Today and Saturday, I’m helping to share fantastic, Christian-created fantasy, sci-fi, and other novels at Realm Makers Bookstore.

We’re live at Great Homeschool Convention in downtown Fort Worth, Texas.

I’m sharing photos on Instagram and on my Facebook profile.

Stop by and find an amazing novel—and learn more about Lorehaven Magazine’s mission to help Christians find truth in fantastic stories.

Setting up for day 2.

I stopped by another booth to say hello to Dr. Jay Wile, who has spent decades writing great science textbooks for homeschool students.

Every Lorehaven issue is available online to (free) subscribers, but we also make print copies available at events.

Today I’m headed to Great Homeschool Convention in Fort Worth, Texas!

Through Saturday, March 9, I’ll aid the cause of Realm Makers Bookstore. These fine folks help share Christian-made fantastic novels with new readers nationwide.

At the Realm Makers booth, we’ll offer copies of Lorehaven Magazine. (I publish Lorehaven, which debuted last year.) Here’s another excerpt from our fall 2018 issue. In this Roundtable feature, several fantasy fans and I explore a favorite topic: the beauties and risks of made-up magic in fantastical novels.

First we began with a working definition of fictional magic:

“Fictional magic is defined as a work of fiction that includes supernatural or miraculous events, or practices, that are not common to our real world. These events or practices can have different origins—such as power from a divine source, specially gifted humans, or a series of different natural laws that humans (or human-like characters) can use for different purposes.”

1. How have you, as a fan, viewed fictional magic?

I can’t remember a time of ever being tempted to sin because of fictional magic.

—Marian Jacobs

Marian Jacobs: I have always viewed and engaged with magic as merely fictional and fun. I can’t remember a time of ever being tempted to sin because of fictional magic. That said, my views have changed after I’ve met more fantasy fans who have found this tempting. Although I still think censorship of magic in literature, games, etc., is a poor solution to a heart problem, I’m a little less baffled by parents who remove all fictional magic from their home.

Robert Treskillard: As a reader and as a fan, I work hard to think of non-occultic magic in terms of an ancient way of trying to understand things that were beyond their time. As such, I try to not worry any more about it than I might new technology in a sci-fi novel. This allows me to read more broadly than I write because as an author I have my own detailed approach and opinions on the subject.

Does [a TV show or movie with magic] show the triumph of good over evil? Does it show the hero wielding magic with “honor”?

—Ronie Kendig

Ronie Kendig: My mother, wanting to honor God in all she did and the children she raised, didn’t allow us to see movies like ET or Star Wars. And I have no grudge against her for that because she sought to honor God in every aspect of her life. Now, my approach to magic systems that I read and create is that as long as I am not going against God’s word, then I am okay. For TV or movies with magic systems, I look at the source of that magic and its purpose. Does it show the triumph of good over evil? Does it show the hero wielding magic with “honor”?

Growing up, my parents made sure we didn’t do occultic things such as playing tarot cards or calling Dionne Warwick.

—Parker J. Cole

Parker J. Cole: I really didn’t start to have an opinion of magic in anyway until I got into various Christian circles. Growing up, my parents made sure we didn’t do occultic things such as playing tarot cards or calling Dionne Warwick. I knew as I watched TV and movies, I could never do the magic like in the most fabulous movie Willow. I knew I couldn’t fly on brooms or sprinkle fairy dust like Tinkerbell. Why? Because my parents told me Santa Claus wasn’t real, that we went to the Lord for any request, and that there was no such thing as magic. That’s why, when I read stories of magic, I was able to divorce any sort of reality from it.

2. How do you respond to your parents’ views of fictional magic?

Christian fans absolutely need to respond in [a] mature way . . . to the parents or other authority figures in their lives who have forbidden things from them.

—E. Stephen Burnett

ESB: Many of our readers may empathize with the memory of being taught, from childhood, that such things are either suspicious or downright evil. Ronie and Parker, you’ve both shared a very mature response to this, even if you’ve grown in your own grown-up-level approach to fictional magic. I suggest many Christian fans absolutely need to respond in this mature way, as you both have, to the parents or other authority figures in their lives who have forbidden things from them.

If we can accept that fictional magic is messy—and not all helpful or harmful—then we ought to say the same thing of parents of spiritual authority figures.

Parker: You have to come into your own relationship with Christ. My parents were just honest about it. I respect what they did teach us because it gave me a foundation in how to respond. Sure, my response has changed over the years because I’ve heard different things and can lean toward certain aspects with a bit of freedom than I could as a kid. But mom and pops were just doing the best they could with what they knew. Most parents do.

Marian: Growing up, my parents didn’t intentionally teach critical thinking about magic. I was pretty much allowed to watch anything I wanted on TV. But I was still able to glean that there is a difference between fictional magic and magic in the Bible from simple comments about Ouija boards being evil. That was enough for me to steer clear, since I wasn’t tempted by power.

My husband’s parents did censor magic in their home, and I would never say their reasons are “dumb.” They simply think it’s confusing for children and teaches them that evil magic is “fun.” I can respectfully and empathetically disagree with them.

Ronie: Crowd mentality is powerful, so I am glad for the example my mother set to measure what she did and didn’t do against the word of God. My approach to reading and watching is this: I look at the magic’s source, I look at its use in the story, and the motivations of the characters in using that system.

I only have respect for all the other parents out there even if they made different decisions than my wife and I did.

—Robert Treskillard

Robert: We really are all coming from different backgrounds. I grew up very ignorant of Christianity with about every other religion represented somewhere in my extended family. I also came from a divorced home and had little guidance on anything growing up because my mom worked and went to school. Needless to say I got into a lot of trouble and didn’t come to faith until I was fifteen. Yet here I am a now empty-nesting homeschool father who had to flip and figure out how to parent my kids in this confusing world. I only have respect for all the other parents out there even if they made different decisions than my wife and I did. We’re all just muddling through doing our best. We used to unconsciously think that if we followed the right “formula,” our kids would turn out well, but we’ve learned that there is no formula. God has us all on a bit of a wild ride and we just need to hold onto him, like Lucy holding onto Aslan’s mane.

Read the rest of this Roundtable discussion in Lorehaven Magazine’s fall 2018 issue.

You can also subscribe for free and get access to every issue. That will include the March 2019 issue out later this month.

Lorehaven serves Christian fans by finding biblical truth in fantastic stories. Book clubs, free webzines, and a web-based community offer flash reviews, articles, and news about Christian fantasy, science fiction, and other fantastical genres.

This Thursday, I’ll head to Fort Worth, Texas, to aid the cause of Realm Makers Bookstore at Great Homeschool Convention.

Meanwhile, here’s an excerpt from Lorehaven Magazine‘s summer 2018 issue.¹ It’s from our fascinating Roundtable discussion about story language—vulgarities, cussin’, and anything in between.

What are the best arguments against story language?

E. Stephen Burnett:

For example, some Christians seem to assume that if you read (or hear) a bad word in fiction, then you will inevitably tend to use this word, in a sinful way, in real life.

I’ll confess: there is some truth to this, at least for me. Looking back, I kept my own language fairly “clean”—until about the time I started watching comedy YouTube videos starring intentionally foul-mouthed hosts. The difference is this: They’re using these words to be funny (whether this is acceptable is another issue). But I tend to use these words when I’m angry (which is a sin!).

Laura VanArendonk Baugh:

“Sometimes the adrenaline high and self-congratulation of moral outrage can replace actual discernment.”
— Laura VanArendonk Baugh

Obviously if something is affecting you, you take steps. If I watch a lot of film noir and I find myself wanting to smoke, I need to come up with an alternate behavior for myself. If I play a lot of Assassin’s Creed and I start feeling myself tempted to parkour over a railing and down an atrium, I need to resist. (I resisted.) If I watch or read a lot of language and start using it in a way that’s offensive to others and/or myself, I need to examine that and make a call.

Morgan Busse:

“It’s about each person knowing their limits and placing those before God.”
— Morgan L. Busse

Some Christians are truly concerned about certain language used in fiction. Either they have not thought through their convictions and know where their own line is, or as Laura pointed out, they have double standards (which need to be addressed). However, there are times when the language serves no purpose in the story. And let’s be honest, there is an assumption out there concerning Christian fiction that there won’t be any bad language, or if there is, there is a really good reason.

Steve Rzasa:

“Blasphemies and misuses of God’s name irk me more than ‘regular’ swear words.”
— Steve Rzasa

Christian publishers can rightly make the case that, if they’ve built a business on books that don’t contain profanity, they shouldn’t put it in. They’re more likely to drive off some readers for those same reasons we’ve articulated, whether or not we agree with those reasons.

I don’t think adding profanity to a explicitly Christian line-up will attract new readers. Different stories will do a better job at that than the language used in those stories.

Mike Duran:

There is no disputing that reading and/or hearing profanity can negatively seed our imagination. Listening to people cuss tempts us to cuss. Bottom line. Full-stop.

“Separation from the world is a spiritual state, not a literal checklist.”
— Mike Duran

Here’s the problem, as I see it: Any contact with a fallen world can tempt us to sin. Living around people with unhealthy lifestyles, values, and habits can influence us to mimic those things. However, as Christians, we can’t isolate ourselves from sinners because they might tempt us to sin. In other words, it’s wiser for us to cultivate discipline in resisting evil than it is closing our eyes and ears to every possible form of evil we encounter.

Separation from the world is a spiritual state, not a literal checklist.

Read the rest of this Roundtable discussion in Lorehaven Magazine’s summer 2018 issue (PDF download).

You can also subscribe for free and get access to every issue. That will include the March 2019 issue out later this month.

Lorehaven serves Christian fans by finding biblical truth in fantastic stories. Book clubs, free webzines, and a web-based community offer flash reviews, articles, and news about Christian fantasy, science fiction, and other fantastical genres.

While I’m preparing for Fort Worth’s Great Homeschool Convention, enjoy this excerpt from the spring 2018 issue of Lorehaven Magazine.

3. What is the most challenging objection to story violence you’ve heard?

Andrew Winch: “You’re gonna make somebody stumble” (Rom. 14, 1 Cor. 8–10). Stories are very tricky. Because whose hands are they going into?

“You ought to read a story you’ve researched and are sure you’re ready to read.”
— Andrew Winch

But you ought to read a story you’ve researched and are sure you’re ready to read. You don’t just pick up a book and start reading. Same thing with a movie. Someone will look at a movie and say, “This probably isn’t something that’s good for my heart. I shouldn’t watch this.” They shouldn’t just say, “Oh, this got great reviews, I’m going to watch this.” They’re being irresponsible as a consumer and as a creator. In that respect, I think the burden falls on the person consuming more than the person creating.

Travis Perry: I’m going to disagree with you a little bit. I think authors should ask: what will somebody think you approve of, by what you portray?

Similarly, I feel responsible as a soldier, because people think I know what war is like, and I think I do know what war is like. And I think that I am therefore obliged to portray it in a certain way, and I can’t just portray it in a way that I think is fun.

That’s not so much really the classic stumbling-block objection. But I don’t want people to think that I approve of something that I don’t. That, I think, is an important factor.

E. Stephen Burnett: The apostle Paul says, “Do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil” (Rom. 14:16). That’s a good principle to keep in mind.

“If you make life too antiseptic, you discredit how difficult it is to be faithful.”
— Carla Cook Hoch

Carla Cook Hoch: The objection I’ve gotten is, “Well what does light have to do with darkness?”

Here’s the thing: if you make life too antiseptic, you discredit how difficult it is to be faithful. You do a disservice to everyone who works very hard every day to be the person that God wants you to be, and let the Holy Spirit work in their life.

Read all of Lorehaven Magazine’s spring 2018 issue free online, or download the PDF!

You can also subscribe and get access to every issue for free.

Lorehaven serves Christian fans by finding biblical truth in fantastic stories. Book clubs, free webzines, and a web-based community offer flash reviews, articles, and news about Christian fantasy, science fiction, and other fantastical genres.

Have you ever paused just to look around and wonder if the universe has entered an alternate timeline?

As if someone, perhaps Barry Allen or The Doctor, has gone back to make too many changes?

Consider these bizarre 2019 events:

• Politics are beyond insane (no matter your viewpoint).
• Legitimately crazy people (from all parties) are seeking elected office.
• This includes leaders publicly endorsing or ignoring legal infanticide–a longtime old evangelical doom forecast.
• We have handheld devices that are more powerful than university computers a generation ago.
• If people wanted to, we could travel to the moon or Mars, any time, but they don’t want to.
• Serious and decent people now believe there are more than two genders.
• But every single story of any mainstream popularity keeps presuming otherwise.
• Against all odds, orthodox, biblical Christian churches have survived and thrived.
• Most recently, this includes the United Methodist denomination.
• Which is staying biblical about the sexual revolution (whose nonsense would have blown the minds of anyone a generation ago).
• Which is also staying biblical not because of American leaders but faithful African leaders.
• Meaning the United States is being occasionally called back from apostasy by faithful non-U.S. church members.
• Meanwhile, fringe folks are celebrating the actual, bold, sexualization of children–another dark prediction by evangelicals, come to life. It won’t stay fringe for long. This will make some nasty messes to clean up in a decade or two.
• On the popular cultural front, Star Wars movies are being made again–at one point, one new film a year.
• But fans revolted, with reactions arguably more negative than the old prequel backlash.
• A film version based on Aquaman became DC’s most top-earning movie ever so far.
• Marvel is about to finish(?) a shared-universe film series that broke ground and outpaced anyone else who tried it.

On a more personal side:

• Christian-made fantasy, sci-fi, and other fantastical stories are finally taking off.
• I’ve finished two months of writing blog articles every weekday.
• This week: I’m backing off slightly, because …
• I’m heading to Fort Worth this Tuesday for Great Homeschool Convention, and the Realm Makers Bookstore.
• Weeks later, I’m blessed to release the fifth issue, for spring 2019, of Lorehaven Magazine.
• Weeks later, Lorehaven heads to Waco, Texas, for its own booth at the Teach Them Diligently conference!

To be sure, I could do with more of that timeline and less of the sex-and-heresy nonsense.

But if the world’s going to get this bizarre, we’ll surely need stranger stories. Especially stories that explore holiness, humanity, wonder, and magic in light of the gospel’s epic truth.

Weaker brothers¹ may not mean to boss other Christians.

Series: Weaker Brothers Shouldn’t Boss Christians

1. Weaker Brothers Shouldn’t Boss Christians about Music, Food, or Fantasy
2. How Weaker Brothers May Begin to Boss Christians about Social Justice Issues
3. Weaker Brothers Shouldn’t Boss Christians about Social Justice Work

Maybe they mean only to share their own opinions² about food, popular culture, or holidays.

Maybe they just need to share their own struggles and hear other Christians empathize.

Or maybe they even need to hear other Christians say, more wisely, “Hmm, I understand your struggle, and I’m glad to help, but have you considered that this is your own struggle and not everyone else’s?”

Often, at least at first, the weaker brother’s weakness is based on vulnerability to particular temptations. He/she can’t hear certain music or eat certain foods without associating these with evil.

Leveling up: The weaker brother boss

Other times, they are not really struggling with temptations. I fear they’ve grown past being a struggling weaker brother, and have been promoted to the position of a weaker brother boss. Sometimes the person promotes himself. And/or at other times, Christians end up saying to weaker brothers, “Here, you seem to be an expert on this. You seem passionate and Called to This Ministry. You’ve just been promoted to the level of boss!”

Either way, this person begins to believe his own views about “holiness” are biblical commands.

He or she says “thou shalt,” when God has not said this.

He or she behaves like a Pharisee, and makes up laws around God’s actual Law, while implying or stating outright, “Thus saith the Lord.”

This happens with music, food, and fantasy. But more recently, newer weaker brothers have begun to boss Christians about social justice issues (which I abbreviate here as SJI ).

Weaker-brother bosses impose SJI rules on other Christians in at least three areas: work, language, and doctrine.

Weaker-brother boss: ‘Follow my social-justice work!’

For this I must reference an example. Not long ago, I encountered a chap who had just gotten hold of a particular religious cause. Our conversation started with this article about “millennial burnout.” I remarked about how the writer simply assumed several “doom” scenarios for not only individuals, but the entire planet.

I asked, “How much of this recurring burnout is due to these rather Godless and anti-eternal false beliefs we keep internalizing?”

In response, someone asked me if I could really be so callous about all these people suffering. We need to do something! Now!

Later I realized that this is weaker-brother bossing. We’ve seen this before.

Christians have acted as if “ministry” jobs, such as pastors or missionaries, are the only godly jobs. These jobs are all about saving souls for eternity. These jobs make you an upper-tier Christian.

Other jobs, such as banking or construction, are maybe okay. But they’re not as spiritual. They’re all about this world, earning profit and supporting your family. These jobs make you a lesser-tier Christian.

The SJI weaker-brother boss follows the same pattern. He associates “regular” jobs—oddly enough, including pastors and missionaries!—with sin, hypocrisy, or shallow spirituality. Instead, the weaker-brother boss insists everyone become a full-time justice advocate. Everyone must effectively have the same job. Because our situation is that drastic. Because otherwise, more people will suffer or die because you didn’t care enough.

Resist the weaker-brother boss’s legalism

This assumption about a Christian’s work is plain legalism.

It ignores the plain teaching of Scripture: that God created humans to steward the Earth in many ways.³

In this instance, I replied to this person⁴ by saying that if we took this posture to its rational conclusion, this leaves no time for anything else. Not exchanging comments on Facebook or creating art. Nothing but miserly and minimalist living. No parties, no rest, only constant self-abasement.

And we haven’t even gotten started about how Jesus has called Christians as the Church to their primary mission of discipling others. (This Great Commission restores, and in some cases supersedes, the earlier mandate for humans to make culture.)

In other words, the weaker-brother boss has (accidentally?) taken the exact posture of a sort of medieval Christian monk. At best, he provides only contemplation and care for the poor, at the expense of human flourishing. Or at worst, he gains the perks of spiritual influence and control over others, leading to fulfillment of a messiah complex.

All Christians are called to relieve Pain and Suffering in the world wherever we can. But our callings differ. If [name of perceived global problem] is real, then yes, I decline the implication that if I’m really a good person, then I ought to be concerned about it, and/or Do Something About It, and when I make this rejection, I equally reject any attempt at legalistic guilt-tripping. . . .

Someone else’s stewardship calling is not identical to mine. When it comes to Mega-Global Earth Issues, about the best I can do is recycle. Nobody should be coming along and deciding that, over top of my previous commitments to Christ, my family, my local church, and the global Church, and my job, and my other job, and my other job, and my other other job, that I also need to take a monk-like vow of Particular Planet Care.

Frankly, I think this is the only kind of basic response to offer a weaker-brother boss (about work or anything else). It starts with some measure of happy, biblical conviction. Unless your work involves actual sin, you can say:

1. I have an important calling from God.
2. You may have a different calling from him.
3. If you associate my calling with some kind of sin, you are wrong and legalistic.
4. With some exceptions, I am very happy in my work, and know that it pleases God.
5. I will not accept the burden of this guilt that you, perhaps by accident, try to impose on me.
6. This boss behavior will not make you happy, and does not please our God who gives his people different callings.
7. Please see how your behavior resembles the very legalism you may want to avoid, and stop demanding we all share the same work.

Or, as the apostle Paul said, when early Christians accused one another of having less-spiritual gifts or callings:

For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor, and our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require. But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.⁵

Next: Weaker Brothers Shouldn’t Boss Christians About Social Justice Language.

In The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis’s head demon shares a strategy to trick people into redefining reality.

I’ve found the satirical Screwtape’s advice a blast of cold water on my face. And maybe yours too. Especially if you, like me, feel tempted to insist that only gritty, darker stories reflect the real world. And to insist that lighter, “inspirational” stories—with their religious experiences and music in lighted rooms—are always unrealistic.

For those who would also redefine “realism” in fiction as only showing sin’s nasty effects, please take heed.¹

Screwtape addressed his demonic nephew, Wormwood (“you”), and Wormwood’s human “patient” (“he”).²

Probably the scenes he is now witnessing will not provide material for an intellectual attack on his faith—your previous failures have put that out of your power.

But there is a sort of attack on the emotions which can still be tried.

It turns on making him feel, when first he sees human remains plastered on a wall, that this is “what the world is really like” and that all his religion has been a fantasy.

You will notice that we have got them completely fogged about the meaning of the word “real”.

They tell each other, of some great spiritual experience, “All that really happened was that you heard some music in a lighted building”; here “Real” means the bare physical facts, separated from the other elements in the experience they actually had.

On the other hand, they will also say “It’s all very well discussing that high dive as you sit here in an armchair, but wait till you get up there and see what it’s really like”: here “real” is being used in the opposite sense to mean, not the physical facts (which they know already while discussing the matter in armchairs) but the emotional effect those facts will have on a human consciousness.

Either application of the word could be defended; but our business is to keep the two going at once so that the emotional value of the word “real” can be placed now on one side of the account, now on the other, as it happens to suit us.

The general rule which we have now pretty well established among them is that in all experiences which can make them happier or better only the physical facts are “Real” while the spiritual elements are “subjective”; in all experiences which can discourage or corrupt them the spiritual elements are the main reality and to ignore them is to be an escapist.

Thus in birth the blood and pain are “real”, the rejoicing a mere subjective point of view; in death, the terror and ugliness reveal what death “really means”. The hatefulness of a hated person is “real”—in hatred you see men as they are, you are disillusioned; but the loveliness of a loved person is merely a subjective haze concealing a “real” core of sexual appetite or economic association. Wars and poverty are “really” horrible; peace and plenty are mere physical facts about which men happen to have certain sentiments.

The creatures are always accusing one another of wanting “to eat the cake and have it”; but thanks to our labours they are more often in the predicament of paying for the cake and not eating it.

Your patient, properly handled, will have no difficulty in regarding his emotion at the sight of human entrails as a revelation of Reality and his emotion at the sight of happy children or fair weather as mere sentiment . . .

Do newbie Christian media critics know their complaints can be just as sentimental and hackneyed as some of the stuff they condemn?

Yes, newbie Christian media critic. We know how terrible/preachy/stupid/dumbity stupid dumb dumb you suddenly realize a lot of “Christian” media is. Glad you figured it out. No, really. It’s not unimportant to memorize the multiplication tables.

But. You must be new here.

Of course, plenty of stories, movies, and music by Christians is plenty dumb. Or preachy. Or even (this is less popular to say) plain doctrinally incorrect, or else straight-up heretical.¹

But, whenever people say this stuff as if it’s some revolutionary discovery, I’ve often written countless little micro-essays that attempt dual purposes:

1. Empathize with the person who has suddenly woken up and complains, hey, some of this stuff is really terrible.
2. Challenge the critic to mature in his response and realize that, really, such complaints are really basic, 101-level stuff.

Sure, we’re all learning. We’re all in process, all on our own journeys.

But: the quicker you can figure out that these complaints are (1) cliche; (2) basic; (3) a very early part of maturing as a Christian creative voice—the better.

Perhaps I can help get this started. Perhaps the newbie Christian media critic simply must begin to feel that all his or her clever criticisms have all been said before, thousands of times, in the great circle of Christian Creative Life.

So this time I’m foregoing my usual micro-essay responses, links to previous articles, etc.

Instead, I’ll just share a few modified quotes. Then I’ll share a few brief replies. Very brief. In fact, they’re mostly animated GIFs.²

After all, newbie Christian media critics often repeat an amazing new concept: “Show, not tell!”

Please note: I’m not making fun of newbie Christian-media critics. My intent is only to challenge them to think beyond the cliches. Try to be more biblical and less reactionary in your criticisms. And also: keep growing.³

1. ‘I don’t read/watch/listen to “Christian” media because it’s all terrible.’

2. ‘Christian stories never show really real life in reality!’

3. ‘God isn’t against sex!’

4. ‘Great stories need to include more swearing!’

5. ‘No one likes preachy stories!’

Let’s go beyond the cliches.

If I missed a newbie Christian media critic cliche, let me know. And I’m curious what your short or animated GIF response would be.

Over the weekend we learned Pure Flix’s latest movie, Unplanned, will be rated R.¹

Here’s the story from The Hollywood Reporter:

Pure Flix Entertainment, the family friendly label known for distributing God’s Not Dead and a few dozen other movies aimed at Christians, will release its first R-rated film next month, and it is none too happy about having to do so.

The film, Unplanned, tells the true story of Abby Johnson, who defected from Planned Parenthood to become a pro-life activist. While the filmmakers were certain they were making a PG-13 film, the MPAA has informed them that it will, in fact, be rated R unless all scenes of abortions are removed or altered.

The filmmakers are refusing to change anything, putting Pure Flix in the awkward position of having to open an R-rated movie on March 29. The company’s other releases, roughly two dozen movies, were all rated G, PG or PG-13.

“A 15-year old girl can get an abortion without her parent’s permission but she can’t see this movie without adult supervision? That’s sad,” said Ken Rather, the executive vp of distribution for Pure Flix.²

At first I wasn’t sure whether to be happy about this or simply amused. After chuckling a bit at the irony, I realized this is a good sign of growth for Christian movies.

In fact, I think Pure Flix should intentionally make more films that could be rated R. So should other Christian filmmakers.

Here are three reasons why.

1. Unplanned‘s R-rating is for good reason.

Not all R-rated movies get that rating for the same reason.

They’re not all full of explicit or gratuitous images of sex and violence. They’re not all nihilistic or exploitative.

Christians already “practiced” viewing at least some R-rated films redemptively in 2004. That’s when Mel Gibson released his film The Passion of the Christ. Yes, it was intense. It had a lot of violence, especially during the (often arguably overdone) scene of Roman soldiers scourging Jesus. But most Christians reacted with maturity. They understood that if any visual story required portrayal of violence, then it’s the story of Christ’s brutal torture and execution—the very means of God reconciling his wrath against sin and his mercy toward humans.

I think many Christians also understand that humans sometimes need to see violence. Even culturally separatist Christian leaders don’t usually condemn Christian soldiers or emergency room nurses for seeing torn-apart bodies, either in images or in real life.

Most Christians also make room for soberly facing the truth about a socially approved evil, such as lynching, povery, or abortion.

So far, Unplanned‘s social media folks offered a similar mature response. They rightly presume that not all R-rated movies are nihilism– or slash– or sex-fests. Instead, they offer chances for spiritually strong viewers, such as Christian parents, and spiritually growing viewers, such as children, to see and discuss the story together.

2. ‘The world is rated R, and no one is checking IDs.’

By the way, N. D. Wilson will appear at next month’s Great Homeschool Convention in Fort Worth, Texas. I’m also going there to aid the Realm Makers Bookstore and represent Lorehaven Magazine.

The phrase comes from fantasy author and poet-theologian N. D. Wilson:

The world is rated R, and no one is checking IDs. Do not try to make it G by imagining the shadows away. Do not try to hide your children from the world forever, but do not try to pretend there is no danger. Train them. Give them sharp eyes and bellies full of laughter. Make them dangerous. Make them yeast, and when they’ve grown, they will pollute the shadows.³

If the real world is rated R, and Christian-made movies intend to show the real world, then it makes little sense to emphasize only movies that can be rated G (or only PG, or only PG-13).

Otherwise, at best, we really are trying to be “more spiritual than God.”

What if we (understandably) argue that Christian movie audiences won’t support this kind of truth-telling-with-violence? In that case, we are dangerously close to accepting a kind of “bribe” to ignore injustice.⁴ No, it’s not a de facto bribe from those who commit injustice. But it is a kind of “bribe” from other people who’d just as soon not confront the real-world consequences of the injustice.

3. Christ’s people are no longer corrupted by dead bodies; instead, we can help resurrect them.

Ezekiel 37’s image of God resurrecting a valley of dead bones shows perhaps the most beautiful image of resurrection in all the Old Testament.

Some biblical Christians are more thoughtful and less reactionary about the concept of violent images or content.

At the back of their minds, they may remember biblical prohibitions against touching dead human bodies.⁵ Or they may remember plenty of other ceremonial laws against handling animals, food, or objects God deemed “unclean.”

Christians like to debate about how and why God made these distinctions for Israel. We must note, however, that Jesus Christ, the ultimate fulfillment of God’s Law,⁶ literally touched dead bodies on several incredible occasions. But what happened when he did? Instead of Jesus becoming ceremonially unclean, these people returned to life. Death did not ceremonially corrupt Jesus. Instead, his life flowed out and (temporarily) resurrected the dead persons Jesus touched.

This truth helps remind Jesus’s people that we experience Jesus’s fulfillment of the Law. We are no longer bound to follow the Law’s ceremonial aspects, including its division between “clean” and “unclean.”

This means that Christians can work in nursing, funeral homes, or crime forensics—washing to avoid germs, but without need to avoid ceremonial uncleanness.

This also means that as Christians spread the gospel to every part of the Earth, we take part in Jesus’s long-range spiritual resurrection project. Every day we encounter members of the spiritual walking dead, that is, persons dead in their trespasses and sins. Yet through the work of the Holy Spirit, through the gospel shared by redeemed saints, we get to see people come to life in Christ.⁷

If we feared touching dead people, we couldn’t do a lot of God’s work on Earth.

If we still spiritually feared touching spiritually dead people, we would end up disobeying Jesus’s Great Commission.

Finale: To see light best, you need to consider the darkness

“Violence [in fiction] has to have a very specific reason: to show the result of evil.”
— fantastical thriller novelist Robert Liparulo

“If you make life too antiseptic, you discredit how difficult it is to be faithful.”
— storyteller Carla Cook Hoch, FightWrite.net

For more about the biblical place of violence in stories, see “Roundtable: Engaging Fictional Violence in Our Real Worlds,” Lorehaven Magazine (spring 2018).

But notice this: We wouldn’t find delight or relief in ministering to (spiritually) dead people if we didn’t first know about the Law. First we had to know how hazardous dead bodies could have been before we could find joy in the life of Jesus.

Similarly, people can’t know about the wonders of saving faith unless they also face the horror of death.

That’s why I hope this film commits to showing, at least somewhat honestly, what actually happens in abortion. And I hope this company, as well as other Christian filmmakers, will understand the reasons to attempt other material that could become rated R.

Not to be “edgy.” Not to indulge in violence for violence’s own sake. And not just to try to “get people saved.”

Instead, stories that show evil darkness and death can help us better see Jesus Christ’s light and life.

Just like the Bible does. Just like the testimonies of people who had killed their children, and/or “lived” in spiritual death until Jesus saved them. And just like the best human-made stories that thoughtfully explore evil villainy so we can rejoice when a good hero finally defeats it.

Half a lifetime ago, I would have been nervous about How to Train Your Dragon.¹²

I would have thought: Why does this story attempt to show that “evil” creatures aren’t always evil? Or what we think is good isn’t always good? Why do they show mankind as bad and nature as good? Isn’t this story trying to subvert traditional concepts of right and wrong?

Some stories do attempt this.³

But thanks to Biblical theology, I no longer have that objection to all such stories. That’s because I believe that in the real world, we often find a third party between pure good and worst evil. If our view of the True Story includes only God (good) and man (bad), we’ll be confused when stories explore how this third party—the creation itself—plays in the story.

How to Train Your Dragon: bad humans versus good dragons?

If you go into How to Train Your Dragon or its two sequels, expecting binary categories of right and wrong (man is good/bad, dragons are good/bad), you will be confused.

Is the story’s “bad guys” the humans, such as the Vikings?

An older Hiccup, from How to Train Your Dragon’s 2014 sequel.

That doesn’t make sense. If this series wants to say “humans are bad,” why does this story also want us to love these heroes, especially spunky dragon-trainer Hiccup?

Is the story’s “good guys” the dragons? If so, why does the first film show that wild dragons are genuinely dangerous?

And why would the second film and third films show human villains who manipulate or abuse dragons? As opposed to our heroic Vikings who befriend and train them?

In any case, the first film’s victory comes after estranged father Stoick and son Hiccup both admit their human wrongs and reconcile. Near the end, Hiccup even rides his new dragon Toothless into a spectacular battle against a gargantuan, fire-breathing, traditionally evil dragon.

In the first How to Train Your Dragon film, man and creation must reconcile. By the story’s end, Vikings and dragons have learned to work together and find redemption. Yet man has not simply become “at one with nature,” as if wild nature is superior. Instead man has stopped sinning against nature and become a better nature-steward. The meaning is right there in the title: it’s not “how to be trained by your dragon,” but “how to train your dragon.”

Even in How to Train Your Dragon 2, when we find that a heroine has been living wild with dragons, the story doesn’t leave her there. Without a thought, she is invited to rejoin civilization and take her place in a dragon-training society.

Echoes of groaning Earth

I don’t know the intentions of the How to Train Your Dragon creators. But I do know their subversions of traditional “villains” like evil dragons need not be seen as attacks on biblical morality. In fact, they echo the biblical truth of creation’s redemption:

1. Mankind sins against God (Genesis 3). It’s man’s fault.
2. God curses the ground (Genesis 3: 17–19). But it’s not creation’s fault.
3. Ever since, mankind has had a love/hate relationship with creation.
4. Jesus Christ comes to redeem His children.
5. And someday even “the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:21).

Until that day, “the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now” (Romans 8:22). Groaning creation lashes back at mankind. Dragons in ignorance or fear blast our homes and even kill us. But just these stories end in hope—with the fearful dragons now friendly and tamed—so Jesus Christ will make his redeemed world where man’s and creation’s groaning turns to singing.

And in that day, perhaps for real, the dragons will return.