The Dark Knight.

No! this post isn't about Batman. Or, at least, not just about Batman. It's about a certain type of character, and although it is related closely to the antihero, this sort of character is not villainous in anyway. It may be dark, brooding, perhaps introverted, but it stands as a bastion of moral purity in a hive of scum and villainy.

No, it's still not about Batman.

So, the question is, may a christian make the brooding, dark-knightesque, protector, sort-of-hero? Is that a legitimate enterprise for christian fiction? Think of this sort of character for a moment. He's the pinnacle of virtue in a city and acts as it's guardian; and this is all well and good, but then he takes the law into his own hands! The nerve! He has to resort to desperate measures against villains. He lives in a dark world and, as such, adopts a dark mindset. Is this really something christians should fill their head with?

Alright--maybe this is about Batman. Just a little.

I've heard a lot of christians say this ideal is overly dark. The idea of a lone protector against a vast sea of writhing evil is a sad, depressing feeling, they say, and one that christians should stay away from.  I think, perhaps, these Christians are suffering from the cult of happyology. As if christianity should shun heavy, weighty things and stick to that which is light and optimistic!

This stands in opposition of what the Bible has to say: think for a moment on the Judges, they were lone protectors who often had to enforce justice with a firm hand, weren't they? Think of Jeremiah, who utterly opposed all his authorities, of the plagues of Egypt and Ecclesiastes. The Bible can be dark--very dark. We don't like to think about it, but that's the way it is.

Which brings us back to Batman again. I think as long as your Batman (or Batman-like-character) is upholding the law of God, and as long as he realizes that everything does not depend on him, then I see  no problem pitting your character against the world. The world can be a dark place. Sometimes there's only one brave person to stand against it.

Thoughts on Positive Thinking

There's a certain stream in secular society that seems to have found it's way into christian literature and christian culture at large. It's the child of the Romantic movement, the sister of Postmodernism, and stems from all the cultural upheaval that took place in the mid 19th century. The best name I have heard for it, is the 'cult of Happyology'.

This movement has had many forms: it was there in the occult movement of the 19th century, the hippie movement of the 60s, the weird cults of the 80s, the modern self help movement, the prosperity gospel, and so many more!  But they all boil down to one basic motto. Think happy thoughts! Think happy thoughts, and the world will get better! It will! Because, if all that reality boils down to is your personal experience, then the core of reality is centered in your thoughts, and if those thoughts affect reality, then the best way to change it is to think happy ones.

This changed our mindset dramatically. We now view 'positive' words as inherently good and 'negative' ones as inherently bad, regardless of whether or not they are actually true. Praise becomes something inherently good, and criticism something inherently bad.  That's why every child needs a trophy. That's why if we don't have anything nice to say, we shouldn't say anything at all.

However, this sort of thought has no place in christian writing. If you look to Holy Scriptures (which I think all christians agree is the ultimate piece of christian writing), you will not find this blissful, uber-happiness that you find in some 'christian' literature (Pollyana anyone?). You won't find that the most faithful characters overcome their struggles through thinking 'positive thoughts'(Job wasn't positive, and look how he turned out). That's not to say we don't need to write about hope, but God should be the source of that hope, not the cult of positivity. Happyology should have no place in our novel.

Tragedy

I was asked to write a post on tragedy by a friend. This honestly, is a harder one to write. Cause it's rather personal to me, and I'm sure it's personal to many of my readership. Even if you have never really experienced personal tragedy it's a difficult subject to talk to to others about.

So what does define a tragedy? I think, when most people think of a a tragedy they imagine that it's a story where everyone dies in the end. However, I think this definition is somewhat misleading. It's possible to have most of the main characters die and still end the novel in a bittersweet manner. Conversely, it's also possible to have everyone live, and yet live in such a desolate state that tragedy is the only word for it.

So what makes a tragedy a tragedy? Tragedy is the lack of a happy ending. When things don't end well we call it a tragedy. It's not to do with the moral state of the characters, but rather the state of the character as the novel leaves off. This is why tragedy is often confused with death.

I think however, the way we view the death of a character as a pure tragedy is part of our empiricist culture. To an empiricist death is the ultimate evil, because death steals away the senses. And since the empiricist thinks that life lies in the senses, death seems to them to be a preternatural terror. The ending of all things. That's what we covered in the story of the Epic of Gilgamesh post.

To the Christian death can be a tragedy but it depends on the context. When the main character dies and goes to heaven, like Jean Valjean does in Les Mis, I would be loathe to classify it as a tragedy. Eternity with God is a wonderful thing. Loss though... that's a different story. And I think that's a different post. It will take more emotional energy to write about that then I am willing to spend right now. But suffice to say for now, loss is tragedy... because we have to go through life without someone. Meaningless death is also tragedy... because of what awaits afterward.

Life can also be tragic as well as death. If you leave your characters in a miserable situation at the end, even if they still are alive, that can in some ways be worse then just simply killing them. The real tragedy I think is a person who has to live on and on in loveless situation.

"Do not pity the dead Harry, pity the living. And above all those who live without love." 

Doctrine and Writing.

So I write about Muses, and right after I posted I wonder if that title sounded pagan. It probably did.

So this time I'm winning back some Holy Points and going to write about doctrine.

So caveat here, I know in my readership there is a lot of denominational variation. Among like.... all three of you who regularly keep up with this blog. Which is quite an amount of doctrinal diversity for so small a sampling. I'm a Presbyterian, which means I'm an evil Calvinist/Predestination person. I believe in Sovereignty of God, baptizing infants and drinking alcohol. So now that you know where I stand lets talk about the controversial issues of doctrine and how it applies to writing.

Now, we all hold differing theological persuasions. Here is where things get tricky. How do we remain faithful to our doctrinal commitments while making our work accessible to other Christians who don't necessarily hold to the same commitments? Well here's where a bit of grace and a bit of wisdom come in.

Well I think there are two basic rules for writing about doctrine in your story. The first is, don't worry about offending anyone. Alright this rule seems a bit odd. Well not perhaps odd from a Calvinist, but normally we do think it's polite to try not to offend people when we put our doctrine into our works. Nothing could be further then what God intends for us. Honestly if you believe your doctrine is true, and it is good representation of the Absolute Truth of God, then of course you should publicize it. I'm not saying you have to push your doctrine in people's faces. But you do, as a Christian, have a duty to represent absolute Truth. Don't feel like you have to hide your doctrinal stance when you write. You really can't divorce yourself from your Theology. Don't try too.

On the other side of the spectrum. When you're putting something in your novel that is a contentious issue among other believers, please don't demonize the believers who hold to the opposing doctrine. Be polite, and courteous, while still holding to Absolute Truth. After all, if someone wrote an amazing Christian novel, but slammed your views/church, and represented what you believe as some infernal distortion, you might feel a bit hurt too. Take the time to understand the doctrine you are refuting. Remember that there are true believers among their number. And some of them are smarter then you.

On the whole, good rule of thumb when it comes to bringing doctrine into writing is, hold to truth and be humble. Humble Orthodoxy. Has a nice ring to it.

Come oh Muses!

Back in the old days, the Ancient Greeks used to believe in these creatures called Muses. They were these amazingly convenient creatures that basically existed to put ideas into peoples heads. That way whenever a writer suffered from a writers block or a astrologer suffered from an astrology block (I'm sure that happened!), he could just call upon a Muse and voila! Instant idea. Of course that's any artist's dream. If only it were a matter of calling Muses to give us creativity.

So how do we get ideas for what to write about? Like really? Well lets start from the beginning. What do we do when we reach a metal block. Well most often this goes like this, instead of trying to find ideas, we just contemplate our blank mental state, perhaps go back mentally to times when we had inspiration... trying to draw on that. When that doesn't work we often end up surfing the internet or raiding the fridge. Hoping that inspiration will strike us sometimes. Pity we can't summon any Muses. 

But honestly we as Christians have something even better then the Muses don't we? Even if the Muses were real, and really did exist they being finite creatures could only give one person inspiration at a time. We're not limited by dependence on such whimsical beings. Nor do we have to depend on ourselves entirely. We have the Holy Spirit! Did it ever occur to you that you can ask the Holy Spirit for guidance and inspiration as you write, not just when you go through your day to day life but when you write as well?

It seems a bit weird, and no I'm not saying we should write by being possessed by God. Or that the Holy Spirit will give us a vision of our complete outline if we pray to Him. But I'm fairly positive that He will help us. I'm not saying that it will get us past the writers block. There's no guarantee in the Bible that God will do that (though doesn't every writer wish there was?). However I think I can safely guarantee that if you approach the Holy Spirit in prayer and ask him to guide your mind, you will experience results. Not that this means that you can abdicate the responsibility of thinking. You still have to think to make your novel work. But with God guiding your thoughts, we truly due have a Muse to rival all other Muses. The Third person in the Trinity.

Sounds pretty good to me. 

Amazing love. How can it be?

It is impossible to write a great Christian Novel without love.

Now let me be clear, it is quite possible to write a great novel without love. Plenty of the great ancient and great modern writers wrote phenomenal works of fiction without including love in it. If you read Homer's Iliad or Hesiod's Theogony, you'll be hard pressed to find any love. At least of the non-sexual kind. The same goes for the works of Moderns such as Hemingway or Conrad.

You can make a great work of fiction without love. Your characters can be realistic, your imagery vivid and your themes fascinating. But it still won't be a work of Christian literature without bringing love into it in some way. This is because love is one of the central themes of Scriptures. All of Scripture points towards the love of God.

Or judgement.

Hm, I may want to backtrack on what I was just saying. It seems there is a lot of judgement in scriptures. So if there's judgement in scriptures how is that love? Well the fact is God's judgement actually cannot be separated from the subject of love. The Judgement of God is upon humanity for their failure to love. That same judgement is only appeased by the Love of Christ. In that way works of judgement are inextricably tied the concept of love.

Love is one of those elements at the core of Christian thought. One whereby God is made known. You don't have to make your work explicitly Christian. But you do have to put in the Christian concept of love, the sacrificial agapean kind in order for it to be a Christian work.

Happy Barbarians

One of the standard inhabitants of or fantasy/sci-fi worlds, are the barbarians. Usually they're a proud warrior race, perhaps slightly more in tune with nature. Not exactly sharp on the intellectual scale of things, but brave and courageous. They have a tendency to show up at the final battle and suddenly turn the tide in the good guys favour. Or perhaps they are the good guys, pitted against some usually some more sophisticated and evil nation.

Okay, I'm going to say here, I think we in the twenty first century romanticize the barbarian too much.  And to a certain extent that's a product of our technologicalicalization (is that even a word?). Right now we're surrounded by technology, and it makes life complicated. Cars have to be fueled, oiled, cleaned and cared for, computers have to have anti virus software, drives licences expire, the internal revenue service much be satisfied and so on. So we long for a simpler time when all we had to worry about was farming the crops and strength in arms.

This stands in vivid contrast to the portrayal of 'primitive peoples' that ran rampant 50's. Back then we were confident in the power of technology, and we looked down on those stupid, illiterate savages who seemed to us to be enslaved to superstition. We had science and they had not, and since were were convinced that knowledge equaled moral superiority, we were sure we were superior then those barbarians that lived back in ancient days.

Both these ideals, 'the noble savage' and the 'barbaric savage' make the same mistake. They both assume that technology fundamentally changes human nature, As if technology somehow made humans better people or worse people. No. People are still people. No matter what power is in their hands. Our lives are complicated, not because technology is complicated but because human natures are complicated. Science doesn't make us more moral. Neither does ignorance. We as Christians should avoid both romanticizing and marginalizing.