone)

And in other breaking news, the arena of politics continues to heat up like a cast iron skillet on a campfire.

Okay, those first three statements are a stretch, but given the craziness of this presidential election, who’s to say? Maybe such claims actually bring some sanity to this catastrophe.

Let’s lighten the mood for a minute—or five, depending how fast you read. Picture a presidential debate with spec-fic in the star role. References, jokes, quotes, all to defend the candidates’ positions and make jabs at one another.

In other words, “where-has-this-been-my-whole-life?”

Here’s how a presidential debate might look if Donald and Hillary were both yuuuuuge spec-fic fans.

Donald: Let’s start this debate with a bang. Five words: illegal aliens must be banned. I would set up an organization, call it S.H.I.E.L.D., and hire Clark Gregg to run the operation. Problem solved.

Hillary: Banned. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Donald: Ohhh, Princess Bride now? Two can play that game. We need more people like Inigo Montoya anyway. I really like his outlook on life. “You killed my father. Prepare to die.” That’s a good life motto.

Hillary: Always talking about killing. Don’t you have anything better to say? Because right now, you’re sounding like a clichéd mentor. All we hear are the same things over and over.

Donald: To be honest, if we’re going to point fingers, you remind me of Katniss. Immature, ignorant, unstable. If my name was Peeta (which it’s not), I would try to get as far away from you as possible.

Hillary: All you do is resort to name-calling. You never talk about any substantive issues. We’re here to have a debate, not throw around accusations. Think Council of Elrond.

Donald: Oh. So I’m the hard-working, honest dwarf and you’re the snobbish elf? I agree with that.

Hillary: Once again, you’re ignoring the issue and proving how ineffective you are. You can’t see the big picture. What this country needs is a Princess Leia at the helm. That’s the type of leadership I provide.

Donald: See? That’s your problem. You need to think outside the box. Defaulting to worn stereotypes—where will that get you? You need to be different, stand out. Like a Brandon Sanderson novel.

Hillary: Are you comparing me to Vin? How kind.

Donald: Was I? I’m sorry, I misspoke. I don’t do that often. What I meant to say was, “You’re no better than Picard. Too old and too docile to “engage” with the changes and threats surrounding us today.

Hillary: I am most definitely capable, and I have a plan that makes sense to people. My agenda is simple. I want everyone to have the equal opportunity to live long and prosper.

Donald: While at the same time undermining their freedom, just like President Snow would. It’s a disgrace.

Hillary: No, your stance on any policies that matter is the disgrace. I have a plan. What do you have? A bunch of redshirts working for you?

Donald: You wanna talk about policies? Fine, let’s talk policies. I’m basically Tony Stark. Clean energy. Entrepreneurship. Advanced defense systems. And lots of money.

Hillary: Money doesn’t solve anything. Just ask any clichéd fantasy hero. It’s personal attributes that set the mediocre apart from the great. Sam Gamgee, who’s a personal hero of mine, is a perfect example.

Donald: My greatest attribute is my hair. Everyone envies my hair. Even Gandalf envies my hair.

Hillary: One thing Gandalf wouldn’t envy is your mind. Too similar to Saruman. Too deceptive and driven by your greed and need to destroy things.

Donald: You know what I think? You’re jealous. My charisma is too much for you. I’m basically Aragorn and Han Solo and The Doctor wrapped up in one perfect person.

Hillary: Your story reminds me of the beginning of one I’ve heard. It’s pitiful to say the least. “There was once a boy named Donald J. Trump, and he almost deserved it.”

Donald: I deserve everything. That’s what makes me amazing. Just like the Avengers. No one can stand against how amazing I am.

Hillary: Really? I think the word you’re looking for, logically speaking, is “prideful.” You’re a Vulcan. You think you know everything.

Donald: That’s because I do. I’m not a Vulcan. I’m Nick Fury. I have eyes everywhere.

Hillary: First, that’s a disturbing notion. Like the Flash losing his speed, only worse. And second, you can’t even decide which character you are. How can the people trust you to lead a nation?

Donald: Because I’m Batman. I’m the hero the people don’t deserve.

Hillary: Once again, that’s an outright lie. The way you twist the truth never ceases to amaze me. Did you receive instruction from Professor Snape?

Donald: I’m not a liar. This is how I describe myself. And it’s really accurate. You ready for this? Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist. Do you have anything to say to that?

Hillary: May the odds be ever in your favor. You’re going to need it.

Who do you think won this spec-fic-themed debate?

Shocking as it may seem to some, Christians were once a visible part of the motion picture industry. Christians also peopled state houses and even the White House. And Christians pretty much dominated speculative fiction for years and years.

At some point, Christian involvement in the film industry, in government, in speculative fiction, at least in the general market, faded into near non-existence. I suspect there are a number of other industries we could name that have followed the same pattern. The point here is that when Christians vacate a profession, it necessarily takes on qualities that contradict a Christian worldview.

How could it be otherwise?

The Christian worldview is built on grace and forgiveness. People who have not experienced God’s grace and forgiveness have a different paradigm under which they operate. Sin still enslaves those without Christ, and sin will surface.

As I may have mentioned in an earlier post, I’m watching the H&! All Star Trek reruns of all the Star Trek spin-offs. I love those shows. I love to compare the different Vulcans and different “evil races” and the different captains. I love the character development and the plot twists and the heroic, self-sacrificial attitudes and actions. But missing from the Star Trek universe is Jesus Christ.

Yes, there is a kind of Buddhist pantheism and there is a Hindu like religion, but the primary god of the Star Trek productions is human kind. Sentient beings are revered above all else, as is the right of each to choose for him or herself what he or she is to be and do.

None of this surprises me, and it doesn’t dissuade me from watching the programs. I don’t expect to find Christianity in Star Trek. Don’t misunderstand. I do find truth in Star Trek, so there are times when these different programs say something perfectly in sync with the Bible. But those are more apt to be the exception than the rule.

The point is, for the most part, Christians didn’t write the Star Trek episodes. As a result, Christianity simply isn’t present in the stories. I don’t recall a single reference to a church, to the Bible, or to the cross, and not to Jesus. It’s as if the future world the the Federation the Star Trek creators imagined had outgrown Christianity as it had violence.

The absence of violence is quite funny, actually—the star ship Enterprise roams the galaxy ferreting out new life and new civilizations, all in the name of peaceful exploration, though they’re armed to the teeth with photon torpedoes and phase cannons and all kinds of other weaponry.

So no violence and no Christianity. But weapons and other religions.

The same is true of literature. After C. S. Lewis we have Phillip Pullman, and after J. R. R. Tolkien we have Gorge R. R. Martin. Why? What happened to the “spiritual atmosphere” of an ancient story such as Beowulf?

I suspect scholars argue over why, but I don’t think there’s any denying the fact that Christians moved out of the storytelling industry, and more specifically, out of the speculative fiction industry. But when Christians vacate, that leaves non-Christians.

All this to say, it’s time believers make a concerted effort to reenter the speculative fiction industry. Christian writers have made great inroads. Enclave Publishing specializes in Christian speculative fiction, for instance, and Bethany House continues to be traditional Christian publisher that produces quality fantasy. Many Christian authors have gone the route of independent publishing, and a few have dipped their toes into the general market.

In other words, believers are pushing open the door to speculative fiction (just as others are trying to push open the door to the film industry). But I think it’s worth asking: what do we hope to accomplish?

Are Christians entering the realm of speculative fiction for no other reason than we like to stretch our imagination?

I know one school of thought says we glorify God when we write well. Which is fine. But fiction, like other writing, exists to communicate. So what are Christians communicating when we return to our place in speculative fiction? Is our fiction distinct? Do we settle for “clean”—because, after all, what separates a Christian from a non-Christian is that the former doesn’t swear. Or do porn.

Clearly, in life, the difference between a Christian and a non-Christian isn’t sinlessness. So why should sinlessness drive our fiction?

But the opposite, which seems to be gaining traction—show the world as it is—brings us back to the question: what is the distinctive of a speculative story told by a Christian? Is there a difference? Should there be a difference? If so, what is that difference? If not, isn’t that simply just another way of vacating the industry of Christian influence?

In 1995, the estate of Isaac Asimov published Gold, a collection of the late author’s short stories and essays. In one of the essays, a 1984 piece entitled “Religion and Science Fiction,” Asimov, a self-described atheist, wrote:

… It is impossible to write science fiction and really ignore religion. What if we find intelligent beings on other worlds. Do they have a religion? Is our God universal, and is he/she/it their God as well? What do we do about it? What do they do about it? … This point is almost never taken up but, since it would certainly arise if such beings were discovered in actual fact, science fiction loses touch with reality in taking the easy way out and pretending religion doesn’t exist.

That has, in my view, been one of the enduring difficulties of sci-fi. What role does religion play in a sci-fi narrative? Is God, or any deities, a part of that narrative? And how does that play into a realm where extraterrestrial life is a possibility?

Science fiction is a broad genre that encompasses literature, TV, and film, so it’s probably not surprising that the genre has answered these questions in a myriad of different ways. I want to focus here on three of the more significant approaches.

1. Ignore religion, or marginalize it to crackpot status.

When I first started reading science fiction as an adolescent, I began with the “grand masters,” including Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, and Isaac Asimov. In most of those books, the author either confined religion to a few naïve nuts, or pretended it didn’t exist at all. Asimov, in “Religion and Science Fiction,” admitted (in contradistinction to his comments above) that he didn’t write about religion unless he absolutely had to, and the same seems to have held true for many of the genre’s luminaries.

The kind of sci-fi the author is shooting for seems to shape how true this is. In my experience, hard science fiction, which is rooted in the natural sciences, is more likely to eschew religion than soft science fiction, which is rooted in the social sciences. Hard science fiction often places more emphasis on explaining everything – usually scientifically – and those explanations rarely seem to involve anything other than natural science. (See: The Martian.) Soft science fiction is more apt to explore matters of society and culture and thus more likely to incorporate religious elements. (See: Dune.)

2. Create a substitute for God (probably with aliens).

In 1997, Warner Bros. released Contact, a film based on the Carl Sagan novel of the same name. Both the book and the movie mostly portray religion as an obstacle to progress – in the film, Christian fanatics actually blow up a device meant to contact aliens – but the most interesting part of the whole storyline, to me, is the endgame. The film and book differ slightly in the climax, but in the film, the (atheist) protagonist, Ellie, meets and talks with powerful aliens who seek to help draw humanity into a larger galactic community.

When I first saw that scene, I thought, “wait, you just substituted a religious savior for an alien one.”

The “god-alien” archetype is remarkably common in science fiction. Heinlein, though not much for matters of faith, nevertheless concocted a hippie alien Jesus for his critically acclaimed Stranger in a Strange Land. Dune eventually turns its primary protagonist, Paul Atreides, into Muad’Dib, a quasi-god whose reign lasts … well, a very long time. Hyperion, which won the Hugo Award in 1990, featured a mysterious, almost supernatural being of immense power known as the Shrike.

God-aliens are even more prevalent on screen. Stargate – from the film to the various TV installments – turned practically every deity in Earth religious history as some wicked alien bent on destruction. Star Wars, which initially characterized the Force as a mysterious religious power, decided in Episode I to chalk all the pushing, mind tricks, and lightning up to an intelligent microscopic life form whose name I will not mention. And then there’s Star Trek, which was loaded with gold-aliens, from the Original Series (Gary Mitchell, Apollo, Trelane) and its subsequent films (V’Ger, Sha Ka Ree) to The Next Generation’s Q.

3. Explore religion

When Gene Roddenberry died in 1991, Star Trek changed in many ways, but none of them was more striking than the franchise’s approach to religion. (One Star Trek producer wrapped a blindfold around a bust of the late Trek creator.) Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, which debuted in 1993, made Commander (and later Captain) Benjamin Sisko a reluctant player in a galactic battle between two sides of Bajoran religion, the Prophets and the Pah Wraiths. Star Trek: Voyager’s first officer, Chakotay, a Native American, was easily the most high-profile character in franchise history to profess religion of any sort.

Other on-screen franchises have explored religion, both before and after Trek. Battlestar Galactica, in both of its incarnations, wove theological issues into its central consciousness, both from the vantage point of the humans and the Cylons. (The series finale also dipped its toes into god-alien territory.) Following Star Wars: Episode I, certain Force-creating life forms were never mentioned again, and by Episode VII the more mysterious nature of the Force was once again the norm.

As for literature? There isn’t a lot – outside of explicitly Christian fiction, at least – although there are some examples. Frank Herbert’s Dune is steeped in culture, with one of the more fleshed-out religions you’re likely to see in science fiction. Orson Scott Card, a Mormon, has written extensively, and respectfully, about religions of all kinds in his Ender and Bean novels.

Final thoughts

While Asimov’s point that “science fiction loses touch with reality in taking the easy way out and pretending religion doesn’t exist” is a noble one, as a matter of practice science fiction takes wildly divergent approaches to religion. And while TV and film seem to have made progress in grappling with these issues, sci-fi literature does not seem to explore religious issues to the same extent that other speculative fiction genres, like fantasy, do. To what extent that will change down the road? I have no idea.

So what do you think? What do you make of the current state of religion in science fiction? Are there any novels, shows, movies, or trends that I might have missed?

The latest movie from Wonderland, Alice Through the Looking Glass, just came out on DVD. I haven’t seen it yet, but I did see, and moderately enjoyed, the Tim Burton-directed first installment, Alice in Wonderland. Of course, nothing will ever compare to the epic mindtrip experience of the classic Disney cartoon. I loved Lewis Carroll’s fantastic books (and used to be able to recite the Jabberwocky poem from memory. I remember my excitement at realizing, after the seventh or eighth viewing of the cartoon, that the Cheshire cat was reciting this poem throughout the film).

Alice is certainly the central character in the books and movies, but the more recent film adaptations focus quite a bit on Johnny Depp’s Mad Hatter character. His take on this iconic character is quite memorable, as much for his abnormally large eyes as for his “madness.” This got me thinking: why did the film producers emphasize this character? Perhaps because it was one of the few humans in the story, and Johnny Depp dressed up as the Cheshire Cat might have come across more like Mike Meyers in The Cat in the Hat. Or perhaps it was because his “mad” character embodies what many people wish for: to be functional yet blissfully insane.

I don’t have much personal experience with mental illness, but there doesn’t seem to be anything enjoyable about true insanity. What is commonly portrayed in movies is usually far from the real thing. Movies like A Clockwork Orange or Fight Club give mental illness a punk rock edge that makes it almost fun in a way. The schedules and pressures of our technology-heavy, artificially busy modern lives takes its toll, and the movie version of madness can seem like a much-needed vacation. Characters like the Joker and Harley Quinn are also getting quite a lot of attention these days, and their particular flavor of madness is portrayed as destructive yet still whimsical and joyful, even cute in a way.

True insanity is a disease. There is nothing fun or desirable about it, and there are many other mental illnesses that are unfairly or incorrectly portrayed in entertainment. Exceptions do exist, of course, but serial killers are rarely charming, multiple personalities are rarely witty and sociable, and hallucinations rarely lead to anarchistic revolution. Mental disorders are often romanticized or softened or augmented with “extra ingredients.” There’s nothing inherently wrong about this, but like everything in the entertainment world, it should hardly be taken as a reflection of reality.

The Christian church does not have a good track record of dealing with mental illness, and this is also evident in Christian fiction. Issues like depression and schizophrenia do pop up now and then, along with more sensational disorders, but as with most uncomfortable topics, they are often minimized in Christian fiction. I would encourage you to drop by The Crossover Alliance blog for an excellent article and discussion about this very issue.

It would be nice if madness were confined only to Wonderland, but that isn’t the case. And since mental illness is such a real part of our world, it should be a real part of our stories as well.

The people of Geekville have spoken. The votes have been gathered by the Unicorn Delivery Service (UDS instead of UPS) and dutifully tallied by the Anonymous Dwarves Volunteer Association.

Prepare the confetti.

Let the drumroll begin.

It’s with great pleasure I announce the winner of this fictional election, as chosen by the upstanding citizens of Geekville…

STEVE ROGERS (aka Captain America)!!!

This was a landslide victory for Cap. The runner-up, Aragorn, received less than half the number of votes Cap did.

Based on this victory, it’s clear we know the type of leader we want. Someone who’s honest, unswerving in his convictions and values. Honor and strength radiate from him. He’s a man who can get the job done, even if it’s hard.

He’s not the leader the people deserve, but he’s the one they need. As promised, let’s take a look at how Cap proposes to fix some of today’s most pressing problems.

Captain America Policies

*Cap speaking*

I’m not perfect, not by a long stretch. But I’ve seen my fair number of regimes. I know the damage they can do, and I know what true freedom looks like. I’m willing to stand up to defend that freedom, whatever the cost.

As your elected leader, here are some ways I intend to address the pressing issues facing us.

PROBLEM: Unchecked immigration.

SOLUTION: This is clearly an area where S.H.I.E.L.D. must have jurisdiction. They are, without a doubt, the leading authority on illegal aliens. I would turn all operations over to their capable team.

PROBLEM: Insufficient quality in education.

SOLUTION: Hire experts in various fields to revitalize the education system. This will be accomplished by appointing a search committee headed by the renowned doctor, Stephen Strange.

PROBLEM: Threats from terrorism and hostile nations.

SOLUTION: No group is more qualified to deal with such dangers than the Avengers. Wherever threats arise, the Avengers will see the people protected.

PROBLEM: Lack of space exploration.

SOLUTION: Emphasize the need to explore, to expand our horizons. An excellent consultant in this matter would be Thor.

PROBLEM: Nuclear threats.

SOLUTION: With the help of leading scientists and experts, such as Tony Stark and Bruce Banner, I would develop a state-of-the-art security system to guarantee the safety of the citizens. Note: this endeavor would in no way mirror the Ultron initiative.

PROBLEM: Russian hacking.

SOLUTION: To combat this backdoor threat, I would select Natasha Romanoff. Her unquestionable knowledge in this area is a valuable asset. She would assemble and lead a specialized team tasked with searching out, identifying, and neutralizing any Russian attempts to undermine us.

PROBLEM: Big government.

SOLUTION: Reduce the number of departments. Privatize key sectors of the economy. In short, shrink the massive size of the government back to a manageable scope. An analogy may be helpful. Picture Hulk as he returns to normal. That’s what I propose to do with the government.

PROBLEM: Increasing violence.

SOLUTION: Spiderman is fully capable of and willing to defend the innocent and protect the weak.

PROBLEM: Tenuous foreign relations.

SOLUTION: Partner with Wakandan prince T’Challa to ensure re-forge strong relationships with foreign countries.

PROBLEM: Enormous amounts of debt.

SOLUTION: Tony Stark’s bank account.

In closing, as leader my chief concern is the freedom and safety of the people. Some may disagree with my policies. In fact, I expect it. Yet there comes a time when you must stand up and say, “No, you move.”

That is what I promise to you. I will not run from these problems. I will face them, doing so with unbending resolve. And I will do everything in my power to see them solved.

Thank you.

What problems do you think Captain America is best suited to address?