10/16/2006

Beyond What If

by Andrea J. Graham

The boiled down definition of speculative fiction is this is the genre that asks, “What if?” That’s the question that draws me to this genre, as I ask it far often than most would deem necessary; Discover Your Strengths labels this tendency that drives my loved ones up the wall Strategy.

Still, many have wondered how, “What if…” fits with the Christian faith. After all, what’s the point in asking, “What if Jesus was born in the year 3000 AD?” He wasn’t, after all, right? Or, Heaven forbid, “What if Jesus was really fathered by Joseph?”

The latter is the sort of question I hope no Christian author would even think of asking in their work. Speculation that departs from scripture, especially such a fundamental doctrine, would be irresponsible at best. Likewise, as ambassadors of Christ, we have a responsibility before God to represent His character as accurately as possible in all we do, including our fiction. That is why we must always seek a fuller understanding of Who He is, as revealed in scripture, since our understanding will be taught in our fiction whether we intend to do so or not.

Here on Earth, we might get away with misrepresenting Him, but we will have to answer to God. As such, biblical speculative fiction does not ask questions of this sort.

For the other type of question, the point actually isn’t, what if Jesus was born a thousand years from now? Of course he wasn’t. The point would be to copy-cat Eli, in order to present the gospel to a different audience, in a form they can more easily relate to.

On that same token, one could just as easily keep Jesus born when he was, and have an alien prophet like unto John the Baptist born in an alien star system, to point to Christ by modeling for his (or her) people what Christ did for all those created in the image of God. One need not actually believe that, as the bible doesn’t specifically cover the possibility of aliens and it’s difficult to argue from silence that something doesn’t exist. Regardless, such a tact would still portray the ministry of Christ in a sci-fi setting without changing history, although, alternative history can be a valid tact as well.

To go back to the whether aliens exist question, that very doubt is why I would wish to write such a story. “What if…” is fine and grand, it provides many wonderful questions, but for many of us, the question often takes a different form: “Has God created other races on other planets in His Image? If so, to what degree are they human? Do they suffer from our fall, or did they fall themselves? Is it possible an unfallen race exists somewhere? Is that the reason for the space rubbish nay-sayers claim make intergalactic travel at the speeds necessary to reach them in one lifetime impossible? What would happen if man found a way around that problem? If they are also fallen, would Christ’s sacrifice on earth atone for their sins, or would God find some other way to save them? If so, what? If the former, how would He choose to reveal the gospel?

Granted, some of these questions do have a what if behind them. After all, the subject is aliens, which may or may not exist. But less so are questions about our own future, especially when we extrapolate out based on God’s character. As fascinating the what ifs on things like aliens are, just as often, this is the realm the questions I ask in my fiction often fall into. For instance, in a short story currently under consideration for inclusion in Light at the Edge of Darkness, “Frozen Generation,” I began by asking myself, “If the humanity of unborn children, and subsequently their rights, are wholly dependant upon the mother’s choice, and we had the technology to bring them to term artificially, why wouldn’t society treat these ‘non-persons’ as property, use them for spare parts, or any other evil man can dream of?”

That is the real power of our genre. In any other genre, the theme would become overbearing and I would find myself merely preaching to the choir. Not necessarily a bad thing; in general, my focus is discipleship, not evangelism. Still, by asking questions rather than simply giving answers, I allow readers the freedom to answer the questions however they choose.

This approach has certain risks, namely how a reader interprets a story, or, what they draw out of it, will depend on how they answer the questions presented. In “Frozen Generation,” for instance, one might answer my question with, “because that would be greedy and unethical” and simply see a story where technology is abused in a world ruled by Mammon. Others might focus on the question of what ethical standard would prohibit this in a secular society and ignore what current issues such practices might have evolved out of.

Still others will read “Frozen Generation” purely for their pleasure and ignore such questions altogether, but the seed nevertheless will have been planted. That is the true power of the what-if genre. Such a person would not have even picked up the story if I had taken the direct approach, but rather feel like I had wielded a bible like a hammer. This also makes the what-if treatment quite biblical. Did not Jesus follow the rabbinical tradition of answering questions with questions? Is this not more likely to get readers of various persuasions thinking on the issues presented and regardless provide a wider window for God to use to draw people to Himself?

8 comments:

Elliot said...

The question of the 'alternate history' and the life of Christ was discussed by myself and a few other bloggers several months back. My post is here: http://clawoftheconciliator.blogspot.com/2006/05/alternate-christs.html - it links to the other blog posts.

kc said...

You know, a year or two ago, we had this whole aliens and other worlds discussion on the Ted Dekker discussion board. It proved very interesting--we batted around every question you postulated here and came to some unified and not so unified conclusions.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
God bless,
Karri

Anonymous said...

Dan, we don't know the future, and the advent of Christ proved prophecy only makes sense after the fact, so I would disagree that futuristic writing has anything at all to do with questioning God's Sovereignty. Indeed, "God is Sovereign" could actually be the theme of a futuristic piece.

The question you have to boil it down to in approaching spec fic is, "what does this story say about God?" If the story accurately depicts God's character, the gospel, the five fundamentals, and so forth, it's biblical. Areas the bible has spoken on, specifically, are off-limits if you want your spec fic to be biblical. That still leaves areas, such as aliens, where the bible is silent--as long as the worlds we create make sense in light of what we know of God's Character.

I agree, though, spec fic writers that consider themselves Christians (I'll leave sorting the wheat from the chaff to God) are often sloppy in their application of theology. Too often, they don't give a whit, and it really shows.

BTW, audience has zero impact on the need for correct theology. Whether you're writing pre-evangelical, evangelical, or post, your first audience is God and He expects our work to be theologically sound, at the least to the best of the author's knowledge (which we ought to be growing in all the time, but that's another topic)

This doesn't mean sinners shouldn't sin in our stories, of course they will. But the wages of sin had better be death, if you know what I mean. It comes down to, does the depiction encourage or discourage the behavior?

Andrea Graham said...

alt-history is irrelevant in my view, as I don't write alt-history and don't entirely disagree on that point. And God's character comes into play in all stories, not just those where he appears on stage. When we're world building, we're walking in our creator's footsteps, and we need to ask that question. As the Heavens declare His Majesty, so should our worlds reflect who He is on some level. Besides, all stories say something about God, intentionally or not. It's nigh impossible to escape that. Nothing may be said specifically, yes, like in Ruth or Esther, but the worldview is still evident and the light, or lack there of, shines through.

Of course there are disagreements in the christian world, the cessasionist should write a story that reflects God as they understand Him, just as the pentecostal or charismatic should write a story that reflects God as they understand Him. On nonessentials especially, we are only responsible for what we know.

He who lives by the sword, dies by the sword. the dictators that stand out in my mind all ended up dying at the edge of their own sword. Sin does have consequences and it's irresponsible at best to indicate otherwise. Whether they appear to "get away with it" or not, sin is wrong and any book that portrays otherwise, and god forbid, glorifies sin, isn't Christian, period.

cyn said...

Andrea and Dan,

I don't think anyone would disagree with Andrea's statement about the need for writers to ensure their work is theologically-sound. However, as a publisher I have seen firsthand the situation Dan mentions: no two denominations agree on everything, e.g./ the spec-fic anthology we are currently promoting. Several of the stories (or elements of the stories) created a real controversy among the authors! As editor I made the decision that (in regards to theology) if the story conformed to the "essentials" it was going to be considered for inclusion.

We have a group of good writers with a flair for Biblical Spec-fic. However, we have folks who hold different eschatological beliefs/ thoughts--despite this, included in the book is a story that essentially challenges premillennialism.

Another example is a story that will challenge many people's beliefs about which sins are/ are not covered by Christ's blood.

And further, two of our authors, have penned riveting thrillers (read: horror) that scared the pants off me! These stories definitely have a specific audience--they aren't made for pre-evangelical/ evangelical purposes! And, there are certain to be people who challenge aspects of the theology contained in these stories.

Augustine's rubric comes in handy in this sticky situation:
"In Essentials, Unity. In Non-Essentials, Liberty. In all Things, Clarity."

Daniel I Weaver said...

You guys have really kept a great discussion going here. Good work. Dan (or should I call you "The other Dan?")did a great job pointing out a lot of the controversy surrounding the very concept of Christian Spec Fic. Andrea, great challenges and points made as well.

To thrown my own two cents into this (as one of those two authors that scared off Cynthia's pants), I'm right in the thick of the "debate" as a "horror" writer. I've always classified my work as Supernatural Thrillers simply because I don't write just for the sake of scaring anyone, but more to show a "supernatural" twist on things and impart my Christian worldview. In horror, you get right into the thick of things. Do ghosts exist? How much interaction do demons really have in our lives? What exactly are the Biblical restrictions on using Angels? Etc.

Frank coined the LGG introduction and said "we own the rights on fallen angels", but I would argue that Christian writers should own the rights on all angels. After all, we're the only ones that have any Biblical support to write anything about them. And fallen or not, angels are angels, right? And so on, so on...

Anyway, the point is, the controversy won't go away. In some ways, I personally consider that one of the saddest points. I've never written an alternate past story, but I can off-hand imagine a few ways to do it that wouldn't actually challenge God's sovereignty. Is it really fair to say that anything we write outside the realm of accepted reality isn't Godly? Whether or not it is, some people will think so no matter what success we see. Peretti and Dekker certainly step outside the realm of what spec-fic nay-sayers might tote as "acceptable," but they move more books (and consequentially touch more lives) than a lot of other authors out there. How many Spec Fic writers mention Peretti's Darkness books in their list of "most influential reads"?

As Christians, no matter what we write or say, there will be those that speak negatively or those that don't agree with some aspect of what we do. And to Andrea's point, the relevant thing is to make sure that we're always focusing on our primary audience. It's so much easier to please One than to please the world. He is the only one that matters. And if your greatest story since sliced bread never sees a bookstore's shelves, you'll know that you did your best for Him.

Andrea Graham said...

To clarify, and I think I said this before, we are primarily responsible for our work lining up with our own theology/doctrines and what we know of God's character, what we understand to be pleasing to him. Of course, on a personal level, we should all be striving to come to a fuller and more complete understanding of who He is. We should exercize some caution, though, in that we will be held accountable before God for any false doctrines we spread in our work.

Rebecca LuElla Miller said...

Interesting discussion, but I don't agree with Dan's opening point: The problem with all spec fic is that it will--by its very nature of being speculative--deviate from God's reality.
For the Christian, this presents massive issues.


I think we are forgetting the concept of "pretend." Spec fic does not deviate from God's reality because it does not purport to be REAL. It is make-believe, and we as fiction writers must not lose sight of that point.

This is why I am not whole-heartedly in agreement with Andrea about the idea that what the Bible calls evil we must also call evil.

To be honest with you, I have no plans to write about witches at all, let alone good witches. But did the author of The Wizard of Oz cross some forbidden line by writing in a good witch?

And is depicting witches as good, helpful, positive only wrong when we name them witches? (See the last Pirates of the Caribbean movie or Mary Poppins or Cinderella and her Fairy Godmothers).

In other words, I think when the code word which has become synonymous in some people's minds for "evil" is included, then there is the automatic stamp of disapproval. But if only character portrayal is present, readers/viewers (and most critics) seem to have no problem regarding the character as pretend.

It is the truth couched within the pretend that we need to be alert to, and in fact teach our children to recognize.

Becky