Audio Transcript
Welcome to witchcraft and wizardry week on the Ask Pastor John podcast, pushed by our Bible studying. We start the week by asking if there’s good magic and edifying sorcery. The query is a well-liked one about Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter and fantasy literature usually. And the query involves us as we speak from an nameless girl.
“Pastor John, hi there, and thanks for this podcast. I’ve a query for you about an ongoing debate amongst my Christian mates over whether or not there’s such a factor pretty much as good or righteous indicators and wonders finished on the command of a miracle employee. Lots of godly Christians suppose novels like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings are forbidden as a result of they characteristic even a great use of spells and sorcery. The mere existence of sorcery in a novel makes it unhealthy. However on the opposite facet of the argument, we learn within the Outdated Testomony itself that God’s holy males appear to answer sorcerers with an identical supernatural energy, making a black-and-white distinction.
“We examine all of the unimaginable issues God did by the hands of Moses and Aaron within the plague accounts” — which we simply started studying as we speak in our Bible-reading plan, by the way in which. “Aaron throws down his workers, and it turns into a devouring snake, the identical workers that may trigger the Nile to turn into blood, all in Exodus 7. Aaron holds his workers, and frogs emerge from the Nile. Then he faucets the bottom, and gnats cowl the whole lot, all in Exodus 8. Moses holds his workers, and hail rains down on Egypt in Exodus 9. He makes use of his workers to evoke the wind to ship devouring locusts in Exodus 10. Most famously, Moses lifts his workers and splits the Crimson Sea in Exodus 14. The identical workers he makes use of to hit a desert stone to attract out water in Exodus 17.
“Even lately, within the New Testomony, we examine Paul’s supernatural response in Acts 13:6–11. He met a magician with a type of magic of his personal, inflicting the magician to go blind. Aaron, Moses, and Paul accomplish supernatural feats in response to their opponents. Ought to this argument issue into our fiction, too, for appreciating a righteous use of supernatural energy?”
The talk between the helpfulness or hurtfulness of other unbelievable fictional worlds that an writer creates — say, Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings or the Harry Potter sequence — I don’t suppose that debate between the helpfulness and hurtfulness of making worlds like that’s resolved by displaying that there are each demonic and godly makes use of of indicators and wonders on this actual world of ours.
“I’ve tasted fiction that makes me love purity, the Aristocracy, braveness, sacrifice, love, hope, pleasure.”
It’s actually true that there have been and all the time can be misleading indicators and wonders (finished by the facility of Devil) on this actual world and godly indicators and wonders within the identify of Jesus on this actual world, supposed for the affirmation of God’s impressed phrase within the Bible. However to argue from the usage of indicators and wonders on this actual world of ours to the goodness of, say, righteous sorcery or white magic in a fictional world the place Devil and God are solely symbolized however not current in an express method — that doesn’t appear to me to settle something.
Asking the Proper Query
The reason being that the query will nonetheless be there. Does the fictional, unbelievable, various, epic world, with its totally different form of nature and totally different form of supernature, are likely to distract readers from the actual world of actual nature and actual supernature (as God and Devil) by changing this world with a fictional world? That’s the query. Does it assist or does it damage — whether or not or not these parts of sorcery and magic are there? Does the fictional, unbelievable, various, epic world have the literary energy to awaken materialistic, small-minded, sinful, worldly, unbelieving readers to the potential of an actual world of actual nature and actual supernature, the actual world of God and Christ? That’s the query.
Does a fictional world of unbelievable happenings have a tendency to steer individuals away from or towards an actual world the place water turns into wine, and an actual man walks on water, and lame individuals actually stroll, and blind individuals see, and 5 loaves feed 5 thousand individuals, and there’s an actual resurrection of the lifeless and an actual ascending of the King into heaven, an actual God-man? Does fiction ship individuals there or distract individuals from there? That’s the important thing query, I feel. Does fiction assist or damage in in search of to awaken individuals to actuality — to the truth of God in Christ with all of the unusual and great otherworldly realities that really exist: creation out of nothing, pervasive windfall, nice our bodies of water dividing in half, the solar stopping within the sky, axe heads floating, the incarnation of God into humanity by a virgin start, crucifixion, resurrection, second coming of a sovereign King?
Does the usage of language to create an alternate world to inform a narrative assist awaken individuals to the supernatural realities that actually exist? Or do they distract and change that actuality? Do they assist or do they damage? Or one other approach to ask the query is whether or not the creation of an alternate world in fiction can successfully talk reality about the actual world and draw individuals into it. Can made-up actuality make clear actuality? Does fiction have the capability to awaken individuals to the reality of the actual world? I feel the reply to that query is, “A few of it.”
Reality Stronger Than Fiction
Now, why do I say that? I imply, why am I optimistic about a few of it and pessimistic about others? The primary purpose is that I’ve tasted each. I’ve been uncovered to fiction that’s merely corrupting — not simply corrupting instantly to my morals however corrupting to my complete worldview by being shot by means of with a litany of non-Christian assumptions that don’t open me to the probabilities of magnificence and reality on this actual world however in actual fact inoculate me in opposition to them. I’ve tasted that form of fiction. I feel we must keep away from it.
“The Bible, God’s phrase, makes use of unbelievable fictional visions and pictures to serve actuality.”
And I’ve tasted fiction — whether or not in poetry or brief tales or novels — that makes me love purity, the Aristocracy, braveness, sacrifice, love, hope, pleasure with the end result that, once I learn my Bible, I’m freshly hungry for Actuality and touchable by Actuality with a capital R — Jesus Actuality, God Actuality, Bible Actuality. This fiction hasn’t drawn me away from actuality. It by no means tempted me to consider the fictional world was actual. I don’t consider that. Most youngsters don’t consider that. It was all the time pointing past itself. It was by no means tempting me to idolize an alternate world, but it surely was making me dissatisfied with something lower than the true God. So, that’s my first purpose for saying that the fictional creation of other worlds could or could not serve the reality.
The opposite purpose is that the Bible, God’s phrase, makes use of unbelievable fictional visions and pictures to serve actuality. For instance, in Zechariah 5:1–11, God makes the prophet see a flying scroll twenty cubits lengthy and ten cubits extensive. “That is the curse that goes out over the face of the entire land” (verse 3). Then he causes him to see a transferring basket.
“What’s it?” . . . “That is their iniquity in all of the land.” And behold, the leaden cowl was lifted, and there was a lady sitting within the basket! And he mentioned, “That is Wickedness.” And he thrust her again into the basket, and thrust down the leaden weight on its opening. Then I lifted my eyes and noticed, and behold, two ladies coming ahead! The wind was of their wings. That they had wings just like the wings of a stork, and so they lifted up the basket between earth and heaven. (verses 6–9)
Speak about various realities: a flying scroll, a basket with a lady in it named Wickedness, two ladies with wings like wings of a stork. What on the planet is all this? That is God’s unbelievable, various, visionary world. Zechariah doesn’t inhabit that world. He doesn’t inhabit a world with flying scrolls and girls with wings. That is God’s method of speaking reality about actuality by creating pictures outdoors strange actuality. And, amazingly, God has enabled human beings, created in his picture, to be sub-creators, creators of other realities — fiction, poetry, metaphor, epic story — which have the capability of awakening readers to Actuality with a capital R.
Is It True?
My very own sense is that the reality of fiction doesn’t rely upon the absence of fictional supernature — say, the absence of white magic — but it surely is dependent upon how that’s used and the way it all matches collectively. C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien wrote about tales, about fairy tales, which meant extra to them than it does to us — fictional tales and reality. And I feel the perfect factor I can do is quote each of them in flip as to how Reality with a capital T is communicated by means of fiction or tales made up. Right here’s Lewis: “The story does what no theorem can fairly do. It might not be ‘like actual life’ within the superficial sense, but it surely units earlier than us a picture of what actuality might be like at some extra central area.” That quote from Lewis is in an essay known as “On Tales” (21).
And Tolkien’s quote right here is from his essay known as “On Fairy-stories” (155):
Most likely each author making a secondary world, a fantasy, each sub-creator, needs in some measure to be an actual maker, or hopes that he’s drawing on actuality: hopes that the peculiar high quality of his secondary world (if not in all particulars) are derived from Actuality [with a capital R], or are flowing into it. If he certainly achieves a top quality that may pretty be described by the dictionary definition: “internal consistency of actuality,” it’s tough to conceive how this may be, if the work doesn’t indirectly partake of actuality. The peculiar high quality of the “pleasure” in profitable Fantasy can thus be defined as a sudden glimpse of underlying actuality or reality. It isn’t solely a “comfort” for the sorrow of this world, however a satisfaction, and a solution to that query, “Is it true?”
