Christian Science Fiction

Discussion in 'Science Fiction' started by Zadocfish, Feb 2, 2017.

  1. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

    Joined:
    Aug 1, 2016
    Messages:
    22,569
    Likes Received:
    25,883
    Location:
    East devon/somerset border
    This is true - I've contemplated writing a second coming story where Jesus returns and essentially says "Dude WTAF this is not what He meant you to do in my name... " On the whole i'd prefer not to wind up like Salman Rushdie though so may be i'll pass
     
  2. NoGoodNobu

    NoGoodNobu Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Sep 19, 2016
    Messages:
    1,392
    Likes Received:
    1,975
    I'm actually fascinated by how a Christian is to be a good citizen AND stand by their code of ethics within a democracy.

    Because I believe according to one of Paul's epistles that Christians are told to be obedient & respectful of their rulers and the laws of the land, with the only exception of when an edict instructed them to perform a direct contradiction to a law of God (And furthermore, it was supposedly penned with Paul in prison and when Nero was emperor torching christians for lamp light, which would give heftier weight to the whole "obey your ruler" spiel me-thinks)

    But in a (direct/indirect) democracy, clearly Christians can't/won't vote against their conscience of Biblical morality—and yet it isn't the Christian's job to police nonbelievers into conforming to a Christian "moral lifestyle" (only to abide by it themselves, and hopefully convert others into the religion)

    This creates an interesting tension.

    To my mind, there are two ways to look at it.

    You are writing imaginative fiction, so fantasy (and probably sci-fi) needn't have any bearing or correlation to reality. You could easily write a children's story with a talking rabbit without anyone batting an eye—doesn't mean real rabbits can talk or that you need to provide an indepth explanation on how it correlates to your real life religious beliefs. I don't see why that can't apply to all genres in general.

    Or if you do want it still under the premise of the same Judeo-Christian Creator, just apply it to His existing attributes and motives. If there's magic, it doesn't need to be witchcraft. Maybe God just grants more sick miracle abilities to His followers. Or maybe magic is just like any other special skill & ability we've been equipped with. God created man in His image? Well, then maybe whatever magic or powers mankind has is reflective of God (but like everything after the Fall, is now corrupted & distorted by man's sin). I'm sure you can apply the same types of reasonings to space travel and aliens and pseudo-science or whathaveyou.

    I don't think a Christian should have any more trouble writing any genre of literature any more than a Muslim, Buddhist, Atheist, or anybody of any persuasion or flavour. (An argument might be made against Erotica, but then Songs of Solomon likes poetically elucidating on the joys of oral sex so〜)
     
    Elven Candy and Catrin Lewis like this.
  3. Phil Mitchell

    Phil Mitchell Banned Contributor

    Joined:
    Jun 14, 2015
    Messages:
    590
    Likes Received:
    247
    The witchcraft issue again goes back to your demographic. Orthodox or moderate (modern interpretation).

    I don't think fear of witches has any place in a modern Christianity. Wiccans are really just a bunch of incence burning hippies that don't actually do anything.
     
  4. Catrin Lewis

    Catrin Lewis Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Community Volunteer

    Joined:
    Jan 28, 2014
    Messages:
    4,406
    Likes Received:
    4,755
    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    Good replies in general above, and I say that as a practicing Christian and yes, as an ordained minister, myself (There. I've outed myself). @Zadocfish, when you talk about not wanting to follow C. S. Lewis, were you talking about the Narnia series only, or were you including the Space Trilogy? I think that even if you don't follow Lewis's specific pattern in the ST, you can operate under his principle that the same God created the whole universe and therefore what happens on any planet, known or imaginary, would be under His sovereignty, no matter what the inhabitants believed.

    So you can have your interplanetary people thinking and practicing and believing in whatever cosmology you might devise, and you can still glorify God (and enjoy Him forever!) as long as your characters experience the natural limitations of their "human" systems (Notice I said natural, not arbitrary or forced), and as long as you the author avoid giving the reader the impression you're denying the existence of God as Lord of the universe.

    When it comes down to it, there are no "Christian" books, only Christians writing books about human (or otherwise-creaturely) experience under the hand of God. In your case, you can write about characters who are aware of the Triune God, and you can write about those who aren't. Both can glorify God. There will be curbs that your own conscience may impose; I, for one, could not write a zombie novel as the phenomenon strikes me as a perversion of the resurrection, nor could I publish a story where evil triumphs and the reader is to consider that to be a good thing. What will make your work "Christian" are the themes you work into them and the care you take to put out the very best work you can.

    And on that topic . . . From one Christian writer to another, please, please, please do not fall into the trap of saying, "God has called me to write, so I don't have to study and struggle to hone my craft: all the ability I need will magically come down from heaven." Don't fool yourself by thinking--- not that you would--- "I can be amateurish as I like; I can spew chozzerai (pig slop) all over the page, and if readers don't like it, I'm being persecuted for my faith." No, no, no. Talk about taking God's name in vain. NO.
     
    Last edited: Feb 12, 2017
  5. LostThePlot

    LostThePlot Naysmith Contributor

    Joined:
    Dec 31, 2015
    Messages:
    2,398
    Likes Received:
    2,026
    I think this is certainly what authors should be aspiring to. Approaching a book as a work of a Christian instead of a Christian book is a subtle difference but one that is really important. Letting a book be a book first and foremost matters to the work. Even when you have a specific message you want to get across that should come from the plot and the characters rather than from the writer name checking the message every few pages. To look at it from another tack; books like 1984 and Animal Farm are wonderfully allegorical and incisively communicate their message without directly telling the reader what the message is. Same for the Narnia books, frankly. As an adult it's so obvious how Christian they are but as a kid, especially as a kid who went to a church school and knew the Christian idiom well, it genuinely never occurred to me. I can't speak to how many people felt that (or indeed how many people were informed before hand that Narnia books were Christian-approved) but that seems to be where you want to be aiming.

    To paraphrase (somewhat sacrilegiously) from Futurama; when you've done it right people won't be sure you've done anything at all. A work that can be enjoyed just as an SF book but that can/will connect more deeply to people who do want to see it.
     
    Alan Aspie and Catrin Lewis like this.
  6. Catrin Lewis

    Catrin Lewis Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Community Volunteer

    Joined:
    Jan 28, 2014
    Messages:
    4,406
    Likes Received:
    4,755
    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    You will also want to check out the work of Bryan Davis, a Christian who writes YA Science Fiction/Fantasy. I'm not into that genre that much so I haven't read his work. But he has a series of YouTube writers' conference videos that are of value, whatever your genre.
     
  7. LostThePlot

    LostThePlot Naysmith Contributor

    Joined:
    Dec 31, 2015
    Messages:
    2,398
    Likes Received:
    2,026
    I broadly speaking wrote that book, or at least riffing on that theme. The main character is, fundamentally, a Christ figure in that world. He is, literally, the son of god. Or at least he's the son of a cult leader who's father dies leaving him to lead the church at fifteen. His father is this fire and brimstone old testament preacher, but his son was mostly raised by a woman in the church who taught him almost literally to follow in Christ's footsteps. So he's this boy-king try to undo all the harm his fraud of a father did, to take their cloistered little sect out into the world and do good works. The cult itself ultimately collapses as his fathers lieutenants abscond with the money leaving him and his adoptive mother out in the real world that, to someone like him, is just a crushing disappointment. Living on his adoptive mother's parent's sofa and dealing with kids at school who are just awful to him and looking at the world through the lens of someone who is almost literally Jesus but cannot find a single friend.

    It's fundamentally unpublishable for a number of reasons (long story short; he ends up having a child with his much older adoptive mother before he is seventeen) but he was a wonderful character to write for. This naive, charismatic young man who has this really deep belief that god wants people to choose to do the right thing, the good thing not just follow the book. To his mind God didn't give people a manual for every situation; he gave us scripture to teach us to be good people and it's up to use to be good going forward. When he ruled the church he's so against just telling people to do the right thing, he wants them to see that it's a good thing to do themselves but he just can't reach everyone. And then he leaves and he sees just how different being him makes him. He never chose to be who he was, he never chose any of it, he just tried to be a good person and a good Christian and everyone seems to hate him.

    It was a genuine joy to write (a trilogy of book no less) especially as a non-Christian writing his preaching and his teaching in a way that felt genuine and delving into how he thinks and sees the world. Of all the things that I haven't had published, that's the one thing I really really want to get in print but I still have no idea how to sell it to anyone. I don't even know if it counts as Christian book, or if it would read as such to actual Christians, or if the romance in it (which is HUGELY central to it; it's mostly focused on their relationship going from mother/son to romantic) discounts it totally but, well, I had a really good time writing it.
     
  8. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Aug 23, 2013
    Messages:
    3,406
    Likes Received:
    2,931
    Especially since the Bible makes it clear that a righteous man who doesn't profess to follow Christ is preferable to a wicked man who does

    Matthew 7:21
    Matthew 25:34-46
    Luke 10:25-37​

    So clearly religion and morality aren't as intrinsically connected as many would like to think :(

    Even during the Salem Witch Trials, everybody accepted that folk magic was real and useful, it was only the act of selling one's soul to the Devil in exchange for harming other people with dark magic that everybody was afraid of.

    In my Urban Fantasy world, "witchcraft" is explicitly defined as the aggravating circumstance of using magic to aid in the commission of another crime, not as making magic a crime in and of itself. (In the Bible, the word commonly mistranslated as "Thou shalt not suffer a [witch] to live" actually meant "poisoner")

    And I would write a zombie novel for exactly that reason ;) To show that evil cannot create, that it can only corrupt, and that the Devil takes no greater pleasure than in pretending to be God.

    I write a lot of villain protagonists, and I'm planning on the villain protagonists of my Urban Fantasy series winning a lot more than they lose.

    The express point of this being that my reader will feel horror, not victory.

    When you write a hero protagonist against a villain antagonist, you want the hero to win and you want the villain to lose, but you don't know that the hero will win and the villain will lose, so you read to find out whether the hero wins and the villain loses. Often times evil wins in the real world, and then good people have to figure out what to do next to fix the damage, and fictional villains winning gives us a chance to give our readers compelling stories about fictional heroes having to do the same thing. As well as making the reader more invested in the next fight: if you knew for a fact that the hero was going to win every time, then you wouldn't need to read the story because you already know the ending, but if the hero wins in two books and the villain wins in three, then you need to read the 6th one because you don't know how it ends.

    Villain protagonists work exactly the same way. You want them to fail, and you're horrified when they don't.

    EXACTLY!!!
     
    Arktaurous34 and Catrin Lewis like this.
  9. psychotick

    psychotick Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Feb 10, 2011
    Messages:
    1,526
    Likes Received:
    477
    Location:
    Rotorua, New Zealand
    Hi BigSoftMoose,

    I don't think you're in any danger of ending up like Rushdie. Heinlein wrote Stranger in a Strange Land and had no issues as far as I know.

    Cheers, Greg.
     
  10. LostThePlot

    LostThePlot Naysmith Contributor

    Joined:
    Dec 31, 2015
    Messages:
    2,398
    Likes Received:
    2,026
    Honestly I think that has more relevance to the wider discussion of writing as a Christian, especially to the original point the OP was asking about. Far be it from a heathen to say but it would seem that even without a 'hard' Christian message you can inspire people to do good things and take that to be good work for the man upstairs. There's even scope here for interesting kinds of heroes who overcome through Christian virtues rather than traditional narrative ones. I think actually you can do that better justice in a sci-fi or fantasy world than you could in a contemporary setting. For a high fantasy king or galactic ruler you have the scope to explore what it means to try and be a just, temperate ruler and the fight to do good even when you can't do good for all people all the time. Suffice to say, there's space here to work within the space of faith without being so direct that it doesn't stand as a work to non-believers.
     
    Simpson17866 likes this.
  11. Aled James Taylor

    Aled James Taylor Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Sep 7, 2013
    Messages:
    1,008
    Likes Received:
    743
    Location:
    UK
    I tend to prefer Star Treck to Star Wars. To me, Star Wars is too much of a 'black hats and white hats' western, whereas the plots in Star Treck are often based on conflicts of interest. Conflicts of interest can make a good story while maintaining believability in the characters. A villain who does bad things because he's evil isn't all that plausible. Ideally, you should be able to view the villain as a hero, if you perceive the world from his point of view).

    Any religion would be benign when those who practice it do not have positions of authority. When someone in government has strong religious beliefs, there could easily be a conflict of interests and this could be a subject for a story. People naturally want to promote that which is good and work against that which is bad. Suppose the MC is a government official and believes Christianity is the one true faith, how might that impact how those who practice other faiths are treated? Suppose the MC believes in creationism, how might that impact what's taught to children in schools? Suppose scientist want to genetically modify humans and the MC thinks that's 'playing God' but the scientists don't believe in God and claim a right not to be subjected of someone else's religion.

    Christianity is fundamentally authoritarian. This in itself can be in conflict with a democratic system where the people get a say in what their leader's policies are. Individuals can say 'I don't believe in everything preached at my church' and there again there is conflict and a source for a story.
     
    Phil Mitchell likes this.
  12. S A Lee

    S A Lee Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Feb 4, 2017
    Messages:
    1,070
    Likes Received:
    1,396
    Location:
    Greater London, England
    I am an apostate here myself, but I think that as one I should note that bringing faith into fiction can be very tricky in these genres, partially because if it's an alternate world it may risk breaking your readership's suspension of disbelief to put it in too explicitly.

    Isn't it part of the Christian faith that your talents are a gift from God? With that in mind, surely doing that craft justice is in itself giving him glory.

    Failing that, I'll tell something I said to someone.

    "When you choose a faith, you choose to be that deity's ambassador, and those outside will remember how you treat them in your deity's name."

    It's another craft, but Skillet's singer, John Cooper, uses his beliefs as inspiration for his songs, but they are written in such a way that they can apply to things much closer to home (for example, the song Hero was inspired by Jesus being willing to endure the crucifixion to save humanity, but the video features emergency services personnel and a soldier).
     
  13. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Aug 23, 2013
    Messages:
    3,406
    Likes Received:
    2,931
    Absolutely. There are a lot of evil people in the world who do things because they want to be known as evildoers (the Zodiac Killer, the Night Stalker), but there are also evil people who just think of themselves as pragmatists, and others who expressly think of themselves as the good guys, and I love having my fiction reflect this variety.

    I could point to Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong as "proof" that "Atheism is benign when "those who practice it do not have positions of authority," then we could get into a whole thing about whether my asexuality/aromanticism is "an orientation" or whether it is "my lack of any orientation," I could throw in Big Five Personality Profiles for good measure...

    That sounds like a very compelling villain protagonist to me who could shed light on how fundamentalism does more harm than good.

    Suppose that in counter-point, the hero antagonist were another Christian government official, but one who knows the Bible's verses about respecting morally upright people of other religions (Matthew 7:21, Matthew 25:34-46, Luke 10:25-37...).

    Suppose that the Christian HA knows that we do not live on a flat Earth at the center of a 6,000 year old universe where genes are prevented from mutating, and sees the fundamentalist viewpoint as "If I don't understand science, then God doesn't understand it either, and you are blaspheming by claiming to be smarter than He!" and the accusation of blasphemy as being itself a blasphemy.

    Suppose the Christian HA knows that doctors have been "playing God" for as long as they have been doctors, and that in fighting against medical science the Christian VP is doing the same thing as the Pharisees who condemned Jesus for healing the sick on the Sabbath.

    How else might the conflict between the Christian VP versus the Christian HA develop along similar lines?
     
  14. Catrin Lewis

    Catrin Lewis Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Community Volunteer

    Joined:
    Jan 28, 2014
    Messages:
    4,406
    Likes Received:
    4,755
    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    That's a good point. I don't know if I could make something of that in the zombie genre, but I can see how someone else could.
     
    Simpson17866 likes this.
  15. S A Lee

    S A Lee Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Feb 4, 2017
    Messages:
    1,070
    Likes Received:
    1,396
    Location:
    Greater London, England
    When looking at the times the Pharisees tried to trap Jesus (the woman taken in adultery, the question of taxes) he ultimately complies with Roman law, which was the enforced law of the land and not historical Jewish law. This is highlighted by Paul in Romans as well. There's also the condensation of the ten commandments (particularly 'Love your neighbour as yourself.')

    While early empires are very different to democracy, but I think these points are still important.
     
  16. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

    Joined:
    Aug 1, 2016
    Messages:
    22,569
    Likes Received:
    25,883
    Location:
    East devon/somerset border
    I tried the whole love thine neighbour thing... but it went a bit wrong when her husband came home unexpectedly...
     
    S A Lee likes this.
  17. Catrin Lewis

    Catrin Lewis Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Community Volunteer

    Joined:
    Jan 28, 2014
    Messages:
    4,406
    Likes Received:
    4,755
    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    If that man (or woman) of faith is a true Christian, he will understand that as a government official he is operating in the earthly realm, under earthly laws and principles, and his obligation to God is to carry out those laws to bring justice and prosperity to all people, without prejudice and partiality. He would know that he himself is a sinner saved by grace, that the only reason he is a Christian is because the Holy Spirit enlightened him, and he'd know that it's God's job to bring others to that same conviction, not his as a government official.

    In his civic role, he would be aware that all principles of what is just and right come down from God, and that he is answerable to his Lord if he abuses his power or oppresses the people under him. The Mosaic law commanded fair treatment for the poor in particular, and that included the poor who were not Jews--- "the alien within your gates." He would know that the God who raised him to his position can just as quickly put him down.

    What about holy war, you might ask. A great deal of the divine judgement that came upon nations in Old Testament times came about because God was fed up with the way those in power were taking advantage of the poor. In those times God would use various nations to execute His judgement on other nations, Jews against the gentiles and gentiles against the Jews, but doing that was never up to the whim of any Jewish leader; it had to be commanded through the prophets. Now that the Messiah has come, there is no more holy nation-state and therefore, no more holy war (yes, I'm saying that the Church was way out of line with the Crusades). All earthly nations are equal in His eyes; yes, even the United States of America. And you'll notice that the Jews never went to war against neighboring nations to force them to become Jews, and a committed Christian leader would find it silly to think he should attack another nation to force them to believe in Jesus.

    I'm amused because your just-suppose implies that no convinced Christian has ever been in a position of authority, when it happens all the time. Really, the problem arises when Christian rulers forget they are mere men and try to arrogate God's power to themselves--- that is, when they stop acting like Christians. Only God can make someone a believer in Christ, and if any Christian in any position thinks their Christianity gives them the right to lord it over anyone else, he is an ass at best, and at worst is giving yet another example of taking the Lord's name in vain.

    So to answer your question, life for someone of a different religion under a government official who believes that Christianity is the one true faith should be peaceful, orderly, prosperous, and fair. And if it isn't, it would be due to a violation of that faith, not due to the practice of it.
     
    Last edited: Feb 12, 2017
    Simpson17866 likes this.
  18. Catrin Lewis

    Catrin Lewis Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Community Volunteer

    Joined:
    Jan 28, 2014
    Messages:
    4,406
    Likes Received:
    4,755
    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    In that case you've got a clash of worldviews, that cannot be resolved by the exercise of toleration. Neither can it be resolved by sorting the matter into tidy boxes, by either side. Consider it: Is the human being a unique, sacred kind of being, made in the image of God? Is it not the government official's first duty to protect human life, especially the lives of the weak and defenseless? But what if the scientists' experiments are designed to improve human life and the leader's narrow ideas are standing in the way?

    But what if the scientists you posit are really de-humanists, who see human life as just another kind of matter to be experimented on? What if they actually hate humanity and regard the advance of knowledge at all costs to be the ultimate good? Is human knowledge more important than the individual human himself? How far do anyone's rights extend?

    All good questions, all making for deep drama in novels and in real life.

    It kind of feels--- forgive me if I'm wrong--- that you're using this as an argument for excluding committed Christians from posts of authority. But I would encourage you and anyone else to see the matter from both sides. Actually, this situation would make a good theme for a Christian to tackle in a SciFi novel.
     
    Simpson17866 likes this.
  19. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

    Joined:
    Aug 1, 2016
    Messages:
    22,569
    Likes Received:
    25,883
    Location:
    East devon/somerset border
    Also its entirely possible that a christian , or other religious person, could rationalise genetics and GM as being a gift from God , if He didnt want humans to do it then why did He give us the skills to develop it etc

    (personally I've long thought that if there is a higher power he/she/it probably views us with a kind of amusement, to see what those silly humans will get up to next - but that's not compatible with a christian world view)
     
    Fernando.C likes this.
  20. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Aug 23, 2013
    Messages:
    3,406
    Likes Received:
    2,931
    There's also a less-super, more-natural interpretation that I've thought up tonight :p is the Moon's hold over the tides a "perversion" of Moses parting the Red Sea?
     
  21. Catrin Lewis

    Catrin Lewis Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Community Volunteer

    Joined:
    Jan 28, 2014
    Messages:
    4,406
    Likes Received:
    4,755
    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    Wait, what?
     
  22. Catrin Lewis

    Catrin Lewis Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2023 Community Volunteer

    Joined:
    Jan 28, 2014
    Messages:
    4,406
    Likes Received:
    4,755
    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    "He who dwelleth in heaven shall laugh them to scorn;
    The Lord shall have them in derision." Psalm 2:4 (KJV/AV)

    (I'm an NIV fan myself, but I've got a Handel on that one.) :supergrin:
     
  23. Simpson17866

    Simpson17866 Contributor Contributor

    Joined:
    Aug 23, 2013
    Messages:
    3,406
    Likes Received:
    2,931
    In my defense, it was midnight at the time.
     
  24. Phil Mitchell

    Phil Mitchell Banned Contributor

    Joined:
    Jun 14, 2015
    Messages:
    590
    Likes Received:
    247
    Just tack on a character praising your deity in every book. Job done.
     
  25. terobi

    terobi Senior Member

    Joined:
    May 20, 2015
    Messages:
    339
    Likes Received:
    253
    Location:
    Manchester, UK
    Blimey that would be awful...

    Again, I think folk should read Shadowmancer as an example of exactly how not to do this.

    The antagonist is a priest who has lost the faith, one of the main characters basically preaches the Word of God with every single sentence, and the other two characters (rather than telling him to piss off immediately), start off atheist and gradually become believers throughout the course of the book. Eventually they win the day through the power of prayer.

    It's just an appallingly bad read.
     

Share This Page

  1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
    By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
    Dismiss Notice