Postmodern Angels

There's a certain segment, of what is now passed as 'Christian Fantasy' that suffers from a peculiar disease. It's not really well written, it's not really poorly written, but it's weird. In fact most of the best writing in Christendom these days is quite frankly belongs to this category. God and Jesus are often the centers of a very weird pantheon, complete with angels, demons, disease infected nations, talking computers, dragons, other dimensions and just about anything else the author can imagine. Often the theme is 'Spiritual Warfare' but because of the underlying empiricism, the spiritual warfare often looks a lot more like physical warfare then one would normally imagine. However, if you're pressed, you'll find none of these eccentricities are the source of the weirdness. Neither bizarre worlds or the empiricism (to which we are too accustomed to find it weird) are the source. The source is underlying postmodernism. 

Most writers who write this way aren't postmodern themselves (at least as far as I can tell), however their works tend to react against the overwhelming preachiness in rest of Christian Literature, and as a result tended to abandon the underlying morality that generally had influenced Christian literature. Such writers are brilliantly imaginative, but what with their reaction against preachiness, it's hard to tell where the 'Christian' comes in except for a few Bible verses and/or symbolic references thrown haphazardly in. The world has no order. No design other then whatever the author happens to feel like at the time. 

The result is that the whole novel gains a weird dream like sensation, reminiscent to the feeling one gets reading H.P Lovecraft. The whole world, even (with a few scattered exceptions) the good parts give off a strange and alien feel.  The angels and other good creatures lack that deep and rich morality and joy in God that is so often found in works such as the Chronicles of Narnia or Lord of the Rings. Most often they're just as strange as the rest.

It seems that in reacting against the overly moralistic trends in modern Christian literature, these and other authors have allowed postmodernism and moral relativity to sink in. To those unfamiliar with the philosophy of Postmodernism, it simply is the Philosophy which states that there is no absolute truth. Though undoubtedly these authors would vigorously oppose such a philosophy, their books are not free from the taint of its shadow.

This is most of what makes me sad to read books that go on this vein, are gifted writers, but it seems like they have trouble relating their writing to their faith. When it comes to writing, Theology is important, almost as important as skill. Without attention to it, we will not be able to reflect the gospel in our writing.