The Need for Honesty in Christian Fiction

As we continue to work on choosing our winners, here's a guest post from last year's contest coordinator, Crista Richey.

As creators of art, fiction, and film, we Christians like to preach. In fact, we often take it as our calling to preach. After all, God's people are charged to act as salt and light in a dark and twisted world, and to proclaim the gospel to all nations. If our vocation is to write, shouldn't we pen masterpieces that exemplify God's moral standards for living and present the good news of salvation?

Well, yes—and no. It is true that stories exert a powerful influence over their readers and listeners, for good or for evil, and it is tempting to take advantage of that by employing didacticism. But may I suggest that didacticism—at least in terms of current literature—is itself remarkably un-Christian? It is un-Christian because, in most types of fiction currently published, it is dishonest. 

There are exceptions to this, of course. For the purposes of this article, however, I am addressing didacticism used in “realistic” fiction. By realistic, I do not mean realistic content, but rather realistic presentation. (The Chronicles of Narnia, for example, are realistic in presentation but not in content. The story is believable within its established context, but not within ours.) Most fiction published today is realistic in presentation, and it is within that broad category that didacticism becomes notably dishonest.

Maybe you know what I'm talking about. Christian writers seem particularly susceptible to the disease because they often feel obligated to “convert” or “inspire” their readers. The result? Long-winded lectures on vice or virtue, yes; but also, a picture-perfect portrait of life that is utterly foreign to the experiences of real people. A sound-bite presentation of the gospel, followed by a dramatic conversion; family prayer, immediately restoring a broken relationship between family members; virtuous acts, quickly and generously rewarded; characters painted in stark terms of black or white...

Here's the crux: if you want to write realistic fiction, you need to write realistically. Otherwise, it's dishonest. We have to acknowledge—or rather, explore—the complexity of human beings and the crazy, broken, beautiful world we live in. Life is hard. It's confusing. People are confusing. And no wonder: depraved, marred by sin, but created in the image of God? What strange creatures we are! Simplistic characters and easily-resolved plots won't do. They're not real. They're not honest. And if humans are a mystery to themselves, what about Christ? Can we really use a Kodak moment to explain the gospel? To explain God?

We need to be careful here. A good story is not the equivalent of a good sermon—nor is it a “slice of life.” A story has structure. It has conflict, climax, and resolution, condensing the characters' experiences and hard-won wisdom into a streamlined version of the “actual” event. Our lives are not formatted like a story! (Or if they are, we are not usually in a position to realize it.) And yet, somehow, a good story must exhibit the author's understanding of real life. If the author is exploring deeper spiritual realities in his work, he must do so without resorting to didacticism.

This is not easy to do, but it is a worthy objective to strive for. It allows the author to share a deeper and much more meaningful story with his readers—one that readers will instinctively recognize as demonstrating a thoughtful understanding of the world and the people who inhabit it. They may not agree with the author's conclusions, but they are more likely to listen if they know the author is being honest. And that is truly worth the effort. How else can we act as salt and light to an audience that doesn't necessarily trust our judgment? Or serve a God who defines truth itself?

Something to think about. 

Writing and the Imago Dei

 Today's guest post was written by Eric Burk, a journalism major at Patrick Henry College who  spends his free time reading and discussing literature with his friends.

“First there was nothing...then there was Calvin! Calvin, the mighty god, creates the universe with pure will! From utter nothingness comes swirling form! Life begins where once was void!”

In the dark and brilliant colors of his comic strip Calvin and Hobbes, artist Bill Watterson portrays the malignant imagination of Calvin, a little boy whose parents struggle to keep him under control. The comic is a masterpiece of storytelling and art partly because of the fascinating images Watterson draws, but also partly due to what the strip shows us about ourselves. Calvin may be a violent little boy with a vivid imagination, but the pleasure he takes in creation is common to all mankind. Part of what makes humans human is the creative urge, expressed in everything from politics to writing. Just as Calvin does, we all create, imitating in our own flawed way the work of the great Creator. It is important to think of writing in terms of creation, since flawed writing can often be traced back to a flawed understanding of who God is and the place humans occupy in His creation.

Christians should recognize who man is as a creator. In the beginning of God's instruction manual for humans and life on earth (the Bible), God tells how He created the universe. He also gives insight into what He intended man to be. In Genesis 1:26-27 He records,

“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”

The meaning of that phrase, image of God or imago Dei, has been debated often. Clearly, it’s a massive idea that is beyond our ability to completely grasp. However, we can grasp bits and pieces of it. In chapter two of her book The Mind of the Maker, Dorothy Sayers highlights one of the elements of the image of God. She argues that the image of God is clearly not referring to the false classical idea of God as “a hirsute old gentleman in flowing robes seated on a bank of cloud.” Instead, the image of God refers to something more fundamental that is in part reflected in man’s ability to create.

In Genesis 1:26-27, God commands that man exercise dominion over the rest of creation. The concept of dominion is closely tied to another characteristic of man: his creativity. It is not a coincidence that man is a creator; he was created in the image of the greatest Creator. Obviously, people do not create from nothing using only the spoken word, as God did. Instead, they are completely reliant upon God for materials, ability to will, and power to create, making the human creator a minor creator. I think of a little boy working with his father in the garage. While his father crafts a fine cabinet for the kitchen, the boy watches in the corner and pounds a scrap of wood with a hammer and some nails, all given to him by his father. The boy is thus a minor carpenter in the image of his father. Creativity is man’s most noble calling, a display of the image of God.

However, there is a dark side to man's potential. Calvin, though a creator of sorts, failed to create in the perfect image of God, instead creating in mankind’s twisted, distorted nature. Genesis 3 warns that man is fallen, wicked, twisted, and distorted. C.S. Lewis says that man is bent. Mankind can still reach some of his original potential. However, instead of creating things that beautify and establish order, man can create evil and destructive things, a direct contradiction of man's original purpose. Man, once perfect in the image of God, now feebly tries to oppose God by destroying in small pieces what God spoke into being.

Sayers creates an analogy between the Persons of the Holy Trinity and mankind’s creative power, presenting a creative idea, a creative will, and creative power as corresponding to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit respectively. Distortions in man’s creation are thus related to heresies of the Trinity. In order to create properly, man must not only understand himself, but must correctly perceive God. Thus, creators are in danger of a sort of unintentional heresy and blasphemy when they ignore the One who enables them to create.

When people create, they can only work with what God gives them. Thus, sometimes the act of creation is merely a rearranging and partial destruction and reconstruction of matter. However, artists such as writers, painters, and musicians have an extra power. In chapter three of The Mind of the Maker, Sayers states, “It is the artist who, more than other men, is able to create something out of nothing. A whole artistic work is immeasurably more than the sum of its parts.” In that knowledge, go; write. But do not underestimate what you do. You are an imitative creator in the image of God; rely on Him and create art for the glory of God.

thoughts on story craft and hank the cowdog

"When I took this job as Head of Ranch Security, I knew that I was only flesh and blood, four legs, a tail, a couple of ears, a pretty nice kind of nose that the women really go for, two bushels of hair and another half-bushel of Mexican sandburs. You add that all up and you don't get Superman, just me, good old easy-going Hank who works hard, tries to do his job, and gets very little cooperation from anyone else around here." – The Original Adventures of Hank the Cowdog

“Only the Maker of galaxies would have thought to give mankind such a marvelous gift as a dog.” – John R. Erickson, Story Craft

One of the most helpful books on Christian writing I’ve ever read is Story Craft by John R. Erickson. Ever heard of the Hank the Cowdog series? Same author. Never heard of Hank? Now that’s a tragedy. You can learn more about Hank at the author’s website, and a little bit more about him right here.

The Hank books center on the adventures (or misadventures) of Hank and his buddy Drover, two dogs who live on a ranch with their (human) family and constantly get themselves into hilarious scrapes. Any one who has ever owned or loved a dog will cherish these books. They are funny, memorable, and “true to the essence of dog.” They are also very nourishing to the soul, and deeply Christian at their core – even though the salvation message is never mentioned, and Hank is certainly no preacher.

In Story Craft, Erickson describes his approach to writing, shares his thoughts on the vocation of writing (especially in relation to faith and contemporary culture), and offers practical advice to younger writers. He is very resistant toward pop culture—more specifically, toward its rejection of structure, moral order, and art as nourishment. Stories are to strengthen the soul as bread or water strengthens the body; they are not to poison the reader with despair, chaos, and emptiness. Story Craft reminds us that the best stories are ones that uphold the structure of a universe created by all-wise and all-wonderful God, a God who is the source of all that is good and pure and strong, and yes, a God who is the source of all beauty, joy and laughter. (Who else could have thought up a dog?)

As Dr. Gene Veith reminds us in the introduction to Story Craft, “The purpose of every vocation…is to love and serve our neighbors. […] A writer is supposed to love and serve his readers.” [xi] But Erickson is also resistant toward mediocre, didactic, “Christian” literature that confuses the role of storytelling with the role of preaching. Both might deal with the “structure of the universe” and ultimately point to the same conclusion, but they must travel separate routes:

But Hank never talks about Jesus, some might object, as if dogs were objects of salvation. Mr. Erickson’s vocation is not one of preaching. The Christianity in these stories is not on the surface. It is deeper down. The very structure and the craft of his storytelling: the nature, and human nature, and animal nature that he writes about; and the moral truths that even his dogs have to deal with are in accord with the reality that God created. Consequently, as he points out in this book, though his stories do not have a religious content, they have a religious effect. [xiii]

That isn’t to say that good stories can’t have religious content. But when it comes to storytelling, it is much more effective to show truth than to simply insert moral truths into the mouth of a talking head and leave it at that. A story that is “sentimental and dull, with characters who speak in soft tones and smile all the time,” is a bad story—even if it exhorts the audience “to think on the things that are true, honest, just, pure, lovely, virtuous, and worthy of praise.” [101] These things are the very “things” that make good stories so nourishing and worthwhile, and yet good storytelling requires an approach that is different from good preaching. Showing – not telling – is the key here. The Hank books set a good example:

[x] The animals, as in the time-honored fables that go back to Aesop, remind us of people, including ourselves. Hank’s constant temptation to eat the chickens illuminates our own temptations. Hank’s pride is completely counterbalanced by his shortcomings. When we laugh at Hank’s blustery ego, we are missing the point if we aren’t also laughing at ourselves…[1]

101. “Hank wants to be a good dog, but he’s involved in a constant struggle with his nature: a short attention span, food lust, and an exalted opinion of his role as Head of Ranch Security. He’s a sinner. Sometimes he rises to heroism but he doesn’t stay there long. That describes every dog I’ve known. It also has some very funny parallels with the human condition.”[2]

This is a topic we’ve touched on before, and it is important. But Story Craft covers plenty of other ground as well. If you find yourself in need of good solid advice on writing, consult Story Craft. I trust you have heard some of these rules before: Good writing is clear, not obscure; active, not passive; deals with the specific rather than the general. Moreover, good writers “learn by writing.” They revise and polish. They discipline themselves to perfect their craft. But they also have something to say, and this requires that “Before we write, we should live.”

If you want to write, you must have something to write about. And if you want to write about “life,” you must first experience it. It doesn’t do to hide in the attic, you know (my lifelong temptation) – how will you ever find material for stories? You have to go out there and get it. Keep your eyes open, wherever you are, and observe; get involved in life; interact with people; contemplate God’s creation; pursue knowledge; seek God’s face.

That ought to spark something!

Story Craft is a book I highly recommend. I have only touched on a few of its topics, but there’s much, much more that Erickson has to offer. The book is divided into three parts: 1) “One Writer’s Journey”; 2) “Faith, Culture, and the Craft of Writing”; and 3) “The Top Twenty: If I Were Teaching a Class on Writing.” Interested? Check out his website here. And if you have the time and opportunity, I’d definitely encourage you to buy or borrow a copy of Story Craft sometime. Definitely a worthwhile resource for a serious Christian writer.

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[1] Gene Veith in the introduction to Story Craft: Reflections on Faith, Culture & Writing From the Author of Hank the Cowdog by John R. Erickson (Perryton: Maverick Books, Inc, 2009), x.

[2] Interview with John R. Erickson by Susan Olasky, World Magazine, December 2, 2006, pp. 26-7 (quoted in Story Craft).

thoughts on "story"

Last week in her article, Dr. Libby raised a point that bears repeating. As Christian writers determined to “do all for the glory of God,” we may be tempted to “get our point across” by explicitly stating the moral of our story or by quoting a plethora of Bible verses in our story. Of course it is imperative to live uprightly and to constantly nourish one’s soul through Scripture—but a story must first of all be a story, not a thinly-disguised piece of didactic advice or moral instruction.

This doesn’t mean your stories can’t be Christian (even explicitly), or that your work cannot plumb the depths of ethics and theology in detail.[1] It does mean that this Christian element must be natural to the story; must arise from it, instead of being tacked on to it; must have power and substance in itself, and not rely on Scriptural quotations or witty proverbs to back it up.[2] (After all – if your story relies upon such gimmicks, why should someone read it at all? Wouldn’t it be far better for your readers to consult the original source – the very life-giving Word of God?)

And in all honesty, I think this is very freeing. It allows you to explore the fantastic realms of your imagination without first setting an agenda for yourself – which is one of the quickest ways to kill off the spirit of a story. Anyway, if this Christian element “bubbles out” of the story itself, as Lewis suggested, it is far more likely to plumb the depths of Christian thought than a purely didactic story. It is also more likely to have a lasting (and positive) impression or influence upon your readers.

But that’s enough of my jabber. Below are concrete examples of what I am talking about. Neither of them reference God or are explicitly didactic, but they are inherently Christian, quite relevant to our day to day thought and conduct, and deeply moving.

From The Princess and the Goblin (by George MacDonald)

Context: The two protagonists, Princess Irene and the miner boy Curdie, are attempting to escape out of the mountain where the goblins had imprisoned Curdie. Irene was able to find and rescue Curdie because she followed a magical thread which led her into the mountain and is now leading her out again.

“I told you already,” answered Irene; --“by keeping my finger upon my grandmother’s thread, as I am doing now.”

“You don’t mean you’ve got the thread there?”

“Of course I do. I have told you so ten times already. I have hardly – except when I was removing the stones – taken my finger off it. There!” she added, guiding Curdie’s hand to the thread; “you feel it yourself—don’t you?”

“I feel nothing at all,” replied Curdie.

“Then what can be the matter with your finger? I feel it perfectly. To be sure it is very thin, and in the sunlight looks just like the thread of a spider, though there are many of them twisted together to make it—but for all that I can’t think why you shouldn’t feel it as well as I do.”

Curdie was too polite to say he did not believe there was any thread there at all. […The thread leads them out of the mountain.]

“Now, Curdie!” she cried, “won’t you believe what I told you about my grandmother and her thread?”

For she had felt all the time that Curdie was not believing what she told him.

“There! – don’t you see it shining on before us?” she added.

“I don’t see anything,” persisted Curdie.

“Then you must believe without seeing,” said the princess, “for you can’t deny it has brought us out of the mountain.”

Moral: One might sum up the “moral” in a few phrases: faith is what is unseen; faith is reasonable, founded on evidence; faith increases sight and disbelief instills blindness.

From The Silver Chair (by C. S. Lewis)

Context: After entering the magical world of Narnia for the first time, Jill Pole is separated from her companion (Eustace Scrubb) and, becoming extremely thirsty, encounters an enormous lion (Aslan) beside the stream where she stops to drink. Scrubb knows Aslan, but Jill does not.

            “Are you not thirsty?” said the Lion.

            “I’m dying of thirst,” said Jill.

            “Then drink,” said the Lion.

            “May I—could I—would you mind going away while I do?” said Jill.

            The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl. And as Jill gazed at its motionless bulk, she realized that she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience.

            “Will you promise not to—do anything to me if I do come?” said Jill.

            “I make no promise,” said the Lion.

            Jill was so thirsty now that, without noticing it, she had come a step nearer.

            “Do you eat girls?” she said.

            “I have swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms,” said the Lion. It didn’t say this as if it were boasting, nor as if it were sorry, nor as if it were angry. It just said it.

            “I daren’t come and drink,” said Jill.

            “Then you will die of thirst,” said the Lion.

            “O dear!” said Jill, coming another step nearer. “I suppose I must go and look for another stream then.”

            “There is no other stream,” said the Lion.

Moral: There is only one way to be saved, and that is through Christ. God is not “safe,” but we must trust Him.  

Now, which did you find more interesting: the excerpts from the novels, or my interpretations of them? Which would you rather spend time thinking about? Which would you rather “have more” of?

The excerpts, surely! That’s what I thought. :-)

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[1] Lewis certainly did! Think of The Screwtape Letters—better yet, if you haven’t read it, pick up a copy from the library or a nearby bookshop. It will both astound you and enrich your soul.

[2] Of course, there’s an exception to everything: while your story should have its own power and “substance” instead of relying on Bible verses, it isn’t always “bad”or un-literary to quote such verses. You’ll find verses and allusions to Scripture heavily sprinkled throughout many of the best and most beautiful works of literature ever written. The catch is that you must tell your own story, and not rely upon other quotes to give it depth. Use Scripture as a supplement if you like, but tell your own story.

"writing good stories"

Hello, all. Here is Dr. Libby's article, as promised. :-) Let me know what you guys think!

Enjoy!

Writing Good Stories

By Dr. Bonnie Libby

First of all, know the fundamentals of good narrative practice.  That is, know what goes in to telling a good story, one that will capture the interest of readers with unexpected plot turns, full and interesting character development, enough vivid description to set the tone of the story and lend it a note of reality, and dialogue that fits the characters and advances both the plot and “feel” of the story.

Modern author George Saunders proposes a theory about novel writers, and I think we can apply this to writers of short stories, too.  In his introduction to the Modern Library edition of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Saunders proposes a narrative theory about Mark Twain’s novel that uses the metaphor of a PeopleMover (you know, those moving beltways at the airport that make you feel like you are walking really fast).  Saunders writes:

Imagine the novelist as a person standing at one end of a PeopleMover, with a shovel, in front of a big pile of dirt.  The Pile of dirt represents The Thing This Writer Loves to Do, and Does Naturally.  The writer started writing so that he or she could endlessly and effortlessly do this thing and nothing else—be funny, say, or verbally brilliant, or write lush nature vignettes, or detailed descriptions of the interiors of rich people’s houses—and then be declared Wonderful, and buy a nicer car.  But all writers soon find that their Dirt is not enough.  Yes, their readership stands at the far end of the PeopleMover, eagerly awaiting this Dirt, but if the writer simply dumps shovelful after shovelful of Dirt onto the PeopleMover, the PeopleMover grinds to a halt, and the readership walks away to see a movie.[1]

You can tell that Saunders is a humorist himself, and that he admires Twain’s humor (his “Dirt”) and appreciates as much of it as he can get.  However, Saunders knows that Twain’s readers need something more—they need a story, a narrative with causes and effects, events that are surprising but not random.  A good story is what moves things along and allows the writer to “shovel out” that which he most likes to write, be it humor, description, or even, as some of you may want to write, Big Important Ideas.

You may be tempted to start with a theme based on the prompts for A Call to Pens, which is all well and good, but remember to keep your story first.  Human beings like stories because that form reflects life itself, the reality in which we live.  Certainly we each experience our share of “twists and turns” for which we may not see an immediate reason, but nevertheless the human story—history—is one of causes and effects, with a beginning and an ending, both for individuals and for humanity on earth.  There is purpose in our existence, plain and simple.  Much modern literature denies this purpose, denying the causality of life, and therefore killing good narrative.  We as Christians have a chance to redeem narrative, to restore stories to their honored place as truth-bearers: “The narratives we encounter in epic poems, in plays, and in novels are anything but fanciful alternatives to real life.  The fact is that we never get away from stories.  In and out of literature, stories tell us who we are and what we might become.”[2] 

We may categorize life into abstractions like Love, Hate, War, Peace, and even Faith and Redemption, but until we relate stories that demonstrate those abstractions, that show them being lived out, we do not access the reality behind them.  The Bible itself is a narrative—a true one—that shows us God’s ways and character.  We may consider God’s patient lovingkindness, but until we read of His care for the complaining Israelites wandering forty years in the desert, we don’t understand it fully.  We may think we know about His grace, but until we read the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ excruciating death on the cross, we cannot grasp it.

These are all true stories.  What about fictional stories?  Well, they must have the same elements:

--Realistic characters with human flaws but also potential for nobility or love or kindness.  Think of stories you like and the kinds of characters they contain: Elizabeth Bennett with her good sense but her tendency to misread people, or Huckleberry Finn with his funny disdain of civilization but his well-meaning heart and growing moral consciousness. This is not to say that all characters must be human; readers love Bilbo Baggins with his initial timidity but increasing response to the call of adventure.

--A plot that moves along and involves some kind of important conflict, either interpersonal or with an external force or, most likely, within an individual.  The best stories contain more than one kind of conflict.  Think of Sydney Carton embroiled in the bloody French Revolution, but also waging a war within himself against drunken apathy but that ultimately results in sacrifice.

--Causes and effects.  The Count of Monte Cristo becomes a wealthy man not through randomness, but rather a combination of determination, hard work, and, yes, a bit of luck in happening upon the old priest in prison, but why was Edmond Dantes in prison?  Because some bad men frame him out of jealousy.  And why were they jealous?  Because Edmond has the love of a beautiful woman and a promising naval career.  You get the idea--events in the plot don’t just happen.  Authors have a world full of human actions and reactions to draw from; in real life, one person’s success very often does elicit both adulation and jealousy from others, and wicked deeds naturally cause the desire for revenge, unless something else intervenes, something like love or grace in the form of human relationships.  There is room for coincidence in a fictional narrative, just as there is in life, but most major events must be related causally.

--Story structure.  Most stories follow the usual pattern of beginning, middle, and end or, more technically, rising action, climax, and falling action.  But consider playing with the order of events using flashbacks or flashforwards.  Create suspense by jumping to another scene right when the first scene is  building up to a climax.  Tell a story within a story, where the narrator listens to another character narrate a story, then return to the “present.”  This could take up the whole story or just be an episode.  Play around with narrative point of view: tell the same episode from the perspective of two different characters, alternate narrators throughout the story . . . you get the idea!

--All the rest.  Of course, don’t forget vivid and fresh description, realistic yet interesting dialogue, scenes made memorable by facial gestures, body language, and all the other ways that humans communicate with one another.  It’s the little touches, sometimes, that make a good story great. Stories are meant to be concrete, alive with detail.  But if your plot is weak, uninteresting, or untrue, no amount of embellishment will save the story. 

And the truth we want to relate as writers is so important that working hard on the form it takes is worth all the effort.  C. S. Lewis began his immensely popular series The Chronicles of Narnia not with a moral that he worked to relate to his readers, but with a picture.  He says:

Some people seem to think that I began by asking myself how I could say something about Christianity to children; then fixed on the fairy tale as an instrument; then collected information about child-psychology and decided what age-group I’d write for; then drew up a list of basic Christian truths and hammered out ‘allegories’ to embody them.  This is all pure moonshine.  I couldn’t write in that way at all.  Everything began with images; a faun  carrying an umbrella, a queen on a sledge, a magnificent lion.  At first there wasn’t even anything Christian about them; that element pushed itself in of its own accord.  It was part of the bubbling.[3]

So take Lewis’s advice: don’t begin with a moral and try to build your story around it.  Tell a good story, and the moral will come out.  Write characters and events that interest you, that capture your imagination; chances are you will find some readers who share your preferences.  Keep that PeopleMover of plot moving along, while you merrily dish out striking images or humor or dramatic dialogue or whatever you like.  Avoid the clichés of “Christianese” by using realistic language and events.  Tell a story you would like to hear, not one that you think your audience should hear.  Pay attention to details, but remember to have fun!

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[1] George Saunders, introduction to the Modern Library edition of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (New York: Random House, 2001), x.

[2] Susan V. Gallagher and Roger Lundin, Literature Through the Eyes of Faith (New York: HarperCollins for Christian College Coalition, 1989), 30.

[3] C.S. Lewis, “Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What’s to Be Said,” in On Stories and Other Essays on Literature, ed. Walter Hooper (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1966, 1982), 46.

The Christian Imagination

First things first. As some of you have noticed, the online payment option is unavailable at present. We are experiencing technical difficulties at the moment, but we do expect to solve the problem within the next couple of days. I will post an update here and at the original web page as soon as I have that information. Thank you so much for your patience! :-)

And now, I am very pleased to present a short essay by one of my professors, Mark D. Filiatreau. Professor Filiatreau lives nearby with his family in Fairfax, VA, and teaches part-time at Patrick Henry College. As a student in his classes, I have greatly benefited from and am grateful for his teaching, insight, and advice. I am very glad to be able to share this with you, and I believe you will enjoy it as much as I did.

Make It Real: The Christian Imagination

There is a new name for you, so personal and fitting, that to hear it spoken is to know a completeness and an intimacy such as angels can never know. 

There is a sound so enchanting that to hear it is to feel one’s heart is leaving one’s chest. 

There is a pain so great that to experience it for a second would shatter the mind completely. 

There is a face so beautiful that to see it is to have one’s heart broken, yet healed forever. 

There is a scent so wondrous that to smell it is to forget all pain forever, is to know the love and familiarity of the perfect homecoming and the intrigue of the most exotic foreign land all at once. 

There is a feeling so sweet that to feel it is to make all the pleasures of sex, food, sport, or music seem like dust in the mouth. 

There is a touch so divine, that to let it wipe a tear from your eye is to be healed of the wounds of every murder, war, betrayal, heartbreak and sadness from before time began. 

To things such as these the Christian imagination directs us. 

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We live still in the shadow of a rationalistic age, when the Christian imagination was nearly starved completely.  The church has been both victim and perpetrator of this starvation.   It’s been the case in the Protestant world for a long time, until fairly recently, that human imagination is something to be distrusted.
     

This distrust seems to have strong Biblical warrant, especially in the King James Version.  There the words translated “imagination” are always in a negative context.  For example, way back in Genesis, the reason that God sent the flood:  for man, “every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”  “Imagination” is equated with “vain imagination,” the source of idolatry.  Throughout scripture, it seems, the ear is elevated and the eye condemned.  We are to be people of the word: God’s word, his pronouncements going back to the garden of Eden—those are truth.  His commandments to Moses.  The words of the prophets.  In the Hebrew language, the word for “hearing” is the same as the word for “obeying.” In other words, to hear God is to obey him, to disobey means that you haven’t really heard.  His voice is reality.  “Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.”  By contrast, the idolaters had images, statues small and large, pillars on high places, temples.  But of this God, the true, God, the second commandment forbade images.

So there has been a long thread in Christendom of distrust in the imagination, because it is considered inherently deceptive.  To imagine something is to concoct something that isn’t real, isn’t true, isn’t part of God’s creation.  

At first the church welcomed the use of the imagination.  In the first centuries of the church, paintings depicting Christ won the “clash of the gods” in public art, for Jesus Christ contained in himself what pagan images of a magician, a healer, and a god were all searching for.  During the medieval period, the church in Europe expressed the gospel in the very art and architecture of the cathedrals, and by traveling plays performed in villages.  The vast majority of people were illiterate and had no access to books, and this way they could understand some of the Bible.  But during the Renaissance more plays were created and presented that had no obvious gospel intent.  When the Puritans came to power in England in the 1640s, they closed the theaters.

But the fear of the imagination itself is based on an incomplete understanding.  The imagination doesn’t only make unreal things seem true.  It also makes true things real. 

And we use it this way every day.  We hear a voice on the radio and imagine what the speaker looks like.  We try to picture where we last saw our car keys.  A person feels overwhelming love and they try to make it real to their beloved by expressing it in a poem. Nothing else will do.  The imagination is trying to make something true into something real.  There really is a person behind a microphone somewhere.  The car keys really are somewhere.  The love between a man and woman is truly there; a large family can be built on it for many generations.

Likewise, one function of the Christian imagination, one role for the Christian creative writer eventually, is to make true things real.  Things that are true but not yet, or true but invisible.   There really is a pain so great that it will shatter the mind.  Some people, according to Matthew 5, really will see the face of God.  There really is a mission so serious that new weapons must be invented in order to carry it out.   Spiritual weapons.  Intellectual and emotional weapons. 

And the Bible does not really condemn imagination, either, if we re-examine it, and it even more surely does not condemn imagery.  We can start with Genesis 1, the creation itself, the source of all sensory imagination.  “Is your imagination of God starved?” Oswald Chambers wrote.  “If so, set it upon His amazing creation all around you.”

God uses imagination at the beginning of his plan of redemption, and at the end.  At the beginning when God tells Abraham that he will make a great nation come from  him, he doesn’t simply tell him in abstract terms and command him to “have faith.”  He takes Abraham out to look at the stars and says “the number of your descendants will be greater than these.”  Another time he says that his descendants will be like the dust of the earth “so that if anyone can number the dust of the earth, then your descendants can also be numbered”  (Gen 13:16). 

Do you know when the Bible first mentions the Holy Spirit entering a human being?  It is in Exodus 31:3:

1Now the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,

 2"See, I have called by name Bezalel, the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah.

 3"I have filled him with the Spirit of God in wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, and in all kinds of craftsmanship,

 4to make artistic designs for work in gold, in silver, and in bronze,

 5and in the cutting of stones for settings, and in the carving of wood, that he may work in all kinds of craftsmanship.

The Holy Spirit is first given to an artist. 

And he has his job cut out for him.  Exodus 25-30 and 35-40 present in painstaking detail how God wanted for worship in his tabernacle, detailing the measurements, the curtains, the ark and the mercy seat, the table, the boards, the veils, bronze altar, oil, the priests’ garments.  God cares about the imagery; it matters.  Just don’t confuse the imagery with holiness itself.   

Later in Biblical history, the prophets especially Isaiah use intensely violent and poetic imagery, to warn Israel from its wrong path or to comfort Israel when it seems all is lost.  Jeremiah and Ezekiel were even commanded to dramatize, with their very bodies in sometimes bizarre and extreme ways, what God was going to do with Israel.  

Then God himself appears, Jesus.  He is the “image of the invisible God,” Colossians 1:15.  The disciples are at great pains to ensure their readers that the Lord was not only embodied, and not only a spirit in a body—which is a conception unknown in the Hebrew vocabulary, by the way-- but a new creation entirely—as Paul especially makes clear.  John’s first letter starts:  “What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld and our hands handled, concerning the Word of Life….we proclaim to you.”  The risen Jesus asks Thomas to touch him, so that he knows it is not a ghost, a mere appearance.   

And in the end, the new heaven and the new earth are presented in staggering imagery.  In Rev. 21-22, the Holy City comes down to earth, “like a bride prepared for her husband.”  We are told “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”  The city is made of precious stones, and its walls shaped in a perfect cube, each side with three gates, each wall of a specific length–about 1400 miles.  Within the city flows “the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street...” On each side of the river stands the tree of life, that belonged to the Garden of Eden, and its leaves grow now for healing entire nations.  Sunlight is gone, because God is now the light.  It beggars the imagination.  So, clearly, God is not against imagery per se, in favor of the spoken word only.  Rather, imagery, like creation itself, is what has been, is being, and will be redeemed and renewed. 

And likewise it seems this is God’s desire for the imagination. 

To distrust the fallen, unredeemed imagination is a good thing. We find its poison within ourselves at times, and in the world we are surrounded by its insidious, ugly, and idolatrous products and I don’t need to detail them here.  But there is more to the story.  Christians have been and are being renewed, and if we are being renewed in our entirety, this must include the imagination also. 

If for fallen men and women, every imagination of the thoughts of their hearts were only evil continually, could it be true that for redeemed men and women, some day, every imagination of the thoughts of our hearts will be only goodness, continually?

This is a vision for the Christian imagination, and for the Christian artist:  to be fully in touch with reality and all its ugliness and beauty, but also to make real to the world that which is true but invisible, to express the One who is too good for this world but whose goodness re-imagines the world.