Gold And Lapis Lazuli Earring, Egypt, 19th Dynasty, 1295-1186 BC

Glass pendant in the shape of a ram's head, Carthage, 5th-4th century BC

from The Walters Art Museum

"You should always make time for books."

―The Library of Lost and Found by Phaedra Patrick

I have loved reading your posts on various fiction from Christian perspective. I am wondering your opinion on when fantasy/"magic" fiction becomes too much? I used to encounter a lot of people talking about how basically -anything- fantasy was evil. I have struggled with scrupulosity OCD for many years now so I tend to think things towards a legalistic lens. I'd like to be able to enjoy fantasy again, while carefully discerning, so I'd love to hear what you think are the merits/limits of fantasy

Hi! First off, Jesus said: "These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world." When you're wrestling with scrupulousity, sometimes it helps to see or hear out loud the reminder that life in Christ is one that's supposed to give you peace, not constant worry about doing everything right--even if you've heard that before and you already know it, sometimes it can help to hear it over again from outside your own head. So there it is! 🤝

Next: thank you for asking me! I'm no professional. But someone did ask me this question once before. I am having a hard time finding it on my blog right now, otherwise I'd link to it, but I'll try to summarize at the end of this post!

EDIT: You asked me to talk about the merits and limits of fantasy and I got carried away explaining why fantasy fiction is not outright evil according to the Bible. I moved that to the end of the post 😅 here's what I think the merits are:

All of Reality, our world, our timeline, was invented by God. That makes Him the storyteller, us His characters, and reality His narrative. Just like any storyteller, He made up a system of rules for His world: rules like, "humans sink in water," and "humans can't be cured of sickness by touching other humans," and "the weather doesn't change just because humans tell it to." Then God, the storyteller, broke His own world-building rules. On purpose. He wrote Himself (Jesus) into the story as a human who COULD walk on water and COULD heal other humans with a touch and COULD tell the weather what to do, and it obeyed.

In fantasy stories, when a character can break the established rules of the created world, we call that "magic." We call it "magic" when the storyteller brings in a supernatural element to show that this character is special, powerful, capable, set apart from all the others.

So that's what I think the merits are. Fantasy stories have a special kind of closeness to The Storyteller Who Invented Stories, because of that very element of "make the rules then bring in rule-breaking specialness" that He uses.

That's where you get Gandalf, or even the Fairy Godmother, or of course Aslan and the Deep Magic.

The limitations to the genre, I would say, is that fantasy stories are very tempting for storytellers' egos. Because of Tolkien, there's this generation of storytellers who think that inventing a fantasy world with rules and races and magical systems and cultures and, to sum it all up, a whole universe of their own design, is the POINT.

They think the themes and the message of their story comes second to how thorough and clever they can be with their made-up magical systems, or fantasy-race-relations, or made-up languages.

Basically, in no other genre have I observed storytellers getting so excited to play god-of-their-own-clever-world than in fantasy. Then they forget that the important part of a story is the message, not the brain that's capable of inventing worlds and languages and cool-sounding names and ancestries. What they have to say basically gets lost in how flashy and cool they can be while saying it.

But that's another soap box for another time. Those are basically the merits and limitations, I think, broad-strokes.

On to the Biblical worldview for magic in stories below!

"Magic" is mentioned in the Bible. It's sorcery. Specifically, the Bible is telling Christians to stay away from "real" magic...which is basically just "trying to connect with spiritual forces to accomplish anything supernatural." We were created to have relationship with one Spirit: God. Anything outside of that is like a fish trying to breathe oxygen: it hurts us. So the Bible says, "no real magic."

But.

"Fantasy fiction magic" is not "a real live human trying to connect with real demonic forces and accomplish something supernatural." Instead, "fantasy fiction magic" is just "a real live human making up a story. Playing pretend."

The Bible has no commands, no rules, against that. Jesus told stories. His servants tell stories. We're made to tell stories.

And the Bible has no commands against telling a story that includes magic in it.

Think of it this way: God said "do not murder" right? But then in Matthew 18 Jesus tells a parable where one man tries to choke another man. There's attempted murder in the story Jesus is telling: but just because God disapproves of the act of murder, does not mean He disapproves of telling a story that features murder.

Sin being in a story isn't a bad thing. It's realistic, because sin exists. What really matters is whether or not the story treats the sin like sin, and not like an admirable thing. Because the point of all stories is to tell the truth in a compelling way. If the story treats something sinful like it's not sinful, that wouldn't be truthful. But if the story treats sin like it's definitely bad, then it's doing what God invented stories to do: tell the truth.

Now here's where you might say, "yeah, but most fantasy stories treat magic like it's a good thing."

Right. But remember: most fantasy stories don't have what the Bible calls "magic" in them at all.

When the Fairy Godmother in Cinderella says "bibbidi bobbidi boo," she's not calling upon demons to give her supernatural power (which is what the Bible is talking about when it condemns magic.) She's using a pretend superpower that the storyteller made up, on the spot, for the story. Her "magic" is not what the Bible calls "magic," so it doesn't even matter if it's portrayed as "good" or "bad" morally.

Fantasy fiction is fine. There is no reason, Biblically, for Christians not to read fantasy fiction if their only reason for it is "well there's magic in it."

There's nothing wrong with telling a story that has a supernatural element in it. It's only a story. As long as it's not real humans doing creation-worshipping or demon-contacting practices, in real life it's okay to write and it's okay to read.

Let me know if that makes sense!

reblog to give your mutuals a BLÅHAJ

Yay!!! Desi Miku!!!

This is a hilarious concept

Silly idea for a novel: the maintenance guys for ancient temple traps.

They’re a team of travelling engineers and quality assurance experts, who have to stay a step ahead of the assorted adventurers and archaeologists. The job is to make all the puzzles and traps authentic to original design, difficult to solve (but not too difficult. They want a staggered fatality rate so the final traps and puzzles get a chance to shine as well), and to stay ahead of schedule.

They’re all members of the reportedly long lost people who built the ruins. How or why this might be is never addressed. They carry themselves like regular tradesmen, all ‘well there’s you’re problem’ while dangling on a harness over a spike trap to fix the giant swinging axe. They have a water traps guy but he’s sick so the mechanical engineer is filling in. The spring loaded traps are all sticking this year due to humidity. The spinning clockwork puzzles are waiting for a part. The guy who replaces the tiles on collapsing floor traps thinks that’s bullshit. The stone worker who fixes the facades after the repairs has a UST-drenched rivalry with the botanist who arranges the moss and vines over hidden entrances and faded murals. The poison darts guy and the snake handler are siblings trying to fill their dad’s shoes. The final assessor is the grizzled old expert who’s seen it all and everyone respects. He has final say on whether or not the work is up to scratch and they can move onto the next temple. He gets injured/falls into a bottomless pit at the end of act one and they have to do the big job without him. The pressure is on to do him proud.

The archaeologists/adventurers have no clue about any of this. They’re constantly traipsing through the jungles, trying to decode clues, and loudly dying in the background. This is treated like a standard inconvenience.

Occasionally they run into vengeful spirits or surviving priests, who treat them the same way you treat a plumber who is fixing your sink: and tentatively offer them a sandwich and a cup of tea and try not to complain about them wearing work boots in the house.

A brief moment of rationality from the bird place.

Sculpture with rooster head, was found in a tomb at Gaochang, a Tang city on the edge of the Taklamakan Desert, 7th-10th century, Tang Dynasty, China.

Concrete proof that a centaur’s greatest enemy is a big cat

Stunning mosaic from the floor of the triclinium (dining room) of Hadrian's Villa, residence of Emperor Hadrian outside Rome

Altes Museum, Berlin

#yes please

The only acceptable ads should be shit like "groceries on sale" and "free event at the local library"