Subtle Fictional Christianity: What and Why?

Over the past few months of 2006, and in the recent cool discussion following (and including) Stuart's Tuesday post, I've come across repeated calls for subtler Christian speculative fiction. As I’ve read the discussions online, I'm starting to think I'm not at all clear on what is meant.

No, really. I'm not dumb. I'm just unsure if I'm reading into it rather than getting the true gist. Multiple "gists" may apply. If it means X certain things—I'm okay with those. If it means this other Y thing—it makes me want to tear heads off with my furious teeth. In sisterly Christian love, naturally. Ahem.

Does the use of "subtle" as an adjective mean:

1. Let's include more dealings of the daily experience of the Christian (or pseudo-fantasy Christian), not just throw in a whiz-bang "come to Jesus" moment.
2. Let's examine some of the more difficult aspects of our doctrines, such as the paradoxes, the mystery of grace, or the reconciling of regeneration in the new birth with continued sin in the daily life.
3. Let's not have preachers and church sermons and everyone sounding like a catechism. Let's just have people living out faith normally as they do the wash and date and eat shrimp scampi or fried Zeta Rigellian sandlizards.

Or is the meaning ...
4. Let's tone down that Christian stuff , keeping it so low-key, so courteously discreet, that maybe only Christians themselves would pick up on it. And maybe not even them.



Well, the first few possibilities are laudable. The last one ticks me off like you wouldn’t believe.

I ask, “You want non-obvious Christianity, Christianity that whispers and doesn't call attention to itself?"



All right.

Stick with the ABA SF houses and editors. The atheists and secular humanists and anti-Christians will be happy to provide readers with barely discernible to non-Christian stories. Christian-wary editors and agents will happily take your free-of-overt-religiosity work, if it's good and they think it will sell. Great writers populate the ABA SF. It's a bigger arena and they've been producing more and better SF than CBA publishers. They let you speculate big and bold. (But even they have their limits: Try writin a novel with an anti-homosexual premise or one that glorifies Patriarchy. See how far you get.)


But I'm writing for and targetting the CBA. A rough row to hoe, I do know, and not my first choice. I’m doing that after much prayer and hesitancy about it. The deciding factor was—is—that I am writing, and want to be able to write in future, stories of OBVIOUS faith.


I'm working with characters who have to deal with the spiritual, like it or not. There's obvoius and vigorous faith—and obvious and vigorous antipathy to faith, as well. Knowing I'm targeting CBA leaves me free to delve into deep aspects of religious experience—the process of apostasy, of repentance, the experience of conversion, the mysteries of the nature of Supreme Beingness, the riddles of prophecy—AND the subtler quotidian aspects: choosing to be hospitable out of love of God, a small act of mercy because it's the right thing to do. Or ever the daily events of a rougher world: a hurriedly whispered prayer while nursing an insane friend, or anointing a child sick with a new plague— believing that can make a difference—or refraining from killing an enemy out of obedience to sacred text, even when every part of you wants to run them through with a blade.

I can touch on doubt, on questions of what is right and wrong in difficult scenarios, on temptation resisted or given into, on sexual matters, on all sorts of things that we struggle with daily as believers in a hostile world. I may write stuff that is unplaceable—I know this—but I do not want to write a story where I have to rub out the spiritual component, the clearly Evangelical overlay.

Cause I'm an evangelical believer.

My WIP’s character is an apostate surviving in a society hostile to a certain sect of believers. Anyone who doesn't toe the government's line about acceptable religions is in deep doodoo. And my persecuted believers do have community and vibrant faith and, yes, miracles, and battling against spiritual and secular evil, and yes, crises of faith. Stuart has listed these as cliché or predictable items in Christian spec-fic. I consider them typical aspects of Christian life from ancient times to the present. I'm not surprised Christians will have it in their fiction. I'm not surprised I have it in mine.

If that is obvious, so be it. I'm gonna be obvious; because I'm tired of NOT seeing who I am reflected in speculative fiction.

I am a religious being. My day includes reading ancient and sacred texts that sometimes don't make sense, speaking to a higher being who sometimes seems not to be listening, and asking that higher being to act in my life and in my world, even when the world seems to deserve nothing but to be blown to bits by the Creator. I make hourly decisions on what I allow my mind to dwell on and weekly decisions on how I spend my money, always with an awareness of God’s expectations of me. Everything—EVERYTHING—is about right and wrong to a Christian. Everything is about loving God. What we war. Who we marry. How we treat strangers. How much we do or do not drink. Who we allow to be a bosom pal. What we teach our kids. How we treat our parents. How we face death. How we face taxes. For some, even the very food that goes into their mouths is a moral decision guided by love or fear of God. That’s part of my Christian daily life—constant self-examination and constant awe and constant analysis. It's not a closet religion for me. It's air and water.



It’s gonna show in my novel. How can it not?

I am a Christian.That is more important than being Cuban-born, than being an American citizen, than being female, than being a writer. I do not apologize for being Christian in my thoughts and speech and decisions and actions, even if I do apologize for failing my Lord in my gluttony and lust and coveting and self-centeredness and arrogance. I will not apologize if I make characters just like me. That is my reality and my truth.



And here is my big question of the day: Why should I or my fellow Christians have to be subtle?




Joanna Russ and Sheri Tepper and Ursula Le Guin and Margaret Atwood get heaps of praise: They aren't subtle about their feministic ideology being overt in what they write. (Or overt religion bashing on occasion.) Samuel Delany was not subtle in infusing his work with gay sexuality like his own sexual experiences. Other writers have not been subtle in their positions on consumerism or Darwinism or militarism or conservationsim or secular humanism or demanding space exploration. What they believe shows up on the page.



Why do Christians need to be subtle about Christianity?

Is it to not ruffle feathers? To be palatable.




This is a sore point with me. Some segments of our society vehemently want us to shut up and go pray in a closet and keep our beliefs to ourselves and out of the public square and voting booth—and even the artistic square. "Play nice. Don't talk about sin or salvation or hell. That's so judgmental and so cliche."



Christian fiction should not be quiet about what it is to be Christian.



Speculative Christian Fiction should not be ashamed to work in Christian elements freely and broadly.


I believe authors should be free to pursue subtle or overt religiosity as their creative impulses move them. I would examine it from a craft perspective: Did the faith aspects fit the milieu and tone and premise of their work and the nature of their characters? Was it entertaining and not just didactic? Was it well-written? It's all about the story working. If religion springs organically from characters and worlds and the author's mental and emotional fibers, and if the work's fashioned with attention to craft and artistic vision, I believe it will work, whether overt or subtle in matters of faith.



And sometimes I wonder if what we're critiquing is, at core, ineffective writing, but we're calling it something else—too much religion or too preachy or too allegorical.


I will stand firm on this: I think it's dangerously close to a form of bigotry to tell Christians to tone down their Christianity. And when Christians rally around this, I can't help but ask, "How come?"

I know there are good answers, clear answers. I'd like to hear them.



That doesn't change the feact that I'm sick of hearing how Narnia suffers artisticaly because it has blatant parallels to Christianity. Right, gimme a break.


Do we tell black authors to tone down their blackness? (I dare you to suggest such to Toni Morrison or Terri MacMillan.) Go and tell Hispanic best-serllers to bring down the level of their cultural references? (Yeah, like Sandra Cisneros and Julia Alvarez and Gabriel Garcia Marquez are gonna listen to that without snorting.) Tell gays to tone down the gay sexual perspective. (I'm ready to hear what Edmund White and Jeanette Winterson and Tony Kushner have to say to you when you do.) And please, tell me, would you have told Isaac Bashevis Singer or Bernard Malamud to stop with the blatant Jewish stuff? Maybe Faulkner and O'Connor were just to dang Southern.



Kushner and Morrison and Singer, in their works, are blatant about and what they believe and who they are: gay, black, Jewish. And they got awards for it—Tonys, Nobel prizes, etc.



Why should Lewis have been less Christian?

I think that's a good question to ask, for Lewis and for our current crop of Christian speculative authors.


I'm not a subtle Christian. I wear a cross jewelry often to declare what I believe, not just to be trendy. (I own several, from a delicate and pricey gold and amethyst one, to my silver and amber one, to my silver and turquoise one, to my "goth look" three-inch long studded cross, to my Celtic one.) I wear a chunky, tough, "I mean business" cross ring on my right hand when I'm in an "in your face" mode—usually after I hear someone say something about "those right wing nutjob Christians." I talk God. I sing God, I read God. I've worn buttons that had Bible verses. I've stood out in the street with an ABORTION KILLS CHILDREN signs, because I believe that we insult God by permitting it. I've marched in religious processions down urban streets, singing hymns to all who would listen. I may put a big Celtic cross in my yard next year, if I find a really big one that I like and a hurricane won't sweep into the Atlantic.



But—what?—I have to suddenly go all demure about what I believe when I write a novel? That bastion of self-expression and ideological exploration?

Maybe Dante should have written THE DIVINE COMEDY: A Nice Secularish Stroll Through Florentine Improvisational Comedy With No Relation To Heaven or Hell.



Maybe Milton should have written PARADISE LOST: How My Vacation in the Lake Country Went Awry And Satan Had Nothing WhatsoeverTo Do With It.

So, yeah, Lewis was better off just writing THE LION (who is not a Christ Figure) THE WITCH (who is politcally correctly good and has no connection to the devil) and THE WARDROBE (which has no offensive furs!): Aslan Lets Children Ride His Strong Back, The Witch Passes Out Turkish Delight That Does No Harm, and Then Everyone Goes Home To Tea Before an Obtrusive Christian Symbol can Rear Its Furry Head.



When I write Hispanic characters, I don't feel a need to hold back the Cuban aspects or the religious tapestry of the immigrant community I grew up in. When I write a female protagonist, I don't feel the need to quench my femaleness as I create her, and that may mean how she acts sexually and religiously as a woman. So, why am I asked to quench what is as much a part of me as my gender and my ethnicity when I write a spiritual character and world?



I'm really hoping there is a semantic discrepancy. I'm hoping what people—Christians— really want is better craft, stronger stories, more vivid and new worlds—not less overt faith.


So. . . What do YOU mean by SUBTLE Christian elements in Speculative Fiction? And why do you pursue it? And where am I just not getting this?





(Next week: What is Christian Speculative Fiction, anyway? Two Propositions and My Take On It.)


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Mir, Friday's Femme: An Introductory Ramble

I'm Mirtika. Or Mir. Or Mirta Ana. Take your pick.

I advise you stick to the shorter one, the one that's easy to type and recalls a defunct space station. How apropos. The one like the word for "peace." Perhaps less apropos given my excitable nature. The one that sort of sounds like the first word in a C.S. Lewis classic, which I read, reread, and still love.

Mir.

You might know me from Mirathon, my main blog. Or from ACFW. Or from The Sword Review, whose last two contests (one fiction, one poetry) were won by. . . er . .. me. Or from the DKA forum, since I edit over at that web-zine.

Or you may have happened upon this cheery-looking site while browsing and are sitting there, debating why you should bother to come back, especially on my scheduled days for rambling, ranting, relating, and even rabble-rousing: Fridays.

Here's why:

1. I believe wonder is important for the mind and soul.

2. Modern life—its pace and expectations—has a way of leeching wonder from the world.

3. Science fiction and fantasy—most especially fantasy—have a way of restoring fresh wonder to our lives, even if just for an hour or two at a time.

4. Christianity is a faith full of mystery and marvels, a faith that— if we are fully open to it—adds immense wonder to our lives.

So, mix all that and you get why you ought to come back: You want more wonder in your life, and CSF might be one part of having more than a "mere" type of reading experience.

Pun intended.

I told you that the shorter name would do.

The Introductory Part:
(Here's where you try to stay awake just to be polite.)

I was born sickly. I grew up and still am sickly. When your body betrays you, you find refuge in the imagination. I barely remember big stretches of my life because I was somewhere else, mentally, somewhere full of magic and power where I could grow a tail and gills at will, where I could fly and wield improbably weapons, where I kept the world safe, and where stars talked to me. I read about Pegasus and Theseus and wondered what Procruste's bed looked like, even if I never wanted to nap there. I made up poems about Psyche and Cupid or Pyramis and Thisbe or Hero and Leander or Hector and Adromache.

And then I turned 16 and discovered a BRAVE NEW WORLD— and a whole new genre.

After being shocked by Huxley's dystopia, I goggled at Michael Valentine Smith, that quite strange and hippified stranger in a strange land—choose which was the stranger, there (Mars) or here (Earth)—and thought, "There must be more and better." That much I grokked.

There was better. There was DUNE.

I cannot begin to tell you what that novel did to me. I've never recovered. I hurried to the local bookstore and begged for "MORE LIKE THIS, MISS!" I read the sequels, which were not as wonderful as the original. I started scouring the SF section of Walden's. I read THE HOBBIT and was underwhelmed. (Don't shoot me. I was sixteen!)

But I always felt a bit hurt that the novels and stories didn't include the kind of spiritual dimension that was crucial to my life since the instant God saved me from my sins and changed my perspective on...everything.

DUNE, at least, had some spirituality—transformed as it was—and a Messiah figure. THE HOBBIT had a superb act of mercy (providential), even if there is no overt Christianity that I can recall. Most of what I read was either functionally atheistic—particularly the sci-fi—or limited in the religious to what was a type of pantheistic or gothic dark powers sort of world. Or mythology. Or technology masquerading as gods.

I discovered new authors in college: Le Guin, Ellison, Lee, Tiptree. The last three remain favorites. Ellison is the only writer to whom I wrote a hand-written thank you card. And he is an author who wrote one story I cannot read, because it is blasphemous to my religious mind. (I am vast; I contain multitudes and contradictions; although mostly I am, from all the pizza and enchiladas and meat samosas, just vast.)

Still, references to religion—when they were there—tended not to be complimentary.

Then, when I was twenty-three and yet again stuck in bed with an extended illness, I caved and read a book I had tried to read in high-school: The Fellowship of the Ring. This time, I got past the initial slow set-up and got hooked, barely stopping to sleep or eat. I rushed through the tale to its conclusion.

But you couldn't accuse Tolkien of obvious spirituality.

A few years ago, I happened upon an SF trilogy in a Christian bookstsore, one that had what my earlier SF forays did not: a contemporary sci-fi feel with a message that didn't blaspheme or ignore the true faith of the One, but rather upheld it: the reworked Firebird trilogy. That's when I realized that something just might be happening in Christian publishing circles if this was on a Family Book Store shelf.

But the offerings were far and few thereafter. I will not name names, but many of the Christian SF fare left me cold and without the ooooohs and aaaaaahs and whooooas I had come to expect from the best SF.

And now, here I am, middle-aged, not able to read as much as once, memory spotty, but finding folks who want to see what I've longed to see: high quality specualtive fiction that includes a thriving spirituality compatible, friendly to, reminiscent of, echoing Christianity. And I've found that the Christian bookstore is offering me a bit more and some better stuff in the last couple years.

We're not gonna win a Hugo yet, but, there's hope. Maybe. A window is open, but it could close.

We are here to help pry it farther open.

Now, For The Part Where I Vex Some of You:

I do not expect, I do not WANT, Christian SF to be absolutely, down-to-the-Westminster-Confession-or-Nicean-Creed Christianity. It can be. But I find it unrealistic that modern-day Christianity in OUR world transfers right into another world where the rules are different, or to a far future colony of earth where the environment and distance will have an effect. Expressions of faith change. We don't dress or eat or work or live or talk like Old Testament believers or New Testament Christians. Or medieval ones. Or Puritans. (Most of us, anyway.) Imagine Cotton Mather or St. Paul visiting an emergent church with cushy chairs and a rock band whose lead singer is a nose-pierced girl with pink and green dreadlocks wearing a tank top and torn jeans. For that matter, imagine Abraham using the term "personal savior" or David sitting quietly in some pew, ready to go through the staid motions of high liturgy where spontaneous clapping or dancing would be veboten or Peter pitching the Holy Spirit like some softball across a stage: No, don't think so.

In 2366, what will Christians on Earth or on a distant frontier planet say and do, while believing the eternal Way?

In The Land of The Seven Sailmasters, what rituals of faith develop to help lifelong warrior lords cope with sentient and malicious seas in a flat world that's 90% dangerous waterways? What face and form does their Savior take?

I want authors out there (and me right here) to have the freedom to be creators of new worlds, new vocabularies of faith, worlds and vocabularies that don't have Churchese, Christianese, and "Praise the Lords!" (necessarily), but that have true faith in unexpected expressions and true morality in eye-popping scenarios. Yes, virtuous dragons. Yes, colonists who recreate Eden, complete with no fig leaves. Yes, dimension-walkers who sing mystic hymns to open doors to other universes in need of truth. (My idea, back off!) I want to see boundaries expanding without breaking the back of what we believe. Maybe training that back into a more agile backbend or a longer reach.

First, though, I'd just like to see a solid readership/support base and a solid publishing commitment to Christian SF (in future, CSF). That means here, now, in this place, we pray and we write and we talk and we dream and we discuss and we support and we promote. Read our reviews, when we offer them. Buy the books, if they appeal to you. Or even if they don't: Buy them for someone to whom they may appeal. Talk about the stories, the novels, the poems that honor truth. Share them with us. Let us pry open your curiosity. Spread the word. Let's be a community that says, "Give us these stories and verses and mini-series. Give us new and wonder-filled tales. Let whole new universes unfold and proclaim, 'God lives.'"

It goes back to wonder. I want to be left wide-eyed and astonished and challenged and enraptured by CBA CSF, the way DUNE left me. The way LORD OF THE RINGS left me. The way MORE THAN HUMAN and THE BIRTHGRAVE left me. The way NEVERWHERE and SANDMAN left me. The way ALICE IN WONDERLAND and BABYLON 5 left me. The way FOUNDATION left me. The way ENDER'S GAME and BtVS and FIREFLY left me.

I am hungry for magical and dazzling sights and sounds and people and places and problems and solutons—all of them breathed on by One who is more amazing still.

Are you hungry, too?

Starting next week—for this is our introductory week, so you had to put up with our hi-how-are-yas, you know?—I want to get into some meaty issues. I may be totally whack in my forthcoming opinions. Tell me if you think so. I can take it. Or I may bite gently back. You can take it. Or I may hit a nail head now and then. Agree with me loudly. I like that best.

Do not be silent.

Unless it's silence in the face of wonder.

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What Is Speculative Faith

We are writers who share two passions—a genre and a Savior.

The genre is speculative literature. That 's the umbrella term that covers fantasy, science fiction, and allegory in all forms: short story, novella, novel, screenplay, and poetry.

The Savior is Christ. That is the faith part.

Genre + Christ: Speculative Faith

This team blog, Speculative Faith, will offer you our individual perspectives—and we don't always agree—on any matter that resides in that spacious spot where our faith and our preferred genre blend.

And we're an idealistic, motivated group:

~~ We believe that there is a diverse and sizable audience hungry for Christian speculative literature.

~~We want to find you.

~~We want you to find us.

~~We want to mobilize a reading and writing community that will impact the future editorial acquisitional decisions of CBA publishing houses. Right now, they are not favorably inclined toward speculative fiction.

~~We want better and more varied and just plain MORE novels from CBA publishing houses in our genre.

~~We intend to promote the good speculative literature out there, works that showcase talent as well as spiritual truth.

Does all that excite you? Had you given up hope of ever finding such novels—and enough of them—to suit your reading needs?

Do you believe this, as we do? — Truth and wild imaginings are not incompatible. Space operas, allegories, Tolkienesque fantasies, hard science fiction tales, science fantasies, hip urban fantasies, magical realism stories, slipstream novels, surreal poetry. . . God can be glorified in these types of creative expressions.

We're out to blaze trails. Come with us.

Saddle up your dragons. It's time to fly into the wide and burning sky of Speculative Faith!


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Faith and Fantasy

Christians talk about SF