Christian (or any Religion) Based SF: Pros and Cons

[Russell Nash]

The Left Behind series got enough interest in the EP143 thread for me to decide to give this whole topic it's own thread.  I have read absolutely none of this stuff, so I'll just be watching from the sidelines.

[Kaa]

Someone mentioned on the original thread that religious fiction left them wanting unless the author was decent.

On that basis, I'd like to recommend at least one book by Ted Dekker.  He's a Christian author, but I didn't know that when I listened to Thr3e.  I listened to it three times.  I thought it was that good.  Hopefully, no one saw the movie, or the whole surprise is ruined, but I found it very well written and it wasn't until months later that I saw his name on a list of Christian authors. 

I've also read Obsessed and I'm in the middle of a trilogy (Black, Red, and White) by him.  The trilogy is a bit more obvious as Christian fiction, but it does have a good plot and is keeping my interest in spite of the occasional head-clubbing "point."  It' no worse than any of Dean Koontz' later works, though.  I think Thr3e is by far the best of the lot, so far.

[Listener]

Well, we've already had Jewish SF -- "Niels Bohr and the Sleeping Dane" on EP and "Brothers" on PP -- and it seems to be pretty well-received.  And Marge Piercy's "He, She, It" is a Judaism-centric SF novel about golems and artificial life.  I've also read some SF that has Muslim elements -- "Souls in the Great Machine" has several positive characters who follow Islam.

(the following is not intended as a flame against any Christians, just an uninformed observation from someone who's never read Christian-centric SF)

Perhaps the pushback against stuff like Left Behind and Christian SF in its mold is that they are proselytizing, or even just saying "this is what WILL happen if you don't convert to our brand of Christianity", not "this is what may happen".  Like those authors are evangelizing from the pulpit of the fiction shelves, instead of their church of choice.  Whereas the Jewish SF I've read is more like "hey, we're Jews, and look, there's a robot killing people who was built by a Jewish guy, isn't that weird?"  It could be reflective of the general difference between Jews and evangelical Christians -- I've never met an evangelical Jew.

I think all religions have parts that can be mined for SF as well.  For Jews, it's apparently golems.  For Christians, the afterlife seems pretty popular (cf: Parke Godwin's "Waiting for the Galactic Bus" and "The Snake Oil Wars").  I don't know enough about Islam to know what sorts of things they'd contribute to the SF-iverse, but I'm sure it would be interesting.

[Kaa]

I think all religions have parts that can be mined for SF as well.

Oh, most definitely.  For an interesting example of how it can all be mixed together for a nice cocktail, read Mur Lafferty's Heaven series over at Podiobooks.com.  She combines just about every religion I've ever heard of and weaves the whole into an interesting story that takes place all in the Afterlife.

[Swamp]

Ah, mothers... mine knew I was into science fiction (all the Star Trek, the Asimov books, etc.) and knew I wasn't going to church any more.  She wanted to get me "back on track" and wanted to show me that she was "with it"... so sent me the "Left Behind" series.  I did try to read them... and got through the first chapter before demonstrating the aerodynamics of a trade paperback to my roommate.

I had to tell my mother I found them just a touch preachy.  

Nobody has ever tried to force these books on me, probably because I still go to church.  However, I have
never had a desire to read the Left Behind series.  It just seemed like such a pretentious premise.  You say " a touch preachy" as an intended understatement; I would add self righteous and insulting.  And this is coming from a believer, at least in God and Jesus Christ (not necesarily the perspective of the Left Behind books or their ilk).  I also wasn't interested in more frivilous speculation about the Book of Revelations, especially from a fictional novel with action hereos.

I'm glad to hear my insticts were correct.  I haven't read a page of it, nor do I intend to.  Experiences like yours only prove I was right.

I haven't been coerced into reading them for much the same reason.  I do feel slightly bad about this because I would like to at one point read the first one, just so I can point out to people who recommend it to me what a piece of shit it is.  Sometimes I'm masochistic.

Fiction by Christian publishers just usually leaves me pretty frustrated, though.  I read a couple of Frank Peretti's books and was floored by how bad one was, yet how much people LOVED him.  Christian fiction by, say Madeleine L'Engle...well, my love knows no bounds.

I haven't read any of the Left Behind series, but I've seen the movies. Fiction based loosely on the Bible and marketed towards Christians can be dangerous. I've met more than one Christian who read/saw Left Behind and based part of their theology on the story. This is scary to me, because the work isn't Biblically accurate nor does it even claim to be. It's a work of fiction. The movies were okay, probably not worth watching again, but definitely should not be used as a means of evangelism.

Yep.  It was terrifying at the church I used to attend how much of an influence they had on people, not as fiction, but as something they thought was TRUE.

I think writing a sf story/novel just for the sake of expounding Christian belief or just to have a Christian-based premise is a bad formula for good fiction.  I guess it is a niche market and that's fine for those who write/read in it.  

I laugh at many religious people who do not read or enjoy sf, but as soon as a Christian author/publisher puts one out...Hey, this is great.

I have said often on these forums that I don't seek out religion in sf, but I appreciate when religion is treated with respect, or at least without disdain.

[Swamp]

Perhaps the pushback against stuff like Left Behind and Christian SF in its mold is that they are proselytizing, or even just saying "this is what WILL happen if you don't convert to our brand of Christianity", not "this is what may happen".  Like those authors are evangelizing from the pulpit of the fiction shelves, instead of their church of choice. 

You've nailed it.

[gelee]

"The Chronicles of Narnia" was an early favorite of mine.  I was raised in a "Christian" home, so it made my folks confortable to see me read it.  Religious themes aside, they were just great fantasy adventure stories.
I've found that any work of fiction that tries to make a point runs the risk of doing so at the expense of telling a good story.  That doesn't just go for religious fiction, but for political or philosophical issues as well.

[derio]

I think there is plenty of good Sci-Fi out there that uses religious themes and religious perspectives without taking the Arthur C. Clarke attitude of "Look at these silly people that still believe in a supreme being!  Aren't they stupid?" that I personally find annoying.  To me reading works by Clarke (Asimov and Heinlein did some of this too, but not as much) are like eating grapes with a few sour ones in the bunch: it's annoying, but not enough to keep from eating them.  On the other hand, SF that deals with religious faith without being condescending is some of my most favorite.

The classic example is Canticle for Leibowitz, which is one of my favorite SF books ever.  Also Inferno by Niven and Pournelle is an excellent and very moving book (the end makes me cry every time, and it's a good kind of crying).  Card's Folk of the Fringe is somewhat akin to Canticle for Leibowitz in that Fringe deals with the the Mormon community while Canticle deals with Catholicism.  Still in the post-apocalyptic genre is of course King's The Stand, which some may consider only an allegory but I think falls into this religious SF genre pretty well (I've also read Swan Song by Robert McCammon which fits into the religious-themed post-apocalyptic sub-genre, but It's not really as high quality of SF as these others I've mentioned).

There are also many that are more satirical without being overly condescending or mocking towards religious faith.  There is EP071 The Capo of Darkness, which in many ways reminded me of Job: a Comedy of Justice by Heinlein (of course, perhaps the reason I didn't find them particularly offensive is that neither was specifically satirizing my religion - if they had taken a stab at Mormonism I perhaps would have felt differently).

C.S. Lewis's fiction as mentioned is of course another excellent example.  Not only Narnia, but his Space Trilogy is also religious-themed.

[Kaa]

I'd like to clarify that Ted Dekker's book Thr3e is not science fiction. It is just an action/suspense-thriller. I get carried away when recommending books I liked and forgot that this is supposed to be just about sci-fi.

The trilogy, though, could be considered sci-fi. Maybe more sci-fantasy, but....

[Darwinist]

I think there is plenty of good Sci-Fi out there that uses religious themes and religious perspectives without taking the Arthur C. Clarke attitude of "Look at these silly people that still believe in a supreme being!  Aren't they stupid?" that I personally find annoying.  To me reading works by Clarke (Asimov and Heinlein did some of this too, but not as much) are like eating grapes with a few sour ones in the bunch: it's annoying, but not enough to keep from eating them.  On the other hand, SF that deals with religious faith without being condescending is some of my most favorite.

I understand your point but I don't have a problem with Clarke and other's condescending view on religion.  Part of "science fiction" is "science" and the whole point of science is explaining the world based on facts and not supernaturally as religion would have it.  If someone wants to add the supernatural to their sci-fi that's fine with me, too.

I'm more of a hard sci-fi type but I think it's interesting to read about alien religions like Card's piggies and other Christiantiy offshoots like Kilgore Trout's Church of Jesus Christ The Kidnapped.        

[DKT]

I definitely think there's room for Christianity in SF.  It's not always explicitly Christian, which is also fine.  OSC's Speaker for the Dead and the Worthing Saga both deal a lot with religion.  Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun.  Those aren't explicitly Christian, but I think they're close enough (actually, SftD might have been -- I can't really remember).  I also think Christianity does have a place in SF, it's just all about the delivery.  And I think Listener hit the nail on the head with this: 

Perhaps the pushback against stuff like Left Behind and Christian SF in its mold is that they are proselytizing, or even just saying "this is what WILL happen if you don't convert to our brand of Christianity", not "this is what may happen".  Like those authors are evangelizing from the pulpit of the fiction shelves, instead of their church of choice. 

For me, honestly, if I see something that's come out from a Christian publisher, I'm very skeptical that it will turn out very preachy and someone getting "saved" or becoming a Christian will be a major plot-point.  Christian authors who publish with mainstream houses, that's another story.  They're not necessarily trying to evangelize.  Do people want to read about how if they don't convert they will be forever DAMNED!!!!  I don't.  However, I wouldn't mind reading about characters of faith or a belief system that are interesting. 

Someone mentioned Stephen King's the Stand.  I do think it's definitely easier to use Christianity or the spiritual in horror than it is in SF.  I think it's because we often expect more supernatural things in horror than we do in SF.  But I do think it can fit in both genres. 

[eytanz]

Someone mentioned Stephen King's the Stand.  I do think it's definitely easier to use Christianity or the spiritual in horror than it is in SF.  I think it's because we often expect more supernatural things in horror than we do in SF.  But I do think it can fit in both genres. 

Actually, I think there's something more basic there - I think that Christianity lends itself to horror in a way that many religions, even those with a more overt supernatural element, do not. Christianity's view of the world essentially is a horror story; think how many horror movies/novels/short stories are based on the basic notion that something went horribly wrong with the world as a result of evil done in the past, and that we are powerless to fix it on our own and need to be saved. I think this basic trope, far more than any notions of hell and demons, is the legacy of Christianity to the horror genre.

[Darwinist]

Actually, I think there's something more basic there - I think that Christianity lends itself to horror in a way that many religions, even those with a more overt supernatural element, do not. Christianity's view of the world essentially is a horror story; think how many horror movies/novels/short stories are based on the basic notion that something went horribly wrong with the world as a result of evil done in the past, and that we are powerless to fix it on our own and need to be saved. I think this basic trope, far more than any notions of hell and demons, is the legacy of Christianity to the horror genre.

Great points.  You hit the nail on the head.  Even now, in 2008, you still hear about exorcisms and blessing of haunted houses performed by priests.   

[Tango Alpha Delta]

I was going to apologize for dropping the log that started this into the bowl, but this turned out to be a pretty interesting exchange, with some ideas and recommendations to take to the library next time!

Someone commented on Jewish sf-lit, and hinted at stuff "based in" other religions, and it reminded me of Years of Rice and Salt[/u] which I found extremely interesting:

"How might human history be different if 14th-century Europe was utterly wiped out by plague, and Islamic and Buddhist societies emerged as the world's dominant religious and political forces? The Years of Rice and Salt considers this question through the stories of individuals who experience and influence various crucial periods in the seven centuries that follow. The credible alternate history that Robinson constructs becomes the framework for a tapestry of ideas about philosophy, science, theology, and politics."


(Russell, or whomever, I don't know how to tweak the link to get EP's commission, so please do, just in case!)

As for those crappy Left Behind books, I was fully prepared to be preached to, but mom made it sound like there was a story in there, somewhere. 

Unlike l'Engle, Lewis, and others mentioned above... there wasn't.  At least, nothing I couldn't get from a random plot generator.


Moderator: link changed

[jrderego]

...Heinlein did some of this too, but not as much...

You should read Revolt in 2100 by Heinlein. He makes A. C. Clark sound like The Pope.

[Windup]

The popularity of Left Behind baffles me, especially among people who believe in and preach Biblical inerrancy, which seems to be the core of the fanbase.

Setting aside for the moment the fact that the Revelation to St. John was admitted to the canon with the understanding that it was allegorical, not literal, the Tribulation, Rapture and other "plot points" aren't even in the Revelation to St. John.  They're mostly a gloss added in the late 19th century, based on some extremely dubious inferences from other works.

And as for the validity of trying to fit John's "timeline" on to recent history, I always considered this the definitive statement: "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." (Matthew 24:36)

[CammoBlammo]

This is one of those weird situations where the genre of a book depends on the person reading it. You can read Frank Peretti or Left Behind and classify it as fantasy or horror. Yet for the authors they have horror elements, but they are based on reality.

I guess that's like people who read 1984 as a description of modern Western society.

Looking back, Frank Peretti was partially responsible for my coming of age spiritually. As a late teen I was involved with a group of Twilight Zone style Christians. I read a few Peretti books, and after a while I realised that my friends took this stuff seriously. I think that's when my inbuilt crap detector got its first really good work out as an adult, and I've been really cynical about that stuff ever since. It's a really useful thing in my job.

Now, I only read them for entertainment. In other words, I don't read them at all!

[Tango Alpha Delta]

The popularity of Left Behind baffles me, especially among people who believe in and preach Biblical inerrancy, which seems to be the core of the fanbase.

Setting aside for the moment the fact that the Revelation to St. John was admitted to the canon with the understanding that it was allegorical, not literal, the Tribulation, Rapture and other "plot points" aren't even in the Revelation to St. John.  They're mostly a gloss added in the late 19th century, based on some extremely dubious inferences from other works.

And as for the validity of trying to fit John's "timeline" on to recent history, I always considered this the definitive statement: "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." (Matthew 24:36)

See, I grew up in a Southern Baptist church, where "the Tribulation, Rapture and other 'plot points'" were sprinkled on our snacks and in our Kool-Aid; I figured that rich, imaginative backdrop of evangelical culture would make for unavoidably interesting "sci-fi", but they avoided it adroitly.  The little I read was a very boring dissection of an airline pilot's internal angst at realizing that all of the "Saved" have been taken to Heaven, leaving behind the "Lost" - including rapers, murderists, and stubborn back-sliders like him, and why, oh why hadn't he gone to church with his wife when he had the chance?

Ahem.  Sorry.

Later, when I was gently letting mom know that it wasn't to my taste, she said something disturbing about how close to reality the book had seemed; I found the remark disturbing because of things I had read in other places (Wikipedia links to or quotes some of them) which described the "Tribulation Force" battling the evil UN, apparently run by a cabal of Jews, Universalists, and other types of folks famously mistrusted by evangelical, fundamentalist Christians (such as, well, mom).  That stuff, and the obvious blood-lust displayed by some of the later books and the video game, were what made me stop going to church in the first place, which I also tried to explain to mom... unsuccessfully.

[Windup]

See, I grew up in a Southern Baptist church, where "the Tribulation, Rapture and other 'plot points'" were sprinkled on our snacks and in our Kool-Aid;

Yeah, but didn't anybody ever actually read the Bible and come back with "Hey, wait a minute, that stuff isn't in here?"  (Go to an on-line Bible and try a keyword search on "rapture," I can guarantee you'll come up dry in the text.)  I always thought it was a conceited belief of Lutherans that Baptists never actually read Scripture.  Truer than I thought? 

(That said, my Mom, who is a die-hard Lutheran, is also a huge Left Behind fan.  In the interest of family peace, I've never hit her with the "where is this?" question.  Feel free to call it cowardice...)

[Tango Alpha Delta]

See, I grew up in a Southern Baptist church, where "the Tribulation, Rapture and other 'plot points'" were sprinkled on our snacks and in our Kool-Aid;

Yeah, but didn't anybody ever actually read the Bible and come back with "Hey, wait a minute, that stuff isn't in here?"  (Go to an on-line Bible and try a keyword search on "rapture," I can guarantee you'll come up dry in the text.)  I always thought it was a conceited belief of Lutherans that Baptists never actually read Scripture.  Truer than I thought? 

(That said, my Mom, who is a die-hard Lutheran, is also a huge Left Behind fan.  In the interest of family peace, I've never hit her with the "where is this?" question.  Feel free to call it cowardice...)

Well, here's the really ironic thing about it:  all we ever DID was read the Bible.  Here is a quick breakdown of activities in the average Southern Baptist Convention approved Sunday morning Bible study:
1) Use the scripture to reinforce the danger of disobeying God (pick any Old Testament story for this, and you can't go wrong)
2) Use scriptures to assert the direct authority of Jesus over that of any human being (They love their St. Paul; this exercise is partly intended to undercut any kind of priesthood, and partly to assert personal interpretation as superior)
3) Use the scripture to disect every other religion or denomination, and dismiss it as some kind of cult  (We had an annual, weeklong seminar devoted to this... a "con", if you will)
4) Use the scripture to single out proscribed behaviors and demonstrate how they incur the wrath of God (tolerating homosexuality = rain of fire from heaven; lying = consumed by worms; etc.)
5) Use the scripture to show how following Jesus leads to a euphoric kind of joy, which those poor sinners are missing out on

Once the idea of authority is established, and all others have been discredited (leaving the preacher as the only remaining voice of reason, of course), then it's easy enough to get away with taking Revelation and playing the "horoscope" game with it; take it verse by verse and say "this could mean that" pointing to scary events that have taken place and showing how they were "predicted".  (I could try to dredge up a couple of examples, but I think you get the idea.)  The word "tribulation" actually IS in at least one translation, but it doesn't need to be; the Tribulation is a Big Scary Post-Apocalyptic span of events, so they just take the events that are so colorfully described by John, and say "that's the Tribulation".   Same basic idea with the Rapture; it's not called that in the Bible, but the concept of the Saved being taken to Heaven is described in detail, and that is what they focus on.

As for the really crazy stuff that people come up with, they mostly come up with that on their own to fill in the gaps in history that the church ignores.  Notice that the narrative of the actual Bible only takes us up to about A.D. 63 or so; for the Southern Baptist church, the time between then and ~1860 is a big, grey void in which the Catholics subverted the "real" Christians, who passed the "real" scripture down through their families until arriving in America where they were free to preach the Word again.  This is why you won't make any headway with them by asking about actual Biblical history... all of that "history" was written by the Catholics, so it must be suspect, right?

[Darwinist]

Very interesting commentary from Tango Alpha Delta.  I grew up on with the "subversive" Catholic side of the fence.  The Catholic school I attended loved to bring in the angry Old Testament God to scare us in to line but I wasn't exposed to anything as crazy as he described. 

I have a crapcake cable TV system and amongst the 150 or so channels are about 15 religious channels.   I can't belive how shows are devoted to the impending apocolypse.  All these clowns explaining current events as signs of the coming of the end times, many of these nutballs agreeing that it is a matter of a few years.  It's funny to watch these guys, but sad when you hear them thank the viewers for their $ contributions to their "ministry".  There must be a lot of suckers out there. 

[DDog]

I've never even heard of Left Behind. And I was surprised to learn in an earlier thread that some of Card's series are rooted in Mormonism, but that's because I don't know a lot about Mormon theology. I didn't know that the Narnia books were Christian, but once I got to Perelandra and That Hideous Strength it was pretty obvious that Lewis had some kind of Christian connection.

Terry Pratchett usually has interesting things about gods sprinkled throughout his books, but Small Gods and Pyramids are two good ones devoted primarily to religion, and Moving Pictures is basically about the movie industry as religion.

I haven't read American Gods yet but I'm assuming it has something to do with faith.

And speaking of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, Christian fantasy can't get any better than Good Omens.

Piers Anthony also had an interesting take on it with his Incarnations of Immortality series, where Death, Time, Fate, War, Nature, Satan, and God are basically offices that are filled by mortals, who hold the office and fulfill its duties until a successor replaces them.

Can't think of anything else at the moment.

Moderator: converted links

[Listener]

I haven't read American Gods yet but I'm assuming it has something to do with faith.

In a way... but it's more about the gods themselves.

[Tango Alpha Delta]

I haven't read American Gods yet but I'm assuming it has something to do with faith.

In a way... but it's more about the gods themselves.

Just the fact that it deals with "gods" (other than YHWH) would make it decidedly non-Christian by the standards I was raised to meet. 

[eytanz]

I haven't read American Gods yet but I'm assuming it has something to do with faith.

In a way... but it's more about the gods themselves.

Just the fact that it deals with "gods" (other than YHWH) would make it decidedly non-Christian by the standards I was raised to meet. 

True, but neither Listener nor DDog mentioned Christianity.

[Tango Alpha Delta]

I haven't read American Gods yet but I'm assuming it has something to do with faith.

In a way... but it's more about the gods themselves.

Just the fact that it deals with "gods" (other than YHWH) would make it decidedly non-Christian by the standards I was raised to meet. 

True, but neither Listener nor DDog mentioned Christianity.

Well... DDog kinda did; he mentioned AG amongst a slew of other books he was familiar with that he thought of as having some basis in Christianity.  But your point is taken (I think).  Just because I'm home sick, I shouldn't sit on top of this thread and steer the conversation. 

[DDog]

Well... DDog kinda did; he mentioned AG amongst a slew of other books he was familiar with that he thought of as having some basis in Christianity.  But your point is taken (I think).  Just because I'm home sick, I shouldn't sit on top of this thread and steer the conversation. 

I guess you have a point, but looking back at my post I notice that I specifically invoked Christianity in the same sentence or line of the books that are related to it. Part of Small Gods takes place in Pratchett's version of Greece and the rest is probably a riff on Christianity but I couldn't remember exactly; I haven't read it in awhile. Pyramids is, who could have guessed!, about Pratchett's version of Egypt.

I'm saving American Gods so I haven't even looked up what it's really about--it's by Neil Gaiman, that's enough for me, heh. By "faith" I definitely didn't mean Christian faith (there's, what, a Mr. Jackal and a Mr. Ibis? That's my Yinepu and Djehuty) or even necessarily religious faith actually--Gaiman likes to write about people's strongly held beliefs in general, faith that is either confirmed or betrayed.

[Windup]

Well, here's the really ironic thing about it:  all we ever DID was read the Bible.  Here is a quick breakdown of activities in the average Southern Baptist Convention approved Sunday morning Bible study:
1) Use the scripture to reinforce the danger of disobeying God (pick any Old Testament story for this, and you can't go wrong)
2) Use scriptures to assert the direct authority of Jesus over that of any human being (They love their St. Paul; this exercise is partly intended to undercut any kind of priesthood, and partly to assert personal interpretation as superior)
3) Use the scripture to disect every other religion or denomination, and dismiss it as some kind of cult  (We had an annual, weeklong seminar devoted to this... a "con", if you will)
4) Use the scripture to single out proscribed behaviors and demonstrate how they incur the wrath of God (tolerating homosexuality = rain of fire from heaven; lying = consumed by worms; etc.)
5) Use the scripture to show how following Jesus leads to a euphoric kind of joy, which those poor sinners are missing out on

Your discussion brings up a good point of the best way to read sacred texts, or any text, for that matter.  I'm a strong believer really knowing the details on whatever it is you're talking about.  And reading enough to get the full sense of the text -- not just the occasional snippet which, as you point out, are prone to severe distortion.  Among other things, I'm a Biblical storyteller and have learned some fair-sized chunks of the Old and New Testaments by heart. (Probably just enough to make the "dunce" category in a first-century classroom, where learning by heart was a much bigger deal than it is now.)

However, I also believe that a modern reader cannot run with "the plain sense of the text" because over thousands of years, we've lost so much of the cultural context in which it was written. "Slavery" for example, refers to many different institutions at different times and places -- and almost never the race-based servitude that springs to mind when 21st century Americans think about it.  I like to think that slavery would have had a much shorter life in the West if more people had understood that those verses were dealing with a totally different institution that happened to get the same name.

Anyway, we have to rely on specialists to supply some of that lost context, and specialists, more often than not, have some strongly-held opinions that aren't derived entirely from data. And it's very difficult for a layperson to judge.  I find myself throwing up my hands when one group of well-educated, apparently sincere scholars says that the internal evidence in the Pentatuch points to the Five Books of Moses being written by Moses himself, while another equally large, well-educated and apparently sincere group finds that laughable, on pretty much the same evidence.

[wrenching sound as we move this back somewhat on-topic]

So with religious-based SF, how appropriate is it to need some religious background to appreciate it?  Do you have to be a Jew (or at least know quite a bit about Judiasm) to truly "get" a golem story?  Do you miss a lot in Orson Scott Card's novels if you aren't Mormon?  And does this enhance or detract from the piece as art?



 

[CammoBlammo]

So with religious-based SF, how appropriate is it to need some religious background to appreciate it?  Do you have to be a Jew (or at least know quite a bit about Judiasm) to truly "get" a golem story?  Do you miss a lot in Orson Scott Card's novels if you aren't Mormon?  And does this enhance or detract from the piece as art?
 

Excuse me if I sound a little Po-Mo, but we will always read a given text according to our backgrounds and experiences, irrespective of what the author intended.

An example --- I read The Chronicles of Narnia when I was around nine or ten. I loved them, and they got me fairly hooked on the fantasy genre. I became a Christian in my early teens, and eventually read those books again when I was about 15. I had heard that CS Lewis was a Christian, and that little factoid completely transformed my understanding of the books. I was able to reinterpret them in the light of what I had learnt and experienced. In that case, my newfound background in Christianity enhanced the books greatly.

I think TCoN is about a blatant a serious religious work as you'll find in the mainstream, so it may not be the best example. Still, I think understanding something of the author's background can at least engender sympathy for the work or the position the author takes. Having said that I really don't enjoy 'Christian' fiction. It always seems so contrived. I think it's because the author is always omnipotent and omniscient. It's all too easy for the author to take the place of God in a story. Have you ever noticed how God is always on the author's side?

With regard to the rest of your post, Windup, one of my favourite pursuits as an author is to take biblical stories and rewrite them in modern settings. For example, I've rewritten the story of the shepherds at Christmas to be about stockmen in outback Australia. My current (stalled, I'll admit) project is also a Christmas one --- the 'three wise men' are visitors from another planet. Like you, I always liked telling stories, but I like to elaborate a bit too much! Getting the ideas on paper helps me stay a bit more focussed.

[Tango Alpha Delta]

I think TCoN is about a blatant a serious religious work as you'll find in the mainstream, so it may not be the best example. Still, I think understanding something of the author's background can at least engender sympathy for the work or the position the author takes. Having said that I really don't enjoy 'Christian' fiction. It always seems so contrived. I think it's because the author is always omnipotent and omniscient. It's all too easy for the author to take the place of God in a story. Have you ever noticed how God is always on the author's side?

I think that helps pin down the distinction I'm looking for; Narnia is "blatant" in that Lewis unapologetically wrote the characters and situations for the purpose of illustrating points of faith and lessons about his beliefs.  Because the books are also well imagined and the characters are charming, they work on multiple levels.  He had a "message", but left it couched in allegory and subtext, where all good messages belong! 

As opposed to the stuff you would describe as contrived; I have studiously avoided reading anything I could use as an example, though I recall my mother reading series of "Christian romance novels" when I was a kid, and hearing her describe the ridiculous scenarios the authors came up with to prove their point (whatever that might have been).  "They loved each other, but it was a pure love, and not that evil physical kind that those sinful Harlequin books write about!"

But my point in mentioning the Left Behind books was never "these books are bad because they have a Christian message"; rather, it was "these books are poorly written, and insult the intelligence of the readership."  Their popularity tells me something sad about the intelligence of the American readership... something I already knew, but something sad, nonetheless.

[DKT]

TAD kind of beat me to it.  I don't think there's anything inherently bad about Christians writing fiction.  My frustration comes when so many Christians do it so badly.  (Just to make the distinction, I'm talking mostly about Christians who publish their fiction in Christian markets.  It's like they have to hit certain plot-points, and in all the books I've read by Christian publications, there's always a conversion plotpoint.)  I don't think people will mind reading books by Christians if they're good anymore than they will mind going to see the next Chronicles of Narnia movie.  At least, I hope not, because half of the stuff I write does something to do with religion and/or Christianity.  I hope it's good enough that people who believe differently than I do still like it. 

[qwints]

I would my issues with religion-based is basically summed up in OSC's Homecoming series. I really liked the Ender's Game series, but that series was just plain awful. When the primary point of a book becomes to proselytize, other elements suffer.

But there's nothing wrong with religious characters or practice in fiction. Religion is a part of life and there's no reason to think it will disappear from the human experience.

[birdless]

I'm a Christian, and it is frustrating that the Christian market in general seems to not only accept but embrace substandard media (music, videos, movies and books). But, as I'm sure TAD and some others can attest, a lot of "Christians" base their "faith" on guilt: what they think will make God happy or unhappy. But I've come to realize that that is "religion," and that being a Christian is more about having a relationship with God than merely believing in God and having a specific set of rules to live by. But my point is, a lot of Christians will accept what is defined as "Christian literature" etc, because they'll feel guilty for enjoying something more that's not written by Christians or doesn't really touch on the subject of God. It's a sad, complicated thing. You may not even be able to understand if you haven't been there, but I wanted to try to explain it.

[Tango Alpha Delta]

I'm a Christian, and it is frustrating that the Christian market in general seems to not only accept but embrace substandard media (music, videos, movies and books). But, as I'm sure TAD and some others can attest, a lot of "Christians" base their "faith" on guilt: what they think will make God happy or unhappy. But I've come to realize that that is "religion," and that being a Christian is more about having a relationship with God than merely believing in God and having a specific set of rules to live by. But my point is, a lot of Christians will accept what is defined as "Christian literature" etc, because they'll feel guilty for enjoying something more that's not written by Christians or doesn't really touch on the subject of God. It's a sad, complicated thing. You may not even be able to understand if you haven't been there, but I wanted to try to explain it.

Yes, I definitely get that concept; reminds me of a discussion about Christian music on Last.fm I read last week.

The guilt thing is one edge of the sword, though... the other edge is the self-righteous satisfaction that one gets when others reject your clearly superior preferences.  That's not a dig at "people of faith" -- we all do that.  (Don't you feel a little smug knowing how many awesome books you have enjoyed while lesser beings sneer that they're above reading science fiction?)

As for faith vs. "religion", well... I do have a relationship with God.  It's one of those awkward relationships where you got divorced, but keep having to see each other at family gatherings and pretend to like each other.

[birdless]

The guilt thing is one edge of the sword, though... the other edge is the self-righteous satisfaction that one gets when others reject your clearly superior preferences.  That's not a dig at "people of faith" -- we all do that.  (Don't you feel a little smug knowing how many awesome books you have enjoyed while lesser beings sneer that they're above reading science fiction?)

As for faith vs. "religion", well... I do have a relationship with God.  It's one of those awkward relationships where you got divorced, but keep having to see each other at family gatherings and pretend to like each other.

True. I hate the smug self-righteousness more than the guilt-ridden decision making. I'm not sure I follow you completely on the satisfaction/smug statement, though. I think that's a personality difference, though. But I suppose I'm getting off-topic.

So to try to salvage this post onto something on-topic, I'm a writer wanna-be, and I've found it hard to incorporate God into interesting SF, i.e. something that I would like to read. I've got something in the hopper, but I haven't developed it enough to know whether it's really gonna work.

[DKT]

I get what both of you guys are saying.  Guilt is huge, self-righteousness is very annoying.

TAD, have you read the comic book Blankets by Craig Thompson (no relation)?  It's fantastic, possibly one of my favorite books, and it really reminds me of your relationship with God   It's bittersweet and very funny.  I highly recommend it. 

I'm going to have to check out the article about Christian music in the morning.  I think there's a parallel that can be drawn with what I've been saying about Christian artists vs. artists on Christian labels.  And I used to listen to a lot of Christian music back in the day when I was in JH and HS.  Heh. 

[bad_andy]

Hey everybody. Another former Christian here. Grew up evangelical so I'm familiar with that side of the fence. Firefly's Shepard Book is probably my favorite religious Sci Fi character both because he was well written and because he was a rare example of a sincere religious character that anybody could like. On the other hand, while I did enjoy the Narnia books as an early teenager they haven't stood up well for me as I've gotten older. Lewis' style of writing Christian apologetics as allegory is about as subtle as a fragmentation grenade going off in the next room.

I was familiar with Tim LaHaye from before I lost my faith, so I never really saw the point in reading any of the Left Behind stuff. I knew he'd have an agenda to push with the story and from what I've heard I was right. The only people I know who read it were believers and no one who wasn't was telling me what a great story arc it was. The church I grew up in wasn't really big on the whole "Rapture" bit anyway so I didn't even feel any theological curiosity. Generally, I don't care for religious genre fiction, but I do love how religion can be used to provide another layer of detail to an already compelling piece of story telling.

I liked the way Islam was used in When Gravity Fails to flesh out the story by providing cultural context for the characters. One example was when the protagonist, Marid, received upgraded cybernetic enhancement from his employer. The doctor who performed the procedure on him went over what the new equipment would allow him to do. IIRC, one of its new features was that he could metabolize alcohol faster than normal. When the doctor told him this he followed up with a disapproving scowl that the narrator interpreted as communication that, of course, he should never use the feature because a good muslim doesn't drink. There were other examples such as a Koran quoting crime boss, a guy from the neighborhood nicknamed the "Half-Haj" because he'd only made it halfway to Mecca the one time, etc. Details like this really helped bring the book to life for me and have stood out in my mind since I read it 16 years ago.

[Tango Alpha Delta]

bad_andy's description of "...Gravity..." reminded me of a short story I read somewhere in which a father and daughter were on haj (I think), and one of the conflicts of the story was that technology existed by which one could have the Quran encoded into the "junk DNA" in one's blood.  I don't remember the details, but I remember the daughter being concerned that if the practice caught on, it would provide an easy test for identifying Muslims by DNA.  I think there was a plot thread suggesting that people believed having the Quran in their blood would have some kind of healing effect, though, and  of course it was being marketed as THE way to show one's devotion.

I'm pretty sure it's in one of my "Year's Best SF" collections, but if anyone recognizes it, please help me with the name.

[stePH]

'm going to have to check out the article about Christian music in the morning.  I think there's a parallel that can be drawn with what I've been saying about Christian artists vs. artists on Christian labels.  And I used to listen to a lot of Christian music back in the day when I was in JH and HS.  Heh. 

From what Christian music I've heard, even including the recent solo work of Neal Morse (formerly the composer, writer and lead singer for Spock's Beard, a band I'm very fond of), I'm inclined to agree with Jeremy "Toastyfrog" Parish's statement*:

"There's a reason the Christian music section exists in the record store.  Namely, to help those with good taste avoid it like the plague."


*from his essay about Kansas, and Kerry Livgren's move to turn the group into a Christian band before striking out on his own as a solo artist.

[williamjamesw]

I remember that story(the one TAD mentioned).  I think it was in Analog or Asimov's about 5 or 6 years ago.

[Tango Alpha Delta]

I remember that story(the one TAD mentioned).  I think it was in Analog or Asimov's about 5 or 6 years ago.

It is "Written In Blood" by Chris Lawson... it appeared in Year's Best SF 5, edited by David G. Hartwell  (and in Asimov's, according to the intro).

[louhi]

So with religious-based SF, how appropriate is it to need some religious background to appreciate it?  Do you have to be a Jew (or at least know quite a bit about Judiasm) to truly "get" a golem story?  Do you miss a lot in Orson Scott Card's novels if you aren't Mormon?  And does this enhance or detract from the piece as art?
 

as an ex-Mormon...
i loved Ender's Game, and was terribly disappointed when the series went off on a religious bent. i was hoping for more politics and battle school, i guess, not religion. i didn't find a knowledge of the Mormon church to matter in the understanding, though i think it has a more generic christian flavor than anything else.

I didn't get far in the Homecoming series. i found the first chapter or so of the first book to be too entirely like the opening book in the Book of Mormon, complete with names; and i thought it was tacky to rewrite Scripture as fiction. i suppose in this case, a knowledge of the religion behind the book completely detracted from the book.

[bad_andy]

I definitely found my time with my Fremen ex-girlfriend really opened up Dune for me. Man, she had these deep blue eyes you could practically read by...

[Tango Alpha Delta]

I definitely found my time with my Fremen ex-girlfriend really opened up Dune for me. Man, she had these deep blue eyes you could practically read by...

You don't know what love is until you date a girl with a Gripping Hand.

[wintermute]

Flaming Marshmallow was a fun story. The reading was great and the ending was perfect.

I haven't read any of the Left Behind series, but I've seen the movies. Fiction based loosely on the Bible and marketed towards Christians can be dangerous. I've met more than one Christian who read/saw Left Behind and based part of their theology on the story. This is scary to me, because the work isn't Biblically accurate nor does it even claim to be. It's a work of fiction. The movies were okay, probably not worth watching again, but definitely should not be used as a means of evangelism.

Um, no. The books are intended to be literal truth, fiction only in that the events described haven't yet come to pass. The authors intend it to be a future history, as explicitly described in the Bible (by which they mean, as described in the footnotes of a Darby Bible). The fact that they (and many of their readers) believe these books to be good theology is what makes them such a dangerous force.

I reccomend reading Fred Clark's excellent page-by-page dissection. It's far easier to read than the book itself.

[birdless]

Flaming Marshmallow was a fun story. The reading was great and the ending was perfect.

I haven't read any of the Left Behind series, but I've seen the movies. Fiction based loosely on the Bible and marketed towards Christians can be dangerous. I've met more than one Christian who read/saw Left Behind and based part of their theology on the story. This is scary to me, because the work isn't Biblically accurate nor does it even claim to be. It's a work of fiction. The movies were okay, probably not worth watching again, but definitely should not be used as a means of evangelism.

Um, no. The books are intended to be literal truth, fiction only in that the events described haven't yet come to pass. The authors intend it to be a future history, as explicitly described in the Bible (by which they mean, as described in the footnotes of a Darby Bible). The fact that they (and many of their readers) believe these books to be good theology is what makes them such a dangerous force.

I reccomend reading Fred Clark's excellent page-by-page dissection. It's far easier to read than the book itself.

I had originally responded to this post to deny this claim, because I thought I had remembered LaHaye saying otherwise. But in an attempt to find a source for my memory, I discovered that the events that happen in the series are indeed based mostly on LaHaye's interpretation of the events recorded in Revelations (FAQ #3).

edit: emphasis added to that last sentence since LaHaye doesn't allow for that stipulation in his FAQ.