Fantasy is inherently escapistic. There it is. It’s just the cold hard fact. I had someone tell me once that fantasy was de facto sinful because it wasn’t real — it was trying to escape from the reality that God created. That seems to be a pretty common position among conservative Christians (and I grew up as a very conservative Christian). However, I don’t think we need to be ashamed of the escapism inherent in fantasy. Instead, we need to understand what we are escaping from.

Escapsim has gotten a bad rap for a long time, even J. R. R. Tolkien had to deal with it, and he formulated the best approach to escapism that I know of (in “On Faerie Stories”). On the one hand, he proposed, you could have a man who served the British army during World War II, but then defected to join the Nazis. That man we would call a deserter, and there are strong words for deserters. However, what would you call a man who escaped a Nazi consecration camp and made it to Great Britain, only to volunteer to help the war effort? Most people would call him a hero. So here you have two different men. Both escaped, but demonize one while admiring the other. Therefore, the act of escape is not inherently good or bad. Escapism is only as bad as what you are escaping from.

Is the escapism in your book the “flight of a prisoner, or the desertion of a coward”? As Christian fantasy authors, we should be conscientiously crafting our story to escape from lies in pursuit of truth.

That said, there are two ways to practice escapism. The first is what I call Eradication Escapism. In this form of escapism, you escape from a lie, or something you don’t like, by simply eradicating it from the universe of your book. For instance, most Christian books practice Eradication Escapism on any topic of sexual immorality. Sexual immorality simply does not exist in these books. Eradication Escapism is typically a strategy that we use on topics that trigger us, or make us uncomfortable (like how sexuality triggers most Christians… just saying). Now, Eradication Escapism is a perfectly legitimate form of escapism. Most people do not want to be reading about certain awful aspects of reality when they are reading a book. It is ok to leave out topics of violence against children, or drug addiction, or whatever you do not feel comfortable talking about. It is okay to build a world with in your book where sexual violence simply doesn’t happen (wouldn’t everyone want to live in that world?). However, if you don’t talk about an issue, you will not change that issue in the real world. Maybe that is ok, though. Maybe we just need a book to make us feel cozy, a book that builds a safe space for us, a book that temporarily eradicates certain evil things from our world so that we don’t have to spend emotional energy on them. That is great. We need books that do that.

On the other side is Antidote Escapism. In this form of escapism, the evil thing is still present in your book, but you escape from it by using the atmosphere and storyline with in your book to show why the evil thing is evil, and how to defeat it. Let’s take substance abuse as an example: good Antidote Escapism, instead of shying away from the topic of substance abuse, would dive right it. It would look at how the substance abuse affects the life of the addict, how it hurts is physical, emotional, and social health. It would explore the mindset around the addiction, the reason the addict is an addict. And finally, it would show how the addict can become free of his addiction. Now that is difficult to do well (it requires a lot of research and expertise to ensure that you are properly handling the subject you are trying to give the antidote for). However, when you can do it well, it opens up the opportunity to make a real difference in the real world. It equips a reader to dismantle a lie which permeates reality, not just a fantasy universe. So, Antidote Escapism is certainly a more powerful form of escapism than Eradication Escapism. However, it is much harder to pull off and do well.

That said, your book does not have to follow only one form of escapism. You can do a mix of both. You can eradicate certain topics and then provide an antidote for other topics. This narrows your focus so that you’re only tackling one thorny issue at a time.

Let me give you an example: the TV series Schmigadoon, which is neither Christian nor is it fantasy (Yes, I expect you to be rational, discerning adults, okay?). The writers use Eradication Escapism for issues of racism in the world. There simply is no racism in Schmigadoon. It is not an issue. However, the writers then use antidote escapism to discuss issues of sexism and homophobia. Because — boy howdy — does sexism and homophobia exist in Schmigadoon, and the writers are going to show you why that is wrong, and how to fix it.

The Three Laws

That leads me to my proposition that there are three laws that an author should not try to escape from. These three laws apply to fiction generally, not just Christian Fantasy. I sincerely believe that it is not feasible for an author to tamper with these laws. They are inherent truths of the universe that we can not escape from: the laws of logic, the laws of science, and the laws of morality.

The laws of logic are the most obvious. No one really wants to escape from the laws of logic which govern our universe. Even if we tried, I don’t know that we have the mental capacity to understand the ramifications of tampering with the laws of logic.

The laws of science, you might try to dispute. After all, isn’t that what science fiction is all about? I would still submit to you that science fiction does not actually tamper with scientific laws, it merely shifts our focus on them and tries to tackle them in new and creative ways. For instance, I don’t know of any book which actually eradicates the law of gravity from its universe, though it is not uncommon to show different intensities of gravity, or different solutions to weightlessness. When it comes down to it, I think we run into the same issues tampering with the laws of science as we do with the laws of logic. I don’t think we could fully understand the ramifications of what we are tampering with. To alter the laws of science would be to alter the fabric of the universe.

As to the laws of morality, I often hear people argue that you can tamper with moral laws in fiction, because it is an alternate reality. However, I don’t think this is feasible. I also don’t think that anyone actually wants to escape from the laws of morality. You might want to escape from what someone else deems to be a moral law, but I have a hard time believing someone would try to escape from something that they themselves believe is a moral law (maybe I have too high an opinion of humans).

This is where it gets tricky. As opposed to the laws of logic, or the laws of science (which have a consensus) the laws of morality are hotly debated. So I can stand up here and say “do not escape from the laws of morality” but the glaring question is whose laws of morality. I’m going to be a bit of a cop out — as I am expounding on Christian Fantasy — and keep this discussion of morality within a strictly Christian framework. Personally, I find that being a Christian makes questions about the moral laws easier to deal with, because I have a place to start in the Bible. However, I want to acknowledge that if you are working outside of a Christian framework, this would be a much more nuanced and difficult question to answer.

But I think the question of what is constituted within the moral law is pretty key to our topic of escapism. After all, we are typically trying to escape from something that exists in our world, which we believe is threatening the moral fabric of the universe, be that sexual violence, substance abuse, industrialization, or (insert pet peeve here).

That said, I am going to tackle six controversial and triggering subjects, and look at how a Christian Author should handle them in their fantasy books.

I. Magic

Magic is such a key part of fantasy that we really can’t talk about fantasy without discussing magic. Let me start this discussion by coming out of the closet: I believe that magic is real (There. I said it. You can burn me at the stake now).

We think of magic as something fantastical, and fundamentally untrue, but I believe that is an improper way to view magic. The supernatural always has, and always will have a presence within our natural world, usually passively, but sometimes actively. Obviously, that is hard to swallow in an age where we have so thoroughly bought the naturalism shtick, but there it is. I believe that magic is real, and that belief is going to affect the way I portray magic in my books, because instead of dealing with something purely theoretical, I believe I am dealing with something that has real potency and a real counterpart in our world.

So, how should a Christian author portray magic in their books? I think a good place to start this discussion (since we are in Christian fantasy) is by looking at what the bible says about magic. And yes, the bible says a surprising amount about magic. Besides taking for granted that magic exists at all, the bible’s general narrative is that magic in any form is bad — magic, sorcery, divination, necromancy, witchcraft, all of it. This could be an entire PhD thesis, and I don’t really want to get that deep into it here. However, I will point out that I am generalizing, and there are significant biblical contradictions to this general trend; notably, Joseph, Daniel, and the Magi all practice divination, and do not seem to receive any kind of condemnation for it.

This leads me to introduce a helpful distinction in magic systems put forward by J. R. R. Tolkien (letter 155). As a devout Catholic himself, Tolkien was very conscientious about the way he portrayed magic, wanting to do it in a way that honored his Christian faith. I’ve found his break-down of magic helpful, and inspires my thoughts below. In brief, Tolkien divided “magic” into magia (art, or craft — basically early scientific pursuits) and goeteia (conjuring — or contacting a divine being). Both could be good or evil in Tolkien’s view. If you were using either magia or goeteia to support your own will, or to dominate the will of another, then you were using it immorally. Tolkien would then use his concept of magic to condemn exploitative industrial practices in the same breath as black magic. Therefore, Saruman is not just a conjurer — he is an industrialist; both equally evil.

And that gets to the root of any conversation about magic. People (and I believe the biblical authors, too) use the world “magic” to mean a wide range of things, from actual supernatural power (goeteia) to early scientific inquiries (magia). For example, many ancient cultures (including those of many biblical writers) considered mathematics as divination. And this makes sense. In math, you take one number, add another number to it, and produce a completely unrelated third number (seems like witchcraft to me). The problem is that people often use the term “magic” to explain something that they do not understand (that’s kinda how I feel about math), instead of using it strictly to describe supernatural powers.

That said, when the bible talks about magic, it is generally portrayed as bad, but more interesting for us, it is also associated with idolatry. See, in the ancient world, magic was practiced in one of two general ways. One way was prediction of the future (divination) through some hidden knowledge, but that hidden knowledge was usually associated with a deity who gave that knowledge (think, the Oracle at Delphi). This form of magic, when associated with the prophets of YHWH, the bible actively encouraged. Alternatively, you could make a curse, or a spell, and this was done by writing the spell down (on a lead tablet, or a papyri scroll) usually as a prayer to a god. The casting of this spell was then associated with further ritual, often including sacrifices to a god. There are many such curses throughout the Hebrew scriptures (think, imprecatory psalms), which again receive no condemnation from biblical authors. In both instances, the idea of magic is linked with worshiping a god, and, therefore, its morality or immorality is linked with it being associated with the right God, and not the wrong god. Incidentally, both kinds of magic would fall into Tolkien’s category of goeteia, or “conjuring.”

Magic (that is, goeteia) is contacting a divine being, and using the power associated with that divine being. It is personal contact between the user and the provider. This, I think, is critically important to the way a Christian author should portray magic.

I think it is easy enough for us to wrap our heads around how problematic it would be to be using magic from another source besides the one true God, but I think something that is easy for us to miss is the way we can take part and encourage magical thinking, even when we contact the one true God. Part of magic is using supernatural power in order to accomplish your will, not God’s will. For example, think of the Biblical prophets. If you were to put one of them in a fantasy universe, it would be easy enough to cast them as a wizard or a practitioner of magic. However, it was not their will to find out what would happen in the future. God simply gave them that knowledge. Many of them didn’t want the knowledge God was giving them (we got you, Jeremiah). Similarly, when Elijah calls down fire from heaven at mount Carmel, he isn’t actually calling down fire from heaven; he asks God to do His will. Elijah doesn’t say, “Alright God, fire and lightning, right there. Now!” He says, “Now Lord, let them know who You are.” It’s a fine distinction, but an important one. Even when you are using supernatural power associated with the one true God, you can still participate in magical thinking. Again, calling back to Tolkien, no magic is legitimate when you are using it to dominate another person’s will — whether that is your neighbor’s will, or God’s will.

Now wait a minute, you may say. This doesn’t sound at all like the way magic is usually portrayed in fantasy books. So what about magic that comes from a universal, impersonal force which “surrounds us, and penetrates us and binds the galaxy together?” Obviously, that kind of power is not what the bible means by “magic”. As opposed to a personal moral force (as the bible portrays magic) this sort of magic is an amoral, impersonal force. So yes, that kind of magic is outside of the bible’s direct ban on magic.

However, I hope you can see the pantheistic foundation for this idea of magic. “An energy field created by all living things” is a pretty concise definition of pantheism. So while this is a creative way to get around the moral issues inherent with the biblical definition of magic, it still falls into the category of idolatry. At the very least, it falls outside the bounds of Christian fantasy.

So then, to bring it all back, how should a Christian fantasy author be portraying magic in their fantasy universe? As with anything that exists in reality, we need to be handling its reality with respect. Remember, we are trying to escape from lies, towards truth, and therefore we need to be accurately representing the truth about magic. The source of the magic needs to be clear, as should the personal nature of the magic. Obviously using magic which is derived from rebel divine beings should be shown as problematic and leading to evil, but so should use of supernatural power for one’s own ends — even if you are contacting the true God. I will give the caveat that I think there is freedom within Christian fantasy for the portrayal of a more ambiguous idea of magic which could be associated with scientific processes (magia, in Tolkien’s terms). However, I still think you should be clear to distinguish between what is actually magic (goeteia), and what is simply an early scientific pursuit (magia) which is being misunderstood as magical.

That also leads me to another digression on magic systems. I am compelled by the argument (which I think was put forward by George R. R. Martin, though I can’t verify that) that it is pretentious to believe that humans who have not fully figured out the natural world of science, would have figured out the supernatural world of magic. I’m assuming your fantasy story does not exist in a time when humans have figured out everything there is to know about how the natural world works. After all, fantasy tends to occur in a medieval context, though even in a modern context, we would be kidding ourselves to say that we have figured out exactly the way the natural world works. In the same way that scientific processes would be a mysterious and haphazard experiment in medieval times, magical studies would be even more so.

This leads me to steer away from high fantasy elements in my books — with thoroughly developed and predictable magical systems — and lean in more to low fantasy — where magic is unpredictable, experimental, haphazard, and truly alien.

II. Fantasmic Beasts

This is yet another issue that could (and has) sparked dozens of PhD papers, so I will not do more than scratch the surface of this topic. I’ll try to give a few thoughts, though.

I believe that fantasmic beasts are rooted in reality — either through misinterpretations of natural beast (extinct or otherwise) or through misinterpretations of supernatural beings. Some of these misinterpretations were certainly inadvertent, and probably the result of historic telephone, but others seem to me to be deliberate misrepresentation.

For example: I think the unicorn was historically a goat-like animal (older images of unicorns show a short, cleft-hoofed creature), possibly some kind of ibex. Over time, misinterpretations of the images and oral traditions led to the idea of a unicorn which we have today: a rainbow colored, sparkling horse-like creature with vestigial wings and a narwhal’s tusk for a horn.

Other fantasmic beasts (particularly the humanoid beasts) I believe are intentional misrepresentation, via xenophobic dehumanization of outsiders. For example, the Greeks viewed Centaurs as lawless harbingers of chaos (though some of them might have secret wisdom), threats to the rational and “civilized” societies of Greece. That sounds to me suspiciously similar to the way they viewed their neighbors, the Scythians — horse-riding nomads of the Eurasian steppes. Similarly, if I were in Transylvania during the middle ages and I told you stories of a secret network of sadists who practice moon rituals and creep around at night assaulting women and drinking people’s blood, would you think I was talking about vampires? I could be, or I could be talking about Jews, as that was the way the Christians in Transylvania viewed Jews. Are vampires antisemitic slurs? I don’t think I could prove it, but it is an interesting coincidence.

Similarly, much ink has been spilled noting the underlying misogyny of female “monsters” such as Medusa, who is really a rape survivor who gets proclaimed guilty for the “sin” of being raped, while her abuser gets away free of consequences (isn’t Greek culture so rational and civilized?).

Unfortunately, I don’t have space to go into depth on any of this (largely because that would require a lot of time to research which I don’t have at the moment!), but here’s some more food for thought: might dwarfs be a xenophobic recasting of Neanderthals, or some other alpine people group? Are hoards of goblins a super racist portrayal of Huns or Mongols? Could dragons be a misinterpretation of human contact with dinosaurs? Or would it be better to view dragons as a misinterpretation of angelic beings, like the great Dragon of Revelations? Is it just me, or does the griffin bear a striking resemblance to the cherubim beasts in Daniel 7 or Revelations 4? Is the cyclops a Greek reinterpretation of the biblical Nephilim?

I will not open the gigantic can of worms that is the biblical Nephilim, other than to note that the common interpretation of them as human-angelic hybrids would absolutely make for a fascinating fantasmic creature in a Christian fantasy book.

Concretely, how should a Christian fantasy writer be handling and portraying fantasmic beasts in their world? Unfortunately, I don’t have a lot of concrete guidelines, but here are my general thoughts. Our goal as Christian fantasy writers is to escape from lies in pursuit of truth. John 8:32 gives us the formula that if we know the truth, the truth will set us free. I think this means that we have a duty to be researching the historical context of the fantasmic creatures we are using in our books, in order to bring some measure of truth into our portrayal of them. Especially for those fantasmic beasts which are rooted in racist or misogynistic ideologies, I think we have a duty as Christians to break down those harmful stereotypes in defense of every person made in God’s image (see below in the discussion of “Zion in Opposition to Empire”)

That leads to a thought provoking aside as you are creating fantasmic beasts in your Christian fantasy universe. Are they made in the image of God? Do they have a dominion mandate in the same way that humans do? How do they relate to the fall? (see below in the discussion on “Multiple Sentient Beings”) Answering these questions will add a lot of cosmological richness to your fantasy world.

Next, I would like to mention four areas of mature content: violence, sex, alcohol, and vulgarity. A full discussion of how much of these topics should be allowed in Christian fantasy, how graphic we can get, or how much liberty we have in Christ is well beyond the scope of this article. Instead, I will give you an idea of what to expect from my books, and how I will handle those four topics in my writing.

III. Violence

When thinking about how much violence I include in my books, I look at the portrayal of violence in the bible, as a guide to how much violence is appropriate for a Christian book.

The bible is a very violent book. That said, the biblical narrative also clarifies that violence only exists because of the brokenness and sinfulness of our world generally and humankind specifically. Any time violence occurs, it is a colossal tragedy. I am not quite a pacifist, as I think there are rare times when violence is a legitimate option to be employed, but even the most justified use of violence is still acting out a great tragedy and reaping the effects of the Fall. Violence (or death more broadly) directly results from sin and human brokenness.

However, there is a difference between violence and gore. It’s one thing for me to say that Wormtongue stabbed Saruman with a knife, but it’s another thing for me to describe all the blood and viscera emanating from such a lethal wound. So, how would I handle graphic gore when discussing violence? Again, I like to use the biblical account as a guideline. While there is a lot of violence in the biblical narrative, it is quite rare for the biblical authors to include graphic details of that violence. That said, it happens. For example: Judges 3:22, and Acts 1:18. So graphic violence will not be the norm in my books, but occasionally I might show isolated instances of graphic violence, especially when I am trying to thoughtfully wrestles with the tragedy of what is occurring. (And of course assuming that it is appropriate to the audience I am writing to).

Here’s a litmus test that I try to employ: is the reader happy about the violence in a scene? If the reader is excited and cheering violence on, I am doing it wrong. A reader’s response to violence should be fear and anxiety. At no point should we be looking forward to a battle or fight sequence. We should dread the climactic battle at the end of the story, because how could anything good come from it? For a concrete example of a story that did this well, I would recommend Kenneth Branagh’s 1989 film adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Henry V.”

IV. Sex

While I’m discussing hot topics, I will discuss a hot topic. (Nope. No apology for the pun.) Again, I like to use the biblical narrative as a starting point for how I would portray sensitive content like this.

In case you didn’t know, the bible has a lot of sex in it. Like, Game of Thrones has nothing on the historical books of the bible. Frankly, the amount of rape in the bible is pretty disturbing. I recognize modern Christianity is pretty weary of any sexuality (though that may be changing) but the biblical model doesn’t seem to have any qualms discussing issues of sex. It talks about all sorts of sex — sex within the context of marriage, sexual violence, and sex work. There’s also lots and lots of ethical guidelines about sex that interrupt the narrative, which I believe God gave to ensure safety and health in your sexuality.

However, in all the bible, there is no graphic depiction of sex. The steamiest we get in the Song of Songs is some debatable allusions to genitalia, but again, no graphic depictions of the act of sex itself (and, yes, it is the Song of Songs, NOT the Song of Solomon, but I digress…).

So, I will not depict graphic sexuality in my books. I believe that God Himself designed sex, and He sees it as a sacred thing. (So yes, God is sex-positive. So there.) Because of that, while I may discuss aspects of sexuality in my books, I want to respect the sacredness of sex by not giving graphic details about a sexual encounter. Still, I think we Christians (and particularly those of us in conservative and evangelical circles) need to learn to talk about sex more and better. It is irresponsible to be talking about sex as something that is dirty or gross. And if you think about sex that way, it is not too late to change (that’s the whole point of escaping lies for truth).

I will shy away from controversy myself. So in my books, I will only portray sex as healthy within the framework of a monogamous covenant relationship. If you want to get deeper into the weeds about what makes sex “healthy, evidence based, and biblical” I would recommend the resources of Sheila Wray Gregoire and the Bare Marriage team, they have been incredibly helpful for me.

V. Alcohol

I’m going to be distinguishing between consumption of alcohol, getting drunk, and drunkenness (a consistent lifestyle of overuse, dependence, and abuse of alcohol). In my books, I will portray responsible consumption of alcohol, though I’m never going to portray drunkenness in a positive light. I lean towards eradication escapism in my portrayal of drunkenness. For me, it is important to create cultures where alcohol is not specifically systemically abused. I think it is helpful to see a society with a healthier view of alcohol than that of our own, where it is not stigmatized and mysticized with an aura of something that is forbidden.

In most of the cultures that I create in my books, alcoholic beverages are just a part of a rounded, healthy diet, and people drink them for the same reasons they would enjoy a bowl of strawberries and cream — taste, nutrients, nostalgia, relaxation, etc. In some settings, with particularly contaminated sources of water around them, distilled beverages may be the only safe way to drink at all! Sure, it is possible to get drunk on an alcoholic beverage, but who would waste an important beverage by drinking so much of it at one time?

I think drunkenness should be treated soberly (hee hee), and not used as a humorous device. Part of this would mean grappling honestly with the consequences of substance abuse on the character who is engaging in that behavior — both physical and relational. Again, this is not a topic I will grapple with very often in my books, but when I do, it isn’t enough to portray a character with substance abuse problems and be like “look at him, this sinner. He’s really gonna suffer for what he is doing!” That sort of moralizing is entirely inappropriate.

So to really deal with substance abuse well, you need to wrestle with the reason this character is in the place where he is. What is his thought process? What led to this addiction? But then what would it take to bring redemption? I’m getting a little ahead of myself, but I think redemption is one of the archetypal capstones of any Christian book.

VI. Vulgarity

This has long been noted as an idiosyncratic aspect of Christian media: you can have hundreds of people murdered in your story, and that’s fine, but if you mention sex, or drop the f-bomb, then you are booted out of the genre. And this makes a certain amount of sense. After all, there is a pretty clear bible verse that can be quoted against using “filthy speech” (Ephesians 5:4). Using the name of God as a curse word is also specifically repugnant to Christians, because of its associations with breaking the third commandment (second, for the Catholic and Lutherans keeping score out there.)

Yet the confusion begins when we get down to the historic narrative of the bible, and we see the bible accurately quoting vulgarity, swearing, and blasphemy all over the place. Where I have come down is that, I think it is appropriate to include vulgar speech within the voice of a character, as long as it is not done gratuitously, or for shock value, but if it builds character development, and is situationally appropriate, then I don’t have a problem if you quote your character using vulgar language.

That said, I still like to avoid controversy, so the way I have addressed that in my books is by creating a new vocabulary for vulgarity (this is a fantasy world, so why should they cuss the same way that we do?). So you will not find the f-bomb or s-word in my books, and any use of “hell” or “damn” is going to be definitionally appropriate. At the same time, words which are innocuous in our cultural context (like “mongrel” or “baptize”) are considered curses in my fantasy universe. I hope that this will allow me to depict vulgar characters in a way that is not scandalizing to conservative audiences.

Deconstructing Our Own Truths

One thing I want to make clear is that I want to use my books specifically to challenge the hubris of a lot of Christian traditions (including my own) which claim they are the keepers of the Truth. Just because you believe something to be true, and have a thorough, intellectual dialectic for why it is true, does not mean it actually conforms to the Truth Jesus has proclaimed in the world. Even if your truth conforms with thousands of years of church history, we must be humble enough to accept that we might have been wrong the whole time. Sometimes escaping from lies towards truth means recognized that we ourselves are lying.

If we are trying to escape towards the truth, we are doing ourselves a disservice if the truth we are striving for is our own specific view of the world, or some orthodox narrative of the universe, or one specific interpretation of the biblical texts. Part of seeking truth is being willing to admit that you are wrong. Part of seeking truth is being willing to admit that many truths which we pretend are mutually exclusive are not mutually exclusive. Part of seeking truth is continuing to challenge yourself and confront yourself with ideas that you disagree with. Part of seeking truth is honestly and accurately depicting positions which you may disagree with.

This is maybe a bit of a tangent, but hopefully it will explain what I am talking about:

My last year in high-school and for around six years after that, I went through a long period of deconstructing my Christian faith, and re-evaluating what I actually believed. It was a long journey, and corresponded to some of the most gruelling experience of my life, including one physically abusive employer (who wanted me to sell myself into literal slavery. It’s a long story), one manipulative and financially abusive employer, and one emotionally abusive employer (all of whom were enthusiastically and outspokenly evangelical Christians). As opposed to what a lot of conservative commentators will say, deconstruction is not glamorous or sexy, it’s pretty terrifying and overwhelming (kinda like figuring out that you’ve been in the Matrix your whole life). If you’ve been through this yourself, you know exactly what I am talking about, and if you haven’t, then you don’t have any business judging someone who has.

There came a point in my deconstructing journey, when I realized I had to question things I felt were pretty crucial to what it meant to be a Christian, and I didn’t want to. I was afraid of where my questioning would lead me, and didn’t want to cut an anchor which had been a crucial part of my life and belief for my whole life. On the one hand, I wanted to be true to my call to interrogate my beliefs (like the Bereans) but on the other hand, I was terrified of finding out that I had been supporting a lie my whole life. I don’t mean to get all mystical and charismatic (I was raised Presbyterian, for crying out loud. There’s a reason we’re called the Frozen Chosen!) but this is just what happened to me. In that moment, as I was praying, I felt Jesus answer my conflict by saying, “It is okay: I can stand up to any scrutiny you put me under.”

So that is what I did. And I realized something: my faith became stronger because I questioned it. Today, I have more confidence in Jesus because I questioned Him, and He was there for me. I am a Christian today because Christ has proven to me that He is worth believing in. I realized that the reason I felt so uncomfortable with a lot of my questions was because I was afraid of them, but I have decided that there is no place for fear in my faith. Questioning, doubting, hearing alternative perspectives, etc — none of that is scary to me anymore. I think it is healthy to be constantly reevaluating what you believe — in fact, I would say that it is unhealthy not to.

All of that to say, I will use my books to raise questions about the way we think, whether that has to do with politics, social issues, or theology. I do not want to get into an information biome, where my books become an echo-chamber of what I believe, and I will fight to keep my readers from falling into information biomes as well. So you will run across characters in my books who make controversial statements, or will expound on world views that you have not heard before, or may radically disagree with. Just know that I may or may not actually hold the same view as the character, and if I’m doing my job right, you shouldn’t be able to tell. My goal is for you to understand the reasoning of someone who has come to a dramatically different belief than your own, and that even if you disagree with them, you can at least have empathy for them. I want to broaden our perspective so that we are aware of the many Christian traditions and beliefs that have existed across space and time. We get to the truth by challenging our own preconceptions of truth. I hope that by intentionally platforming diverse voices and world-views, we can refine our understanding of truth “like gold refined in fire,” “that being tested, it might be shown true.” (yeah, that’s not quite what it says in I Peter 1:7, but it’s close, right?)