I'm dying to learn how to make my work Christian, while not preaching the unbelievers off the page.
The book I'm preparing now is set in another world. In this world, a major war has wiped out 90% of the population. In the aftermath, a dying king in a small kingdom chooses Therin for his throne, despite two healthy boys. This upsets the king's two sons, leading one to fail in an attempt to murder Therin, and the other, Cedik, takes enough money to live happily somewhere else.
The first scene I've written has Cedik return. His army marches right in because he bribes Merril to betray Therin by opening up the gates. Therin tells a favored soldier, Saer, to find Rakai and Aris and flee. Therin then surrenders his life.
I could go with Therin being the Savior, and have him raise from the dead. Or I could have Therin be a picture of the Savior. The former leads to much preaching, while the later allows for more subtlety.
The problem with the later is that readers like myself will be wondering the whole time, "Where is God in this story?" and "Do people in this world have hope of going to Heaven?"
These two questions seem to require the former option for Therin. I suppose I could have Therin just be a picture of the Savior that lived and died long ago in this world. Then throughout the book, Saer could just tell people, Therin was God reminding us of our Savior's sacrifice for our sins back before the war began.
After that, their quest becomes delivering a message by Therin to Lionel, a scientist risen to power through a drug that creates happiness, but steals the benefits of pain - turning us to God for help. As it is, the theme of this story is that only God can satisfy our needs. Do my main characters then go throughout this world telling everyone that they are wrong to choose this drug over the happiness that comes from salvation?
Sounds very preachy to me...
Either way, do any other Christian authors come across this same dilemma when creating worlds?
3 comments:
Tim--
You might want to simply tell your story first from your world view, without necessarily painting yourself into a "how to make it Christian" corner....you are a christian and if you reflect your worldview in the story through your characters then it is christian. For example: I have a novel set in another world, Chronicles of Soone, and there are many references to faith and prophecy and a messiah figure. But I also have another story where the protagonist is a christian and this is dealt with in several subtle ways, simply him addressing a situation in a christian way. The rest of the story is more about how he reacts to a terrible situation that he's been put through....what makes it a christian story is the characters worldview which shows up here and there as he reacts to the situations he finds himself in. I've got more examples, but I think you get my meaning :) Tell the story first...but include some of yourself in the characters. One rule I do follow, is not to violate scripture even in my possibles...for example, my other world scenario begins with "In another Creation of God...supposing that God as an infinite being could (if he wanted to) create apart from this universe and interact with it, and we would never know...simply basing a fiction story on not limiting what God "could" do...it doesn't violate who God is in the scripture. see ya.
Thanks for your comment James. I think I get what you're saying, and I enjoyed how you did that in Chronicles of Soone.
I've been thinking about how I can deal with other issues besides salvation in my new book, such as: sacrificing for the kingdom, thinking you're ready for your "career" but falling on your face when the time comes to perform, and the dangers of seeking peace outside of God.
This is a very important question that gets asked a lot. There are multitudinous ways to answer it, but I believe there is something in the Bible that gives us a clue.
The entire book of Esther never mentions God even indirectly.
No 'allegorical Christs' there.
No nothing.
And yet it glorifies God, it teaches about Him, and it is part of the Bible.
And people try to say that you can't do that in your stories! That makes no sense.
You can do the same. J.R.R. Tolkien did it. He hated allegories, and tried to avoid them as much as possible in his stories. But as a Christian, his worldview went in no matter what, and that is good.
Just my two cents on a soapbox. :)
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