I recently read a brief article in Christianity Today that dealt with issues some authors have encountered with faith-based fiction and Amazon reviews. These authors primarily self-publish using Amazon, and most of their books are free.* They have received a significant number of poor reviews because they apparently did not warn in their product descriptions that religious faith was a central tenet of their fiction. One giver of a negative reviewer summed it up by saying that religion is all well and good, but has no place in fiction.
I sat there for a minute after reading that sentence, blinked, and re-read in the hopes all the ongoing atmospheric pressure changes had performed some sinister action upon my vision. "Religion has no place in fiction."** The more I think about it, the more torn I am between pity and that kind of semi-hysterical laughter that makes people look at you skeptically and edge away like you're insane and contagious.
Let's clarify something here. I think most fiction that is labeled as "Christian" is terrible. The messages some of these books try to convey? They might be, at their core, beautiful and true. The vehicles by which they are all too often delivered, however, are trite, boring, preachy, and examples of bad art. Nevertheless, history informs us some of the best books, both in quality, endurance, and popularity, are deeply religious or influenced by religion. Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, for example. While those who haven't read it might be under the delusion it is a popular text due to its delightful pastoral scenes or witty dialogue, a la Jane Austen, let me dispel that now. C&P is dark, brutal, and one of the most frightening studies of human nature across which I've come.*** It is also founded on principles of faith - Christian faith, in this case - and redemption.
Granted, this is a huge book, and not something with which everyone is familiar. If one wanted to make the argument that authors such as Dostoevsky are inaccessible to the average person, I would not entirely agree, but would concede there might be an argument made there.**** I counter with Tolkien. I don't care if we want to reference the Lord of the Rings books or the film franchise.***** Very few are unfamiliar with the franchise by this point. John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was staunchly Catholic. While Lord of the Rings is not blatantly Christian, it is implicitly Christian by virtue of the themes contained therein.
I move on from more time-honored and perhaps more "Christian" authors to modern authors such as Cormac McCarthy. The Road is possibly the bleakest book I've read. Nevertheless, there are "religious" questions posed, such as the purpose of man's existence, what defines man, whether God exists. These themes drive the characters and the plot.
Now I'm going to make the biggest leap here from literature to a short-lived but excellent television series. Before Joss Whedon finally, finally started getting his dues after directing the recent Avengers movie, he directed a television show about a decade ago. It was called Firefly, and is best described in short as a space western. Whedon himself is an atheist. This did not stop him from including the character of a preacher in the cast. This character asks hard questions, but is a man of unflinching integrity, and I would argue his presence adds a nuance of sheer artistic depth that wouldn't be present without him. While Firefly is certainly not what one would call "Christian" television******, and it forces an even vaguely discerning or intelligent audience member to consider issues he might not otherwise.
Even from a perspective outside Christianity, I think it would be incredibly difficult to say without ignoring the history of literature, and even modern literature, that religion has no place in fiction. Fiction can be written without religion, and it can be popular. Some currently popular fiction such as The Hunger Games trilogy is set in a world in which God and religion are simply absent. I would argue this absence correlates to a lack of depth in certain areas.
I will conclude by saying that popularity does not indicate quality. I think all I need to say on that is Twilight. You're welcome, and good night.
______________________
*I am far from saying one should accept a work of poor quality simply because it is free; however, an excessive amount of complaining about a free book seems a bit silly.
**I had to decide how to react at this point. My options were an instinctive Picard face-palm (see previous post), a gratifying but ultimately unhelpful moment of HULK SMASH, or a blog post that would hopefully blunder into being useful. We'll see how that last option goes. I'm waiting for the coffee to kick in. The caffeine boost will either give my mental faculties a kick-start, or turn me into the equivalent of Doug from Up. In the latter case, this will turn into a barely-controlled case study of temporary ADD. Hang with me.
***Granted, I'm young and have a lot more to read. If you haven't read Crime and Punishment, you need to. It's a huge book, and yes, there are a lot of Russian nicknames, but the time is absolutely worth it.
****More than a few high school English programs have juniors and seniors read Crime and Punishment. The whole thing. This can and will be expanded into a full post later, rest assured.
*****Extended versions, of course. And who's excited about The Hobbit this fall? Martin Freeman and Benedict Cumberbatch both appearing in a film outside BBC's Sherlock. *Snoopy dance of happiness*
******For one, it's far too interesting and well-written.
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Bumper Stickers; Christians; Tact; Picard
Recently, as I was rolling down the highway, doing a judicious 79 miles an hour on a road zoned for 75*, my sister pointed out a bumper sticker on an SUV we were passing. It read, "Stop, drop, and roll won't work in hell." Admittedly, my sense of humor can drift into the morbid now and again, so, a small part of me did find this passingly amusing. The rest of me did this:
While I typically dislike using "Christian" as an adjective to modify nouns, particularly pertaining to art or culture, this sticker could be labelled as nothing else, aside from "potentially offensive", "alienating", and "as devoid of tact as a Cyberman".** The saddest part may be that this sticker references concepts and occurrences that are of the utmost spiritual and metaphysical importance. In the background are salvation, the death and resurrection of Christ, justification, and sanctification. This particular representation of these ideas, however, is trite and offensive. It does no justice to these concepts to which anyone who knew the truth should cling; to the contrary, it drives many away with what smacks of a sense of superiority.
I am certainly not saying one should base one's concept of evangelism upon offending no one. Some will be offended or turned off. This does not mean we should be careless in what we say and how we say it. It is quite the opposite; when we speak of the greatest and truest things to exist, we should be very, very careful. These are not small things we claim to represent, nor are they casual or ordinary. Awe is a dying concept, and that is a frightening realization. Too often, we speak of great things off-handedly, and trivial matters reverentially.
On some other day, I'm certain I'll attempt to expand on this, hopefully in a worthy and judicious manner. It is something that deserves a far better treatment than I can give it, but I will give it a go.***
_________________________
*Four over is almost always safe (and sometimes, very necessary), unless you are passing through a small town or school zone. If it's the latter, think of the children, and the massive fine you may incur.
**Doctor Who reference. In certain ways, many camps of Christian evangelism operate under mindsets not unlike that of the Cybermen: Convert and become exactly like us, or die. I could write an entire post centering upon this comparison, but I shall refrain.
***Three footnotes is quite more manageable than eight, or however many I got to last time. This may be a feasible system up to five or so footnotes; past that, just counting the bothersome things is annoying for all involved. I shall have to experiment in an attempt to find the optimal range for asterisk-flagged footnotes. Hooray for science!
Thursday, June 21, 2012
Clarifications upon the URL and Title References
"Further Up and Further In" is a reference to C.S. Lewis's The Last Battle, and "ring of pure and endless light" is from Henry Vaughn's delightful poem, The World. Of course, I recommend C.S. Lewis's works highly, but do read The World. It's short.
http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/vaughan/world.htm
http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/vaughan/world.htm
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
The Church; some of its sundry issues; footnotes of snark
Like its Maker, the Church is something nigh impossible to describe. Scripture calls it a bride, a body, an organism both unified and formed of component parts. It is composed of body and spirit, containing immeasurable purpose and power, both transcendent and temporal. This is the Church, the catholic church, the united body of believers.*
Face it, though, this is a Church few of us actually see. Some of us who have spent every Sunday and Wednesday of our lives in a church building have never seen this Church. We've seen a version no stronger than the diluted grape juice passed around a Baptist celebration of communion.** The church that many both in and out of the faith know is often petty, confusing, constraining, and boring.*** It often divides itself not in a helpful amoebic way, but in a quarreling, divisive way. It attempts, on occasion, to be cool for the sake of being cool, often with more failure than success.****
The earthly church has never been perfect. While the particular problems varied from age to age, every strain of the church and every denomination has had and will have flaws, simply because every person in the church has had and will have flaws. Plato's Republic serves as a useful example here. The city of which Socrates speaks in exhausting detail is, in its simplest form, a collection of men. Not only is it simply a name for a governed collection of men, it is, to Plato, man writ large. One can better see something if it is magnified. In this case, the city reflects on the state of a man.
As the condition of a city says something about the condition of its inhabitants, so does the condition of the church. The church is, at times, petty, confusing, constraining, and boring, because its members are petty, confusing, constraining, and boring. It is little wonder that many outside the church (and increasing numbers within) feel a sense of offense and outrage toward the church and feel it has little to nothing to offer.
This is where one must make a most crucial distinction. Members of the church, due to sin's presence in the world, have faults.***** This does not mean the creator and sustainer of the church does. The temporal church may be divided; God is not. The temporal church may confuse and constrain; God does not. The church's poor representation of God does not mean God himself is lacking, much as a child's well-meant drawing of his family does not mean his parents actually gander about as technicolored stick figures.
I grew up in the church and, thankfully enough, every now and then, caught glimpses of the Church. These glimpses came through people, through deeds, through authors like Lewis and Sayers and L'Engle. There are so many things the church has done right, and so much it has done wrong. I do not claim to have solutions, even though I realize possessing an undergraduate degree in Good Books****** absolutely qualifies me to offer solutions about anything and everything.*******
I offer observations, questions, thoughts, and some quotes and ideas I only wish were originally mine. During this endeavor to examine, question, and affirm the church, I'll probably come across some hornets' nests, but that seems to be the way of things, particularly if one has strong opinions and ideals. Some of these quotes and ideas from classical and contemporary literature will be accompanied by references to things in which I am intensely interested, namely art, music, and superhero movies. Just as "Christian" culture does not signify qualitatively good or value-filled culture, "secular" culture does not mean qualitatively bad or value-void culture********. The temporal church may be in a period of intense difficulty (much of its own making), particularly in the West, but it has so much to offer. It has infinity and beyond.*********
______________
These asterisks are driving me crazier than you, I promise. Turabian-style numbered end-notes would be more concise and generally tidy, but the idea gives me flashbacks to finishing term papers in library cubicles at two in the morning, shaking from exhaustion, caffeine-fueled mania, and the increasingly paranoid sense the walls were sentient and closing in.
All that to say, I'll figure out some better way of canning and preserving these side-notes of varying importance.
*Not Roman Catholic. Just catholic.
**I am aware this could spark all sorts of interesting conversations regarding sacraments, denominations, and alcohol. I'll get there later, I promise.
***"But church isn't supposed to be entertainment!" Yes. And no. A joyful heart is good medicine, and Jesus told stories to get at the deepest truths. Also, Jesus was funny, a fact that many seem unwilling to admit or believe. To quote Dorothy Sayers, Jesus "displayed a paradoxical humor that affronted serious-minded people", and "was emphatically not a dull man in his human lifetime, and if he was God, there can be nothing dull about God either." (Both quotes are from Letters to a Diminished Church. I emphatically recommend it.)
****This desire led to some humiliating moments of '80s and '90s Christianity, times during which many tried to create godly culture by Christianizing secular culture. There were noble goals involved, to be sure, but some of the resultant "Christian" art, specifically, was positively cringe-worthy, sort of like awkward teenage years that lasted over a decade. Yes, "Christian" art is definitely something I'll discuss later, and by "discuss", I mean probably spend most of my life trying to understand better.
*****Another one of those topics to which I'll get someday. I will note now, if you're reading this and don't believe there is sin or evil present in the world, we will almost immediately arrive at cross-purposes. While I respect your right to believe that, I also respect my right to believe you must live in a very different world than I. Or, to quote Hawkeye from the recent Avengers movie, "You and I remember Budapest very differently."
******The name of the major is Great Texts, technically, but let's get serious here, they let me major in books and still gave me a diploma. I halfway keep expecting someone to show up at my house to take it back, so I keep it under my bed next to my gun.
*******Just in case this sentence is unclear, I am being sarcastic. The further I got into my undergraduate education, the more I realized I didn't know squat. On a note about my being sarcastic, that will happen a lot. If you do not hold with sarcasm, or are very easily offended, know that I am (usually) not trying to be offensive. I also have far too much snark coded into my DNA to hide it save for delicate situations. In short, there will be sarcasm. If you don't like it, you are (probably) under absolutely no obligation to read anything I write. If you are under some sort of obligation, please drop me an email and let me know what obligation.
******** Also, because superheroes are cool.
*********Yeah, I quoted a Pixar movie. What are you going to do about it?
Post-script, because I couldn't find a good place to work this in, but want to inform you anyway:
I will have at least one post with a heavy dose of Avengers, both for some theologically delightful lines and examples of excellent storytelling. I'm sure once the third Batman movie comes up, that'll make an appearance. Firefly will, Lord of the Rings definitely will, and BBC's Doctor Who and Sherlock will come up. Theoretically the BBC shows will show up because of storytelling elements and commentary on current culture, but mostly because I love Eccleston, Tennant, Smith, Cumberbatch, and Freeman.
Okay. I'm done for now. Go with God.
Face it, though, this is a Church few of us actually see. Some of us who have spent every Sunday and Wednesday of our lives in a church building have never seen this Church. We've seen a version no stronger than the diluted grape juice passed around a Baptist celebration of communion.** The church that many both in and out of the faith know is often petty, confusing, constraining, and boring.*** It often divides itself not in a helpful amoebic way, but in a quarreling, divisive way. It attempts, on occasion, to be cool for the sake of being cool, often with more failure than success.****
The earthly church has never been perfect. While the particular problems varied from age to age, every strain of the church and every denomination has had and will have flaws, simply because every person in the church has had and will have flaws. Plato's Republic serves as a useful example here. The city of which Socrates speaks in exhausting detail is, in its simplest form, a collection of men. Not only is it simply a name for a governed collection of men, it is, to Plato, man writ large. One can better see something if it is magnified. In this case, the city reflects on the state of a man.
As the condition of a city says something about the condition of its inhabitants, so does the condition of the church. The church is, at times, petty, confusing, constraining, and boring, because its members are petty, confusing, constraining, and boring. It is little wonder that many outside the church (and increasing numbers within) feel a sense of offense and outrage toward the church and feel it has little to nothing to offer.
This is where one must make a most crucial distinction. Members of the church, due to sin's presence in the world, have faults.***** This does not mean the creator and sustainer of the church does. The temporal church may be divided; God is not. The temporal church may confuse and constrain; God does not. The church's poor representation of God does not mean God himself is lacking, much as a child's well-meant drawing of his family does not mean his parents actually gander about as technicolored stick figures.
I grew up in the church and, thankfully enough, every now and then, caught glimpses of the Church. These glimpses came through people, through deeds, through authors like Lewis and Sayers and L'Engle. There are so many things the church has done right, and so much it has done wrong. I do not claim to have solutions, even though I realize possessing an undergraduate degree in Good Books****** absolutely qualifies me to offer solutions about anything and everything.*******
I offer observations, questions, thoughts, and some quotes and ideas I only wish were originally mine. During this endeavor to examine, question, and affirm the church, I'll probably come across some hornets' nests, but that seems to be the way of things, particularly if one has strong opinions and ideals. Some of these quotes and ideas from classical and contemporary literature will be accompanied by references to things in which I am intensely interested, namely art, music, and superhero movies. Just as "Christian" culture does not signify qualitatively good or value-filled culture, "secular" culture does not mean qualitatively bad or value-void culture********. The temporal church may be in a period of intense difficulty (much of its own making), particularly in the West, but it has so much to offer. It has infinity and beyond.*********
______________
These asterisks are driving me crazier than you, I promise. Turabian-style numbered end-notes would be more concise and generally tidy, but the idea gives me flashbacks to finishing term papers in library cubicles at two in the morning, shaking from exhaustion, caffeine-fueled mania, and the increasingly paranoid sense the walls were sentient and closing in.
All that to say, I'll figure out some better way of canning and preserving these side-notes of varying importance.
*Not Roman Catholic. Just catholic.
**I am aware this could spark all sorts of interesting conversations regarding sacraments, denominations, and alcohol. I'll get there later, I promise.
***"But church isn't supposed to be entertainment!" Yes. And no. A joyful heart is good medicine, and Jesus told stories to get at the deepest truths. Also, Jesus was funny, a fact that many seem unwilling to admit or believe. To quote Dorothy Sayers, Jesus "displayed a paradoxical humor that affronted serious-minded people", and "was emphatically not a dull man in his human lifetime, and if he was God, there can be nothing dull about God either." (Both quotes are from Letters to a Diminished Church. I emphatically recommend it.)
****This desire led to some humiliating moments of '80s and '90s Christianity, times during which many tried to create godly culture by Christianizing secular culture. There were noble goals involved, to be sure, but some of the resultant "Christian" art, specifically, was positively cringe-worthy, sort of like awkward teenage years that lasted over a decade. Yes, "Christian" art is definitely something I'll discuss later, and by "discuss", I mean probably spend most of my life trying to understand better.
*****Another one of those topics to which I'll get someday. I will note now, if you're reading this and don't believe there is sin or evil present in the world, we will almost immediately arrive at cross-purposes. While I respect your right to believe that, I also respect my right to believe you must live in a very different world than I. Or, to quote Hawkeye from the recent Avengers movie, "You and I remember Budapest very differently."
******The name of the major is Great Texts, technically, but let's get serious here, they let me major in books and still gave me a diploma. I halfway keep expecting someone to show up at my house to take it back, so I keep it under my bed next to my gun.
*******Just in case this sentence is unclear, I am being sarcastic. The further I got into my undergraduate education, the more I realized I didn't know squat. On a note about my being sarcastic, that will happen a lot. If you do not hold with sarcasm, or are very easily offended, know that I am (usually) not trying to be offensive. I also have far too much snark coded into my DNA to hide it save for delicate situations. In short, there will be sarcasm. If you don't like it, you are (probably) under absolutely no obligation to read anything I write. If you are under some sort of obligation, please drop me an email and let me know what obligation.
******** Also, because superheroes are cool.
*********Yeah, I quoted a Pixar movie. What are you going to do about it?
Post-script, because I couldn't find a good place to work this in, but want to inform you anyway:
I will have at least one post with a heavy dose of Avengers, both for some theologically delightful lines and examples of excellent storytelling. I'm sure once the third Batman movie comes up, that'll make an appearance. Firefly will, Lord of the Rings definitely will, and BBC's Doctor Who and Sherlock will come up. Theoretically the BBC shows will show up because of storytelling elements and commentary on current culture, but mostly because I love Eccleston, Tennant, Smith, Cumberbatch, and Freeman.
Okay. I'm done for now. Go with God.
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