Fantasy and Science Fiction for the Christian Reader:
Reactionism and Reductionism
Written by Jeri Massi
This material is copyrighted and may not be reproduced or reprinted without
permission from the author.
THE PROBLEM: Some Christians insist that the writings of C.S. Lewis,
JRR Tolkien, and older fairy tales (such as Sleeping Beauty, Hansel
and Gretel, etc.) are demonic or satanic or pagan because they contain
images and symbols drawn from so-called "pagan" literature. The fear
seems to be that reading this material (no matter what its message or
intent) is to somehow strengthen or be on the side of
demonic/satanic/witchcraft forces. Another aspect of this fear is the
idea that a symbol in and of itself can be satanic/pagan/wiccan, no
matter what its context or its message.
Reactionism
We know that by the time that Paul was writing his epistles, the
religion of the Greeks had fallen into considerable disrepute. Ovid,
who gave us the classical _Metamorphosis_, did not himself believe in
the gods at all (as he indicates at the end of that work).
By Paul's day, most educated Hellenic people recognized that the Greek
myths were just stories. After all, many of the myths are ridiculous
and amount to no more than the Soap Opera of the gods. The temples
still existed and furnished brothel services, a place to feast on
holidays, medical care, staging for plays and other amusements, and
forums for discussion. To have a financial hand in the marketplace,
the temples sold some of the meat that had been offered up as part of
the traditions that they maintained.
Greek Christians, most of whom had never bothered to believe in the
legends of the gods in the first place, continued their practice of
buying this meat and eating it. Jewish Christians, of course, found
the practice to be an abomination, since they were schooled in the Old
Testament mandates to never eat anything that had been sacrificed to
an idol. Their argument against the Greek Christians was that the
meat was unholy. The argument back from the Greek Christians was that
buying and eating the meat did not amount to worship, especially since
they had never believed in the gods in the first place.
Similarly, we find a problem of Christian people, who read (past
tense) fables, folktales, CS Lewis, JRR Tolkien etc., all their lives
and never believed in magic, or other gods, or that witchcraft had any
real power, (even before they were saved) continue to read these works
with no problems of conscience now that they are Christians. Their
consciences are not troubled, for Paul's words about meat still apply:
"We know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is none
other God but one." Paul also comments in Romans 14:14 that "there
is nothing unclean of itself, but to him that esteemeth any thing to
be unclean, to him it is unclean." So the Christian, who never as
either a Christian or a non-believer believed in fairy godmothers,
talking trees, niads and driads etc., is given permission to make use
of these elements of literature.
Just as meat (according to Paul) cannot of itself become unholy,
neither can a symbol (in and of itself) become unholy. A godless
person may write a story and use a symbol to symbolize all kinds of
perversions; a Christian person may use the exact same symbol to
symbolize some truth or some virtue or some person from the Scripture.
Like meat, the symbol cannot make itself be sin. Remember, the cross
itself, the symbol that we cherish, has also been used as a phallic
symbol and as symbol of race hatred and violence. A symbol has
meaning only in its context, not in and of itself. Sin is committed
when somebody who believes that to eat, or to read, or to enjoy would
be sin, does so anyway.
Paul's only admonition is that those who are strong and can eat such
meat with a clear conscience, ought not to use it as a tool to judge,
berate, or coerce the brethren. Similarly, those who can read with a
clear conscience ought not to judge, or berate, or coerce the
brethren. And discretion is advised in I Corinthians 8:10. To sit in
the temple of the idol itself and partake of a feast would be
overbearing to other brethren, and so Paul urges discretion.
The urge, then, to coerce the brethren either way is to submit to what
I call reactionism. We've all seen reactionism before; in the 60's
many Christian men abruptly shaved off beards and mustaches because
these had become symbols of the hippy movement. When Henry Kissinger
was a figure of power in the Nixon government, anti-christ seekers
reacted to the sudden prominence of a Jewish man in international
matters and suddenly pointed fingers at him and announced that he was
the anti-christ. In the 80's rumors flew around that Social Security
was going to start assigning us numbers for us to cash checks at banks
and withdraw money from savings accounts. Never mind the fact that the
Lord Jesus wore a beard, or that the anti-christ's nationality is never
revealed in scripture, or that God remains in complete sovereign control
over His people and this world no matter what circumstances are. It's so
much easier to react to circumstances than to rest in truth.
I believe that this incredible fear of highly inventive fiction, of
Mother Goose and Narnia and fairy godmothers is just another form of
reactionism. I certainly concede that witchcraft and satanism are
very wicked things but Reactionism always whips up our fears of
something that is legitimately bad. It's the actions that we are
urged to take in response that are either non sequitars or downright
inappropriate.
I would like to point out that reactionism has no place in the camp of
the brave. Christian literature has (or should have) at its heart the
person and work of Christ. Therefore our meaning will _always_ be
different from the literature of this world. We are safe, then, from
having to be reactionary. We can write biographies, adventures,
fantasies, science fiction, comedy, dramas, commentaries, histories,
epics and the rest. It doesn't matter how the world uses all these
genres, or how the world perverts all of them (and it has perverted
all of them, not just fantasy).
To be reactionary is to always be on the run, and a civilization that
is that nomadic can never develop its own culture. Maybe this is why
"Christian" culture is just a mishmash of borrowings. Christians keep
running away--reacting to whatever new perversion the world comes up
with. Our orders are to occupy. Occupying means cultivating our way
into this land that formerly belonged to the enemy. Instead, many
Christians keep reacting to what the enemy has done or continues to
try to do.
We must _make_ the literature and the music and the communication that
tells of the glory of Christ. Our images should be the most bold, the
most striking, the most inventive. When we picture the plight of man,
it must be as heart breaking as it truly is, and we must show how vast
his redemption is. If we continue to beg, borrow, and use those items
from the world that we somehow construe as being acceptable, we will
continue to feed our children's minds with the table scraps of
morality when we could be giving them the banquet halls of grace. I'm
not saying that stories that are merely moral are not good; I am
saying that if we don't house them in a larger framework of literature
that focuses on grace then we have not carried out the command to
occupy. We are still just borrowing and begging.
FInally, I want to say that reactionism seldom works--even in avoiding
or destroying what it sets out to destroy or avoid. The full scale
destruction of the good with the bad--of CS Lewis (good) along with
Dungeons and Dragons (bad!) is not going to deter the influences of
this world for very long. And it will deprive children of the shaping
of a world view that recognizes that this creation is greater,
broader, vaster, more mysterious and more glorious than any man can
know, and it was created by our Good God; it is not under the rule of
this dark spirit or that dark spirit. If we deprive children of this
shaping of their view of life and the creation, then we have given in
to a reductionist view of the creation, and the first person who shows
them that there _is_ mystery and glory all around us will
automatically get more credence than we do on the subject--we who
never told them. So in the end, we could be handing our children's
minds right over to the enemy side.
Reductionism
Another problem that relates to literary interpretation is the problem
of what I call "reductionism." It's not a problem exclusive to
Christianity, but it hurts our efforts to be truly educated as
Christians.
Reductionism is my name for an attitude that rests on an assumption
that somehow we Christians are responsible to know everything. This
idea, of course, rests on another assumption that everything can be
known.
Examples of reductionism include the movement that calls the book of
Revelation "pre-written history" and tries to reduce it to a series of
dates and events that we can follow on a timeline, rather than
recognizing it as the revelation of Jesus Christ to His church.
Another example would be Scofield's remarkable (I say remarkable
because I'm amazed at his audacity) attempt to reduce leviathon in Job
to crocodile, and behemoth to hippopotamus (I may have those switched.
But he replaced the names of these fantastic creatures with animals
somewhat more, uh, mundane.) And then there is also the effort of
Finney to reduce genuine revival in the church to "decisions,"
replacing the work of the Holy Spirit with emotional enthusiasm and
commitments of service.
Reductionism includes the independent Baptist churches that tried to
reduce Christian practice to "soul winning," and Christian holiness to
a series of restrictions on dress and carriage (ie, no trousers on women,
no beards on men and so forth). For those of you who have no idea
what I'm talking about, I'm making reference to Curtis Hudson, Jack
Hyles, and the former _Sword of the Lord_ newsletter/magazine
publishers and writers.
It's easier to give examples of reductionism than it is to define, but
as a first pass at defining, I would say that reductionism is an
attempt to make Christianity easily definable and controllable, to
remove those things from it that are difficult (or impossible) to
explain or understand.
At its mildest, reductionism is just silly, and at its worst, it
borders on or goes into a denial of the faith while maintaining an
outward show of Christianity. In Christian education, reductionism
forbids or dismisses an exploration of the matters that Christian
brethren have not been able to agree on over the course of the
centuries. I heard one pastor label all trichotomists (body, soul and
spirit make up man) as unbiblical, while maintaining that the
dichotomist (body and soul make up man) view of man is the only
biblical view possible. Of course, as a trichotomist I had some
problems with his conclusions, but I also recognized that his
explanation was too glib, his assertions too self assured.
These are trademarks of reductionism: a logic that admits no
disagreement, that rests on a cursory overview of certain points while
being blind to others, perhaps in extreme cases a mindset that reads
Scripture in order to prove a preconceived point. I'm not talking
about leaving ALL points open to disagreement. The Bible is a
remarkably unified text, and the major doctrines are clear to an
honest reader. But there are points of controversy (such as dichotomy
vs trichotomy) that godly men have disagreed on over the history of
the Christian church.
A reductionist view will try to set certain books or certain subjects
as off limits to readers. I'm not talking about setting pornography
off limits, or gratuitous violence as off limits. I mean banning
those points that infringe on our comfortable intellectual territory.
Reductionism would not want books that discuss Christian parents who
divorce, or Christian kids who are disobedient, or Christian churches
that split. These are uncomfortable issues to those who want to
maintain that Christianity lives up to all the ideals that it sets up
as worthy to live by. A reductionist view of literature does not want
to address the mystery that surrounds all of us; it wants to present
Christianity as uniform and neat.
Reductionism misses the point that God is sovereignly in control of
His people and of all events. After all, it is easier to present
manageable events and an ideal lifestyle than it is to present this
incredible God of ours Who uses the evil deeds of men to serve His
holy purposes and Who is sanctifying us in spite of our wayward
hearts. It is also easier to present a creation that we are sure of,
that can be perfectly explained, measured, and controlled. So
reductionists turn leviathon into an alligator, and _Revelation_ into
a time line of the future. And reductionism would shy away from that
which is highly inventive in literature. The more stark and vivd the
image, the more it will be offensive to the reductionist, who may
essentially view literature and art as things that must be policed
rather than learned. (I agree that it is necessary to police
literature to a certain extent, at least as far as what we take into
ourselves, but--oddly enough--the more learned a person is in
literature, the less policing he will have to do. That which is
gratuitous or graphic will offend a trained sensibility that expects
meaningfulness in literature.)
Back to the Christian Fiction Index
Back to Jeri's home page
Mere Morality: The Problem of "Wholesome" Christian Fiction
Reactionism and Reductionism in Christian Thought
The Use of "Pagan" Symbols in Fiction
Elements and Substance (and how they create meaning)
The Function of Fiction in Child Development
The Broadly Educated Christian
The Bible and Fiction