A Question of Faith

[psychotick]

Hi,

From memory the most anti-magic bit in the bible is the part about not suffering a witch to live. But in this part of the OT it was largely talking about pagan worship.

As for the rest, I think you have to ask yourself a few questions. Are you writing purely to entertain? Or are you writing to secretely convince people that magic is real and that by uttering a few trite phrases with their fingers waving they can do amazing things? I can see where the latter might go against the spirit of Christianity, but not the former.

And if in doubt you can return to the golden rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. In this case an example of the former would be reading fairy tales to amuse a child but not to convince them that monsters are real, (that would be quite nice), and the latter would be telling lies with the intent of deception (I don't like lying and I don't like being lied to). So though your books are fiction, are they intended to deceive?

Personally I write fantasy as well as sci fi, and I'm a believer. But I don't expect anyone to take my books as anything more than they are, a simple tale to be read for enjoyment.

Hope that helps.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Anders Ämting]

This problem has been bugging me the past few days and I wanted to share it with you and maybe get some help. This is a very personal and religious issue so please be respectful of my beliefs.

I am a Christian. I have been one for a long time. I have asked Jesus to be my Savior and for Him to forgive my sins. I also love writing. Ever since I could first read and write I made my own books and stories. It has always been my favorite hobby my entire life.

I took a look at some of my stories the other day and began to question them. Nearly all of them involve magic. The Bible specifically prohibits magic; no if, and or buts. But because I create a character that uses magic, I am in no way trying to promote my reader to go out and practice sorcery! Look at C.S. Lewis; he was a devout Christian but used magic in his stories. But his stories were also a metaphor for Christ.

I feel somewhat conflicted about writing fantasy. I love mythology and fantasy and in all of my fantasy novels (nearly all of them) they are heavily involved with pantheons that I created and magic systems and lots of war and violence. My stories aren't necessarily a metaphor for God such as Lewis's were. But I know that these things are purely fictional. They aren't real! I write these stories for entertainment purposes only.

This is my take on it: Alcohol is fine, just don't become drunk. Money is fine, just don't become greedy. Fantasy literature is fine, just don't lose sight of what is real. It's all about self-control. Jesus Himself drank wine, but he didn't become drunk. I write these novels that involve imaginary gods and magic but I know that they aren't real and am not trying to convince my readers that they are.

I have prayed hard about this for days. It is always on my mind. My stories have angels and demons and gods and divine figures and magic but in no way am I (intentionally) trying to denounce Jesus. LOTR was written by a Christian and it has a lot of "darkness" in it but in the end, good triumphs. Not all of mine end that way where everything is fine and dandy. The one story is about a renegade god that actually brings about the complete destruction of the world. Has anyone else had this issue? There is no definitive answer to this. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that you can not write fantasy literature. I think it comes down to what I think God is trying to tell me. But I have been really struggling with this.

Well, I guess it comes down to finding an approach to portraying magic that you feel comfortable with. I don't see why you should worry about simply writing about it - I think it's safe to say an omniscient creator diety is probably capable of grasping the concept of fantasy literature. On the other hand, if you believe encouraging the practice of magic is wrong (in real life, I mean) then I can see why this would worry you. Still, I don't think there's any harm in letting your own faith influence your writing so long as you don't get preachy about it.

CS Lewis is a good example - he seems to have been a pretty reasonable fellow. Going by my impression of him, I think he would probably have argued that magic is not itself evil, but rather humans are too flawed and easily tempted to be trusted with such power, and if God prohibits magic, he does so out of concern. Note that in the Narnia books, magic is presented either as divine miracles (Aslan's powers), something the bad guys do (the White Witch, and witches in general) or something that can be useful, but also very dangerous and tempting. (Lucy finding the Magician's Book.)

Me, I'm an agnostic, but I think faith is generally something nice when not taken to extremes. As such, I tend to present religion as something generally positive in my stories, but I dislike giving divine beings an obvious and definitive presence. Rather, I find it more interesting to explore the importance of faith itself and how religion fits into a society.

 

[SlimShady]

Well, I'm sort of a religious mutt. At first I was Jewish with some Christian leanings, however eventually I discovered the Twelve Tribes of Israel (A Rastafari Movement) which has lots of teachings that I actually believe.

As for magic in stories, go for it. You have to remember that stories are entertainment. Someone writing a book about serial killers doesn't mean they condone that sort of behavior. Same thing with someone about magic. You just have to remember that you are writing all of these purely for entertainment. Anyone that would see Harry Potter or any type of magic in a STORY as sinning and against god are obviously misguided and just confused. Just ignore people like that and do the things that make YOU happy.

If writing stories about different gods and magic makes you happy then do it.

 

[Amanita]

I've been bothered by this back when I've been writing Harry Potter fanfiction as a teenager. I've been at the meetings of a rather strict Christian group at my school at the same time and felt quite guilty about my obession with these books. Looking back at this from my current perspective, I think so of it wasn't healthy but this had little to do with the magic contained in Harry Potter. I've spoken about it to another member of the group back then by the way and she agreed with many people here and said that she didn't mind people reading Harry Potter as long as they were able to tell the difference between truth and fiction. In case of the Harry Potter magic, it should be quite obvious that it's fictional and not real. In Harry Potter, the treatment of souls has bothered me much more than the magic itself. The books contain creatures called "dementors" who can consumme people's souls for example, no matter if those where innocent or not. This came in conflict with more fundamental aspects of my belief than the magic part. The same goes for the pseudo-religious themes during the ending.

As far as the Bible passage calling for the death of witches goes, there are many different interpretations thereof and I'm not sure which one is the accurate one myself. The example of magic in the Bible I can think of now involves speaking to the dead.
Some people believe it's directed against everything called magic, those are the ones who start burning fantasy books.
Other believe it's refering to specific kinds of magic that might be possible for humans to do in real life such as speaking to the dead or getting into contact with demons. This would surely be problmematic but I rarely see it used to sympathetic characters anyway. The same goes for any real-world occult rituals, symbols etc. Pagan rituals of any kind are another explanation I've seen here.
Curses to destroy things or kill people are another possible explanation, some interpretations think of women dealing in poisonous substances and maybe abortion as well. Some feminist interpretations finally claim that the term "witch" was supposed to refer to any woman who was too independent or not obedient enough towards men.

I'm not sure which of these interpretations if any is really true but I don't think it refers to the forms of magic common in fantasy which usually aren't anything different from other human abilites, either inborn or aquired through learning. As long as its clear that those kinds of abilities don't exist in real life, it should also be clear that the Bible wouldn't refer to them.
I'm wondering if using a different term to make this distinction more obvious would help. Sometimes names are important and people might not associate your work with something that doesn't agree with your faith. Some of the outrage against Harry Potter probably only existed because of terms like "witchcraft" while the people in question probably neve read the books. (And thus, didn't notice any other problems either.)

 

[Akahige]

In the early church, St. Basil taught his students about the merits of Pagan literature and how they might see in it the virtue which pertained to the Christian life. I think it may be similar with regards to the usage of magical elements in fictional worlds. We might do well to resist any impulse to portray good as evil or evil as good, but this is true of any element, not just magical ones.

Likewise, I once heard a quote from an African poet whose name I sadly cannot recall. He spoke of how within a society the stories we tell can make us sick, but they can also heal us. I try to keep this in mind with what I write. It is on some level entertainment, but not merely. If a story is a means of conveyance for our souls, our character, our personalities and our ideologies, where might they be taking us?