63 Responses so far

1. 1. Mark Terry on Sep 6th, 2007 at 7:42 am

   Have ax. Will grind.

2. 2. Steve Buchheit on Sep 6th, 2007 at 7:53 am

   Old saw, will hack at it again.

   Considering I did a senior level thesis on A.C. Clarke and religion, he is ignorant. And I love how, even though there are all these other religions, he want to promote that it should be Christianity in SF. Just as hardly anybody in the world is American (on the subject of race in SF), Christianity is not the major religion of the world. Hinduism is (setting aside official state atheism). After that is Buddhism. And if he doesn’t see the role of Christianity in the Golden Compass (His Dark Materials) and The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, he is blind as well as ignorant.

3. 3. Tim Akers on Sep 6th, 2007 at 8:18 am

   Yeah, it’s a pretty slap-dash argument. I also don’t like directly relating fantasy and spirituality. I consider my own fantasy to be purely humanist, and I think Mieville deals more with social issues than any kind of spiritualist vision.

   I was going to write a long screed about religion and genre, but I think I’ll just mulch it into a blog at some point…

4. 4. Betsy Whitt on Sep 6th, 2007 at 8:31 am

   He seems to have skimped on his research… and since he’s complaining about the secularization of Christianity in SF (and let’s face it, that’s just mirroring what’s happening in the rest of western culture - America is a post-Christian nation at this point) it seems a particularly poor example to cite The Golden Compass as a positive alternative. Pullman is a noted and vocal atheist, and his use of the Christian Church in that trilogy is a very unfavorable commentary.

   And his view of SF as appealing only to the head and fantasy as appealing only to the heart/spiritual side is rather limiting, as well, don’t you think? SF is as much about wonder as fantasy is, and I think that sense of wonder, of something much larger than the participants in the story, is a hallmark of both genres, and more essential than this or that religion.

5. 5. Ken McConnell on Sep 6th, 2007 at 9:04 am

   My next sci-fi novel is taking very direct cues from both Christianity and Buddhism. Not in making the characters religious, but in how their journey resembles both Christ and Buddha’s journey. Fiction writers are wise to be familiar with mythologies and to realize the common themes in all of them. I feel that if you can be subtle and slip in these social reference points you will connect to wider audiences.

   Aside from using common mythological motifs, I generally frown on putting religious dogma directly in fiction of any kind. Unless you are selling to that specific religious market. It puts off secular society and usually offends one persuasion or another. Which is at odds with most teachings concerning getting along with everyone.

6. 6. Josh on Sep 6th, 2007 at 9:07 am

   As a Christian, I find this a bit silly. His examples aren’t well thought out at all.

   The reality is, stories derive from people, no matter what genre they fall into, and those people are going to have their own perspectives on everything from politics, to religion, to whether breakfast or dinner is the most important meal of the day. Is it sad maybe that there aren’t as many quality Christian authors who write speculative fiction? Sure. But I don’t think a general cry of “be nice to my faith!” when someone sets out to craft a potential future is all that rational.

   And just because one can envision a future with a planet-wide Jesus fest doesn’t mean even we as modern Christians would actually like what we came up with…

   WWJD-GPS-implanted tracker bracelets for starters? Biblepods that lock down our minds when we start straying into lustful or deceitful patterns of thinking? Let’s imagine, shall we?

7. 7. JeremyT on Sep 6th, 2007 at 9:09 am

   It never fails to boggle my mind how some Christians cannot accept any media that isn’t created FOR THEM. I blame the fact that there is such a thing as “christian” anything (music, literature, etc) that gives some Christians this sense of entitlement. World’s a big place. So’s the future.

8. 8. Matt Ruff on Sep 6th, 2007 at 9:19 am

   I think he has a point. At least in the SF I tend to read, well-rounded Christian characters are even scarcer than black folks — the only exception seems to be novels built around religious themes, like The Sparrow and A Canticle for Leibowitz.

   It’s also a pretty common SF trope to posit that religion is dying out (Peter Watts’ Blindsight made noises in this direction, IIRC). I’m sure a lot of authors believe that this is just realism, but like The Color-Blind Future it’s also a convenient way to avoid dealing with a thorny subject.

   SF’s not alone in banishing Christians to the sidelines, of course. Mainstream writers are uncomfortable with them too.

9. 9. Josh on Sep 6th, 2007 at 9:36 am

   Just thought I’d drop a few links in that bubbled up in my mind while thinking about this.

   First is a post from a Catholic spec-fic author on why he hates the whole idea/genre of “Christian SF”

   http://www.keithstrohm.com/from-the-shattered-drum/2007/4/18/why-i-hate-christian-sf.html

   And then another perspective on what may or may not define a work of Christian SF.

   http://specfaith.ritersbloc.com/2006/08/04/what-is-christian-speculative-fiction-anyway.aspx

   If you want a well-rounded Christian character, one of my favorites is found in Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files series, with Michael, the carpenter/Hand-of-God-swordsman who fights alongside Harry, the more agnostic, wizard-PI. Again, fantasy, not science fiction, I know, but a great series.

10. 10. Catherine Shaffer on Sep 6th, 2007 at 9:39 am

    Hm, interesting. On the one hand, he seems to be completely ignorant of the preponderous of sf literature that deals with religion and religious futures. His argument is shrill and unreasonable. On the other hand…he kind of has a point. I think sf writers do shy away from depicting religion, specifically, in the future. Many of the great sf/f writers who have tackled religious themes are fantasists like J.R.R. Tolkien, Katherine Kurtz, and Tim Powers. Mary Doria Russel and Walter Miller stand out as exceptions in science fiction, and some religious futures in sf are downright scary–such as the Hyperion series. (Not that I didn’t love it.)

    I think this comes down to the old inclusion/cultural appropriation argument, though. Not every sf book or story has to represent every type of person and every viewpoint. I do think atheists dominate the field, but is it up to them to provide sympathetic entertainment for Christian readers? On the other hand, perhaps an sf writer who did a great job of writing a Christian future would sell books like hotcakes. (And in fact, Russel did.)

    I can’t comment on Crystal Rain, as it is still languishing in my TBR pile.

11. 11. Marie Brennan on Sep 6th, 2007 at 10:25 am

    I’ll grant that if the guy is talking about Christian characters and Christian societies in science fiction, he might be right; I’ve talked before when this discussion came around about the difference between religiously-themed fiction and actual religion in fiction. But I haven’t read a huge amount of sf (as opposed to fantasy), so I’m sure there are examples I can’t think of.

    With that earlier article added in, though . . . does he want spirituality or Christianity? We’ve got plenty of the former lying around, on both ends of the genre. And if he’s holding up fantasy as some kind of paragon of what he’s looking for, then he must not be talking about the latter, because outside of urban fantasy with vampires in, I see precious little Christianity there, either.

12. 12. Matt Ruff on Sep 6th, 2007 at 10:26 am

    On the one hand, he seems to be completely ignorant of the preponderous of sf literature that deals with religion and religious futures.

    He’s not, though. He says right there, in the paragraph Toby quoted: “I find it illuminating that best-selling SF can postulate other religions.” His point is not that SF doesn’t deal with religion at all, but that it only seems comfortable dealing with imaginary or dead religions, while living faiths and the people who practice them are largely invisible. That strikes me as a fair observation.

13. 13. Rick Novy on Sep 6th, 2007 at 11:45 am

    I disagree that America is a post-Christian nation. There is a large percentage of the population that follows the faith. In fact, the Catholic Church depends on the U.S. for the vast majority of its income–that’s why there will n ever be an American pope, too much power in one place.

    As well, Christianity is not ignored in fiction. Philip Jose Farmer uses priests as major characters. More recently, James Maxey used a deformed future version of Christianity.

    Christianity isn’t ignored, it is represented in different forms. And of course, a lot of this will relate to the writer in particular. Every novel represents the author’s personality, no matter what they say, you can’t filter that out. An athiestic writer will find it difficult to represent any religion in a fair light, particularly when the only motivation is complaints from a reader obviouslyoutside the writer’s target audience.

14. 14. Steve Buchheit on Sep 6th, 2007 at 11:59 am

    I think his rants combine the thoughts present in the “War on Christmas” and “Why Haven’t I Been Published, Yet” arguments.

15. 15. Laurie Mann on Sep 6th, 2007 at 12:03 pm

    Hell, I’m an atheist and I didn’t find the religious beliefs posited in Crystal Rain at all offensive… ;->

16. 16. Mike Brotherton on Sep 6th, 2007 at 1:12 pm

    “SF writers are ignoring Christianity for no other reason than their own personal biases.”

    No shit. I mean, duh. Are we supposed to write stories and let them be influenced by other people’s biases? Hell no. I’m going to write about what I want the way I want to from my own world view. If I were interested in super sales, I’d target Christians and write “Left Behind” knock offs, or something to tweak them like the Davinci Code.

    I got my own Christian-slanted review for my first novel STAR DRAGON. The guy liked the book overall, but specifically targeted my secular perspective:

    “Another common vein is the destruction of most modern religions. This is a common factor in all science fiction, old or new. Older science fiction usually tried to avoid the topic altogether. New science fiction either spiritualizes through science or alters modern religions to fit the changes that have happened in the universe. Brotherton’s universe essentially eliminates Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism as all of these fail when humanity has essentially made itself physically “immortal.” He assumes that Buddhism and Judaism would survive because Buddhism jives with this universe and Judaism is just too stubborn to die.

    “As with many science fiction authors, Brotherton lives in a delusion of secular humanism: men can better themselves. This philosophy was badly beaten down by the French Revolution and our two World Wars, but this false optimism still lives on in the hearts of many. This is a fatal failure to understand depravity: humankind is doomed to destroy itself, if left up to its own devices. In the world of Star Dragon, people can satisfy themselves in every way possible, yet this won’t satisfy any human. Self-satisfaction leads to a diminishing return. You must reach for higher and higher heights of stimulation. Ultimately, you’ll either kill yourself pursuing such stimulus or you will fall into apathy, despair, and die of hopelessness. Humans are built with a yearning for purpose. Stripping humanity of religion and expecting it to survive at all is a pretty vain hope.

    “All in all, I’d give this book a rating of 6 of 10. The book was entertaining and was unique. However, Brotherton’s story lacks believability in its consistency near the end. Brotherton has also failed to capture the truth of human depravity. That strike may seem unfair to those who don’t understand depravity, but it is the most important principle of Christianity and I will not relinquish it.”

    Well, I do think humans can better themselves and that most people devoid of religion do not act out of depravity. And I also think that if you removed death from the equation while providing everyone the resources to have a good time, far fewer would embrace religions like Christianity. Is it wrong for me to write my own book where my own beliefs permeate the pages?

    In my new novel SPIDER STAR, I just skipped the whole discussion, ala Star Trek, even though one aspect of the book is really about the pattern of revenge in the Middle East (it’s a little subtle, but was in my head while writing). My every day world is as rational and secular as I can manage, and the world in general has become more secular over time, taking the long view. It isn’t unreasonable to suppose a future that is largely secular. That’s a conceit less outlandish than many I see in science fiction.

17. 17. Mary Kay on Sep 6th, 2007 at 2:11 pm

    It’s just another version of the Christian Dominionist theology running rampant in the American political arena. They demand that Christianity be made central to *everyone’s* life. Otherwise you’re discriminating against Christianity. It’s a dangerous dangerous trope.

    MKK–yes, I do read too many political blogs.

18. 18. Laurie Mann on Sep 6th, 2007 at 2:34 pm

    Mary Kay, not to mention the fact that in 10,000-odd years of recorded history religions change and evolve the way that societies and languages do.

    You tell your average Christian that Christianity originated with Zoroastrianism about 8,000 years ago, and they’d probably argue the point. You mention that concepts like virgin birth and a savior rising from the dead are borrowed notions, and they’d probably fight you on that, too.

19. 19. Rick Novy on Sep 6th, 2007 at 4:32 pm

    it doesn’t take 10,000 years for societies to change. Look how the U.S. Constitution has been bastardized since 1860.

20. 20. Wyman Cooke on Sep 6th, 2007 at 4:48 pm

    “Christianity is not the major religion of the world.”

    I had to respectfully disagree. I Googled for the numbers and found this site:

    http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html

    The approximate numbers have Christianity ahead of all other religions with 2.1 billion. Islam is second with 1.5 billion. If Secular/Nonreligious/Agnostic/Atheist are counted as one group, they would be 1.1 billion. Hinduism is at 900 million. You may quibble at the numbers, but they sound close to what I’ve heard in other reports.

    And the numbers of Christians are growing; John Ringo has commented on how mainland China will become a Christian state within fifty years. The predominant sect is Evangelical. Their Islamofascist neighbors to the west are going to freak at the thought of half a billion Southern Baptists on their doorstep.

    I have no great desire to read religious SF, but there are those for whom Frank Paretti’s novels and the Left Behind series are a revelation. Not to be confused with Revelation. So I do see Mr. Stewart’s point, even though I’m not exercised about it the way he seems to be.

21. 21. Laurie Mann on Sep 6th, 2007 at 5:21 pm

    Hell, Rick, see how much the Constitution’s been bastardized since 2001!

22. 22. Rick Novy on Sep 6th, 2007 at 6:51 pm

    Yes, well, these exponential things take time to get going.

23. 23. Steve Buchheit on Sep 6th, 2007 at 7:09 pm

    Laurie Mann (about appropriation), don’t get me started on Xmas trees, Yule logs, or the Easter Bunny.

    Wyman Cooke, as the site adminstrators say, their data “Levels of participation vary within all groups. These numbers tend toward the high end of reasonable worldwide estimates. ”

    Many people claim Christianity as the default, but it would be my guess that the majority of “levels of participation” would be low. And looking at some of the other links from that site, they have the highest percentage of Christianity (at 33%, which also includes groups that the original linked article author had specifically excluded such as Mormons). So allow me to change my word from “major” to “majority” (which I believe I said in my mind as I typed those words). The majority, looking at it from a Christian Standpoint would be “other.”

24. 24. Matthew Rotundo on Sep 6th, 2007 at 9:30 pm

    Yeah, not buying it. If the SF community is so biased against Christianity, why does it keep giving Hugos to Connie Willis?

    I don’t hear the ADL complaining that Crystal Rain is anti-Semitic. Nor have I heard any complaints that it is anti-Muslim, anti-Hindu, anti-Buddhist, anti . . . you get the idea. But because it doesn’t contain specific and explicit references to Christianity, it gets cited as an example of how persecuted Christians are, particularly in SF.

    “But if he had predicated his world on the worship of the Christ, Jesus, I wonder how popular his books would be?”

    Who the hell knows? I’m not even sure which way Guy is arguing here, not that it matters. Is he implying that it would have tanked, thereby demonstrating SF’s hatred of Christianity? Or is the implication that it would have done spectacularly well, and that Tobias’s–and his publisher’s–anti-Christian bias is not only bad form, but bad business? Either way, he can’t prove his implication. This isn’t an argument; it’s pure speculation, not even anecdotal.

    The perceived lack of Christianity in SF is not, in itself, proof of anti-Christian bias in the community. Neither is the occasional run-in with a genre reader or writer who happens to be vociferously or even militantly atheist. Until you can show me that Christian-centered work that is every bit as good as non-Christian-centered work is being systematically rejected solely because of its Christian content, I’m afraid you don’t get to play the victim card.

25. 25. Joyce Reynolds-Ward on Sep 6th, 2007 at 10:16 pm

    Um–Zoroastrianism isn’t 8,000 years old; I think it’s around 2,500 years old–my reference cites Zoroaster as living in the 6th century BC. Older than Christianity, yes; younger, however, than Judaism. It had a major effect on Jewish prophetic writing after the Babylonian Captivity (and now I’ve exhausted my memories of Old Testament theology) and that is how the Zoroastrian dualism themes got imported into Christianity.

    That said, I think one needs to keep in mind that many Christian SF and fantasy writers do NOT explicitly put their faith in their works because preachiness–which many of those who criticize the genre want to see–turns off the majority of readers. I know I don’t explicitly write my faith into my books simply because I have a tin ear for where I cross the line into preaching, and that’s not what someone’s buying SF books to read.

    Additionally, many Protestants who complain about the lack of Christian material want to see explicit professions of faith, and explicit conversions–and I’ve yet to see anyone other than Andrew Greeley pull any such sort of thing off without it being offputting (I notice that Fr. Andrew isn’t cited by Guy Stewart, even though he’s written several SF books and used supernatural themes in his work. Maybe because he’s Catholic?). Then again, anyone buying something by “Father Andrew Greeley” should know darn good and well that the writer is not exactly unbiased when it comes to Catholic Christianity.

    I think I go along with Tolkien’s assessment of allegory and writing it into my work. It’s damned hard to pull it off deftly and well, and too many people make a hamfisted job of it. As a Christian–first Protestant, now Catholic–I find C.S. Lewis’s Narnia books and the Space Trilogy pretty much unreadable, because Lewis is so heavy-handed. Charles Williams, on the other hand, is pretty deft with his weaving and his skill.

    Then again, if I’m gonna read something that’s “Christian Fiction,” I’m picking up Andrew Greeley. But I don’t think Greeley’s considered “Christian Fiction” as such–too steamy and not enough preachy moralizing, even though thematically his work is significantly much more “Christian Fiction” than, say, the LEFT BEHIND series.

    (Yeah, I’ve got a bug in my bonnet about preachy moralizing. Us Christian folks don’t necessarily like it either, especially in our fiction!)

26. 26. SMD on Sep 7th, 2007 at 1:34 am

    Quite honestly I’m sick and tired of Christians or anyone religious whining and complaining about stuff, especially literature. If you don’t like it, write your own freaking book. Who cares that your novel Crystal Rain doesn’t have Jesus in it? It’s a book about something that doesn’t exist anyway! I don’t see magic wormholes popping up and shooting people into other worlds. I don’t see aliens pretending to be gods running around. It’s a FICTION book. Super emphasis on FICTION. Which means it’s not, gasp, REAL. Why does it matter if no SF or F novels have Jesus in it? Why? What is the purpose of it? Is it going to magically make everyone go “hey Jesus is cool”? If they didn’t think it before, a fiction book isn’t going to change that. People are going to come to Christianity of their own accord because it appeals to them, not because you give it a flashy cover of a spaceship. This has to be the first person I’ve ever heard of complaining that there is a lack of Christian based SF/F novels out there. This guy just needs to get over it. Tell him to write his own book if he wants a story about Christianity. The Bible has sold more copies alone than pretty much any other book in history, so I think Christianity is doing just fine (not for profit, just in general the spread of the belief). It’s probably stronger in the States than it was 10 years ago…

27. 27. Samuel Tinianow on Sep 7th, 2007 at 3:09 am

    This guy isn’t even worth the attention; he’s clearly of the type who will throw a hissy fit as soon as absolutely everything in entertainment isn’t blah blah blah Jesus blah blah blah Virgin Mary blah blah blah St. Peter. Let him go listen to his Christian Rock and complain all he wants.

    Although I do wonder if he’s read Altered Carbon

28. 28. Laurie Mann on Sep 7th, 2007 at 6:12 am

    Joyce, I have a bad feeling I’ve confabulated two different things.

    I took a religion class when I was in college 30 years ago. I remember the professor said that the first monotheistic religion dates back to 6000 BCE (about 8,000 years ago). I thought he said it was Zorastrianism, but you’re right that Zoroaster lived much later than that.

29. 29. Matt Ruff on Sep 7th, 2007 at 9:24 am

    This guy isn’t even worth the attention; he’s clearly of the type who will throw a hissy fit as soon as absolutely everything in entertainment isn’t blah blah blah Jesus blah blah blah Virgin Mary blah blah blah St. Peter.

    Look, the guy’s an Evangelical. That means when he talks about Jesus, he’ll inevitably say things that push peoples’ buttons, even if he’s not trying to. Also, his psychological conclusions about, e.g., why people are drawn to fantasy, are going to be biased by his belief that anyone who’s not Christian has a Jesus-shaped hole in their hearts.

    But I don’t think his complaint about the dearth of Christians in SF is meant to be limited to evangelists. Most Christians don’t go around trying to convert people, they just quietly practice their faith. They go to church, they say grace before meals, they talk to God about their problems, and maybe once in a while they throw out a Bible quote, like the crew of Apollo 8 did. In genre SF, you’ll almost never see characters — particularly scientists, engineers, or astronauts — do this sort of stuff. I don’t think Stewart’s a hysteric for pointing that out, or speculating about why it’s so.

30. 30. Josh Jasper on Sep 7th, 2007 at 9:37 am

    Judith Tarr’s Hound And The Falcon cycle, uses Christianity, and sympathetic Christian characters. Orson Scott Card? Does he count? I mean, he’s a Mormon, so

    But beyond that, yes, there’s a lack of interest in Christianity in Science Fiction. Most writes I know in the genre are not Christian.

31. 31. Tempest on Sep 7th, 2007 at 12:50 pm

    wow. i feel like i’m reading an alternate universe version of the race bias in sf argument but with christianity substituted. with all the same level of crazy, even! and matt ruff is an alternate universe version of pam noles. (scary image in my head, stopping now.)

    i also think stewart has some valid points. i don’t often see sf that portrays religious people in a deep way. there is plenty that ignores religion altogether and others that demonize or scoff at or ridicule or whatever. i don’t find this particularly realistic. i was raised (non-evangelical) christian (though I am no longer so) and it is very easy for me to imagine a future that includes christianity without needing to write a story that is all about christianity.

    particularly so when writing a future with american black folks. considering how important the church is, not only in a religious sense but also in a community and culture sense, it’s far more likely, from my view, that future, space-faring black people will still have to decide if they’ll be going with their wives to the AME church or still attend the Baptist church they were raised in. or other such concerns.

    certainly from the pov of different people a different future can be imagined. but, as other have pointed out, excluding areas of the human experience you don’t understand isn’t smart. It may make your world look un-deep to some who don’t share your particular view/upbringing/culture.

    i’ll reiterate what matt said above: not all christians are evangelicals. not all christians are either evangelicals or catholics. do any of you know how many different denominations there are and why they came about? do you understand the regions and reasons they were born from? do you understand why people are even christians to begin with?

    for some of you, the answer is obviously no. but, gee golly, if you’re interested in creating futures or exploring presents that show the world and the future as being “a big place”, then perhaps you should take a minute or two to realize that everyone who is rational and worthy isn’t just like you and maybe you aren’t as much in the majority as you’d like to think and maybe the trend isn’t going the way you think (because you’ve never bothered to look at what’s outside your trend) and maybe someone who wishes to see more X realistically represented and portrayed in SF (or whatever) isn’t asking everyone everywhere to write stuff all about them even though you seem to be involved in making sure everyone everywhere writes stuff all about you.

32. 32. Rick Novy on Sep 7th, 2007 at 2:04 pm

    This discussion is only superficially similar to the race discussion. Here, we’re talking about a question of ideas, philosophies, and beliefs. Ideas are always always always fair game in fiction. When we start dictating what ideas must be included in or excluded from a work of fiction, it stops being fiction and becomes either propoganda or censorship.

    We don’t laud the works of writers/artists/musicians whose works were blessed by different governments because they adhered to the state-sponsered philosophy. Instead, we honor the writers who wrote what they wanted to write, and consequences be damned.

    Sometimes the consequences of what a person chooses to write really are damning (Satanic Verses), and sometimes, those choices a writer makes can be a catalyst that contributes to setting about real change (Uncle Tom’s Cabin).

    It is, and should always be, up to the writer alone to decide.

33. 33. Tempest on Sep 7th, 2007 at 2:45 pm

    Rick: actually, it’s not superficial. Especially since some of the arguments being put forth are almost exactly the same arguments against putting non-white people in fiction. Almost down tot he very words. Like, you said:

    When we start dictating what ideas must be included in or excluded from a work of fiction, it stops being fiction and becomes either propoganda or censorship.

    that sounds a lot like:

    When we start dictating that non-white people must be included in or excluded from a work of fiction, it stops being fiction and becomes either Affirmative Action or tokening.

    Which is something I’ve seen too often not to recognize when it puts on a different hat and a fake beard.

    I don’t think anyone is attempting to dictate what other people should write or what ideas they should include. All I am saying is that, if you’re writing a future where you haven’t given more than surface thought to the religious aspects of the human experience, it’s going to fall flat. Just eliminating religion or painting it as that stupid thing ignorant savages were involved in just will not fly for some people. It’s lazy writing, in some cases, lazy thinking in most cases.

    This is not a problem with EVERY sf story that doesn’t include religion. No one is asking that all sf writers go out and write some christians in rightthissecond. Stewart just makes an excellent observation that there’s a bias (from his view) against Christianity in sf that should, at the very least, be discussed.

    Which is another way in which this resembles the race in sf issue. The mere mention that sf is not particularly inclusive sends people off the cliff in an apoplexy of crazy. I’ve seen a bit of that in this discussion as well.

    I want to know where I suggested that it’s NOT up to the writer to decide. Because, well: DUH, it is. Again, just like the race discussion. If you want your future to be well-realized, you have to take into account people who aren’t just like you. That includes race and gender and culture and nationality and, yes, religion. Considering how many Christians there are in the world at present, I don’t think that they are going to dissolve away randomly. But hey, if you don’t care about creating a well-realized world, whatever. That’s your choice!

    But I get to choose to roll my eyes at you.

34. 34. Lou Anders on Sep 7th, 2007 at 3:01 pm

    I’m actually fascinated that there is as much Christian science fiction as there is, and as many Christian science fiction authors as there are. Traditionally, science fiction has shared much in common with a humanist/scientific world view. Currently, fundamentalist Christianity (which I’m aware is NOT the only variety) and science have been uncomfortable together at best. That so much religion finds its way into modern SF (as opposed to religious allegory, imagery, or iconography) may in part be a testament to how far SF has grown from its core values. Certainly, HG Wells’ The Time Machine was a direct response to Darwin and the notion of geological time. When he published a view of the future in which Christ did not return and in which the human race simply faded away without the benefit of any Armageddon, he was presenting a radical notion for 1895.

35. 35. Nora on Sep 7th, 2007 at 4:14 pm

    A world predicated on Aztec religion makes perfect sense to me. Christianity is not the totality of human religion, so I see nothing wrong with a future human colony being settled by people who aren’t Christian.

    I do have a problem with future human worlds that contain *no* religion, because that strikes me as unrealistic; whether it’s the “God gene” or some other mechanistic thing, or just our spiritual natures, we are a species that tends to believe in the unseen and unknowable, and we shape elaborate systems to explain this.

    I also have a problem with what he’s defining as Christian SF. For one thing, since when did people need to trumpet their faith at the top of their lungs at every given moment in order to qualify as Christian? (Oh, wait, since George Bush…) Many of the characters in the SF I read show implicitly Christian value systems in their actions and behavior, but it seems like they don’t get counted as Christian unless they’re proselytizing and Bible-thumping. This strikes me as a dangerously narrow view of Christianity, not to mention *a specific subset* of Christianity.

36. 36. Tempest on Sep 7th, 2007 at 4:20 pm

    Nora, I don’t see where he said characters must trumpet their faith and whatnot. I may have read something differently than you, or missed it in the original post (which now I cannot reread, as Blogger is giving me an error).

37. 37. Nora on Sep 7th, 2007 at 4:55 pm

    He didn’t say that, and I didn’t mean to imply that he did. I just mean that I see Christianity all over the place in SF; it seems to be the default moral system for the vast majority of published works. But it’s not an *explicit* Christianity. These are characters who think like Christians and act like Christians (depending on your definition of “acting Christian”), but who aren’t devout enough to proselytize/testify, or go to church much, or spend much time talking or thinking about how Christian their behavior is. They’re Christian by identity, not by practice; it’s a cultural rather than a religious thing, and it informs their existence in the way that being female or Mexican or whatever tends to inform everyone else’s existence. When a character avoids using the name of God as a curse, or frets about having sex or a baby outside the sanctity of marriage, or says a prayer before going into a trying situation, that character reads as Christian to me whether it’s explicitly stated that they are or not.

    Granted, that could pass for any of the People of the Book religions, but since I was raised Christian I tend to go “default Christian” when I see cues like that.

38. 38. Nora on Sep 7th, 2007 at 5:04 pm

    ::gah:: Didn’t meant to imply that being female was a cultural practice, though of course gender informs culture and there’s no one specific way of being female… or something like that. Hell, my brain is fried. It’s been a long day.

39. 39. DKT on Sep 7th, 2007 at 5:52 pm

    As a Christian, arguements like this always surprise me. I don’t see an overabundance of explicit Christianity in SF/F and I’m okay with that. I like reading quality SF/F (and horror too, but since that’s not part of the debate, I’ll leave it out) regardless of what people believe because I appreciate the different perspective. Also because I just like a good story. I enjoy writing SF/F and horror too, and I hope that people who don’t believe the same thing I do get a kick out of the stories I write regardless of whether or not the stories deal with my faith. To me, that’s the beauty of fiction and art in general: sharing different perspectives.

40. 40. Nick Mamatas on Sep 7th, 2007 at 6:31 pm

    I’m just going to give a shout out to my third favorite SF novel.

    RA Lafferty’s Past Master

    SAVE THE SPACE POPE!

41. 41. Tempest on Sep 7th, 2007 at 7:10 pm

    Nora,

    Though I don’t see a lot of this in the SF I read, I also don’t read that much SF, so I’ll take your word for it. And it may be true that Stewart’s assertion that religion isn’t in SF as much is wrong. He may suffer from my problem, not having read enough. It’s something that I’d definitely though about since I was wondering if including Christians who weren’t demonized would be the kiss of death if I wanted to sell my current story to an SF mag.

42. 42. Joyce Reynolds-Ward on Sep 8th, 2007 at 12:01 am

    Laurie at 28:

    Hmm. 8000 years ago…might could be the early stirrings of Judaism, or else the early stirrings of monotheism in Egypt (it’s relatively late for me after a challenging first week back at school so I’m drawing a blank on the appropriate Pharaoh). As I recall, those are the two earliest monotheistic faiths out there that at least have documentation (IIRC, there’s suggestions of others out there).

    I like what Matt Ruff said at 29. For me, I see a lot of Christian values that do pop up in science fiction and fantasy–the value of the human person, social justice issues, things like that. But it’s not slapped hard in your face, it’s in the context of people going about living their daily lives and making the tough choices they have to make.

    I know that for the stuff I write, many of my sf characters have a certain orientation. But like I wrote earlier, I don’t get too explicit about it, because I lack the appropriate touch to make it work–at least right now.

    I also like Nora’s comment at 35. But for me Christian performance is not about beating your chest and shouting your Christianity–it’s about living your faith and doing it.

    As I said before, if I want something explicit, I’ll read Andrew Greeley. Anything more detailed than that, like C.S. Lewis–I’ll take a pass on his fiction these days.

43. 43. Steve Buchheit on Sep 8th, 2007 at 1:03 am

    Tempest, “I’d definitely thought about since I was wondering if including Christians who weren’t demonized would be the kiss of death if I wanted to sell my current story to an SF mag.”

    I read through several of Mr. Stewart’s posts (some reposted from a previous site, so I’m thinking this is a new blog for him, and that he only have 9 posts so far confirms that). I believe for Guy you just hit the nail on the head. IMHO this is exactly what he feels, although the only real “writer on writing” article he has on his SFWA page is about “Focus On Character” (that is our characters must be engaging), and while he talks about “Church” and uses the language of the evangelical he doesn’t espouse the same views on his memberhsip page that he is on his blog.

    Given that I can, off the top of my head, list off Christian Themed SF/F and characters (following Nora’s and Rick’s definitions), I don’t think he has much of point. If you want to focus on only evanglicals, yes, I think he does have a point. For “religious” based stories I could probably fill a page with both classic/golden aged SF and modern stories that revolve and use religion and religious ideas without straining to much.

    If I am to extrapolate into a future world, say a few decades into the future my guess is that religion would be very similar and mirror today’s marketplace of ideas. For most peoples’ lives, most days go by without mention of religion or without it being at a level that it would cross the threshold into the story (unless the story is specifically about religion). How many pieces of SF talk about TV shows, which in my experience have a greater overt daily impact on people’s life - ie. they talk about them at work? Also not many. If I’m to extrapolate to the far future, say a few centuries, the field is wide open. Religion could be more predominate, or it could be at the very edges of consciousness. More than a thousand years and religion will look very different. If I was to take a completely non-biased view, given the history of religion, I would guess in two thousand years that unless Christ returns, Christianity has a very good chance of being a minority religion. Wyman Cooke has a link closer to the top of this post that ranked religion by population. Where are the religions that are older than 4000 years (which would be how old Christianity would be at that time)? They’re in very minority positions and most of them are gone.

    Will the stories (virgin birth, defeat of death/resurection, moral codix, affirmation of suffering, need for devotion and sacrifice, etc.) be the same? Maybe. Many religions included these basic concepts. I’m sure religions in the future will also retell them.

    Now, we could discuss issues about how “modernism” has destroyed myth (a favorite topic of Joseph Campbell) and how that might lead to a “religionless” culture. Even Christianty has moved from “mythos” and rarely even explains much of its own symbolism to its practitioners (ever have a discussion about the importance of the color purple to an ordained priest? I have.). It is very possible that having unmoored itself from the basis of what function religion has historically played in the human psychie, that Christianity is poised to disappear quickly, as it no longer fullfills the need it once did. You can see echoes of this in the return of celebrating the Mass in Latin and some fundementalists refocusing on their personal relationships with God (instead of following church doctrine). They are small movements, sure, but the desire is the same, to return to what filled them in the first place.

44. 44. Chang O.C., the Original Changsta on Sep 8th, 2007 at 8:52 am

    Guy needs to refer to a wider range of SF books before saying the genre has turned its back on Jesus and God. While your work is popular, wouldn’t you even say it’s not particularly indicative of the genre as a whole? I mean, not just for the Carribean characters alone.

    Maybe if this fellow had gone out and read 100 of the most recently published books and looked at the position of religion in them, then maybe draw a conclusion from that perhaps.

45. 45. Rick Novy on Sep 8th, 2007 at 10:52 am

    >>I want to know where I suggested that it’s NOT up to the writer to decide.

    Tempest, my comments weren’t about you. Your original discussion about race in SF/F, if I interpret correctly, asked this: since people who look like me contribute to society today, why are they suddenly gone in tomorrow’s extrapolation?

    Guy Stewart is asking this: Why are MY ideas NOT represented in YOUR fiction? Or, Why are people who THINK like me not represented.

    That is a very different kind of question. In many cases, discussion of Christianity, or Islam, or Wicca, or Communism, or Warren Jeff’s version of Mormonism, or anarchism, or fascism, or elitism, or snobbery, or lycanthropy, or the Big Bang Theory simply isn’t relevant to the story.

    And let me be clear, I’m not taking a stand against including Christianity or any other ideas in a story, nor am I advocating their exclusion. In the same way, I doubt you advocate affirmative action or tokenism in fiction.

    The real message here is not limiting ideas, it’s to encourage the writer to consider that people don’t always look or think alike while recognizing that in some cases, excluding diversity is the right answer for a given story. For example, a story that takes place in central China probably won’t have much diversity in looks or beliefs, and that is the right answer for that situation. On the other hand, a story that takes place in San Francisco is going to be a farce if it doesn’t include a lot of different kinds of ideas and people.

46. 46. Nora on Sep 8th, 2007 at 1:52 pm

    Tempest,

    It’s something that I’d definitely though about since I was wondering if including Christians who weren’t demonized would be the kiss of death if I wanted to sell my current story to an SF mag.

    I think it depends on what kind of Christians you decided to depict. If they’re like most “quietly Christian” characters I see in SF, then their Christianity will be unnoticeable except by their actions. Christianity is the dominant religion in English-speaking countries, after all, so it’s the religion that readers will default to in the absence of an alternative label. So you’d probably get no negative reaction because people wouldn’t *notice*; they’d take it for granted. You might get some negative response from evangelicals/fundamentalists and other Christians of the “louder” persuasion (trying to use a non-pejorative term here, can’t think of better) who believe that a character isn’t Christian unless s/he “testifies” or “witnesses”… but I’m not sure. I don’t have a good feel for how folks from those branches of the faith react to most SF, beyond their media-noted objection to the Harry Potter books, Tolkien, anime, etc.

    Anyway, back to the point: if your characters are in this subset of “louder” Christians, then you might get some backwash, but that’s partly politics. I suspect a lot of that is less about hatred of “louder” Christians than a reaction against their recent and blatant attempts to assume control of the country’s political systems. Ten years ago you could’ve depicted “declarative” Christian characters with probably no negative reaction, but these days I think that’s seen as taking sides in a wider cultural/political debate.

47. 47. Matt Ruff on Sep 10th, 2007 at 9:12 am

    Tempest, my comments weren’t about you. Your original discussion about race in SF/F, if I interpret correctly, asked this: since people who look like me contribute to society today, why are they suddenly gone in tomorrow’s extrapolation?

    Guy Stewart is asking this: Why are MY ideas NOT represented in YOUR fiction? Or, Why are people who THINK like me not represented.

    Both of which are valid questions, even if you could care less about inclusiveness.

    The president of the United States is a born-again Christian. Much of Congress is Christian of one stripe or another. And you don’t get that kind of political power in a democracy without there being a lot of Christians down in the cheap seats, too. Christians matter in the contemporary world. So why would they suddenly stop mattering tomorrow?

    My own attempt at an answer: I think many American writers are kind of annoyed about the real Christians currently in power, to the point where putting imaginary ones in power — or anywhere else — is just really, really unappealing. Likewise, I think many SF writers would sooner have a sharp stick in their eye than spend time trying to get inside the head of someone who takes creationism seriously. So when they sit down to dream up Tomorrow, they just handwave all that bothersome crap away.

48. 48. Matthew Rotundo on Sep 10th, 2007 at 12:06 pm

    Christians matter in the contemporary world.

    Yes, and so do Jews. And so do Muslims.

    Even so, how much of SF published today features Jews going to schul or temple on the Sabbath? Or Muslims unrolling prayer mats five times a day? Is the lack of such SF evidence of anti-Semitic or anti-Muslim bias in the genre?

    I don’t see much SF about going to the bathroom, either, even though that’s something that everyone does every day. Is this evidence that SF writers think we won’t have eliminatory functions in the future? How out of touch can they be?

    My whole problem with Guy Stewart’s essay and some of the comments here is that they rest on the unproven assumption that SF is biased against Christianity. I’m afraid you’ll need to bring more to the table than “everyone knows” argumentation, anecdotal evidence, or wild guesses about market performance and editors’ preferences.

49. 49. Rick Novy on Sep 10th, 2007 at 3:54 pm

    >.I don’t see much SF about going to the bathroom

50. 50. Rick Novy on Sep 10th, 2007 at 4:01 pm

    >.I don’t see much SF about going to the bathroom

    They took care of that for us in Star Trek: First Contact.

51. 51. Steve Buchheit on Sep 10th, 2007 at 8:57 pm

    Rick, they also took care of that in the Animaniacs episode about Star Trek.

    “Look it’s Ricardo Montalban and his big plastic chest.”

52. 52. Carole McDonnell on Sep 12th, 2007 at 8:33 am

    The idea that Buddhism and Hinduism are the world’s largest religion is untrue. Christianity — particularly evangelical Christianity– is the largest religious group in the world. Because Christians are persecuted in many cultures (for instance the persecutions in India, China, and the Middle East) it’s difficult to count how many Christians there actually are. But at present it is estimated by Chinese Christians that there are about 200 million Christians in China, for instance.

    www.persecution.org

    As for fantasy which concerns itself with religions other than Christianity, that’s pretty understandable. Much of western Christianity isn’t connected to its fantastical or folkloric roots. In my opinion, Christian writers from non-western countries are more likely to write at true Christian fantasy. Much of Christian fantasy nowadays seems to be imitations of C S Lewis or J R R Tolkein. Very western tradition, but not global. I’m a Christian and I can’t read most Christian fantasy because they’re too intertwined in the western mindset. -C

53. 53. Matt Ruff on Sep 12th, 2007 at 9:38 am

    “Christians matter in the contemporary world.”

    Yes, and so do Jews. And so do Muslims.

    Even so, how much of SF published today features Jews going to schul or temple on the Sabbath? Or Muslims unrolling prayer mats five times a day? Is the lack of such SF evidence of anti-Semitic or anti-Muslim bias in the genre?

    Particularly in the case of the Muslims (but the Jews too, really), I’d be more inclined to call it evidence of lack of interest in the contemporary world. Which is odd, if your game is extrapolating the future from the present — or just looking for interesting characters and sources of dramatic conflict.

    I don’t see much SF about going to the bathroom, either, even though that’s something that everyone does every day.

    I’ve read plenty of fiction in which characters use a bathroom at some point, either for one of its traditional functions or for some other purpose. You have a room where people spend a lot of time and a thing they spend a lot of time doing, and it’d be weird if it never came up.

    While we’re on the subject of supposedly pedestrian subjects that SF writers never mention, Steve Buchheit writes above:

    How many pieces of SF talk about TV shows, which in my experience have a greater overt daily impact on people’s life - ie. they talk about them at work?

    In my own experience it’s a rare novel set in the present or the near future that doesn’t reference television at least in passing. And if a technologically advanced society didn’t have mass media of some kind, I’d want to know why.

54. 54. Carroll on Sep 12th, 2007 at 1:36 pm

    Most religions in SF are imaginary or dead… similar to how most political parties and figures in SF are imaginary or dead. I have yet to read a SF book where Bill Clinton — immortalized by certain chemical treatments — is leader of the Rebellion against the champions of the status quo.

55. 55. Nick Mamatas on Sep 12th, 2007 at 5:16 pm

    I have yet to read a SF book where Bill Clinton — immortalized by certain chemical treatments — is leader of the Rebellion against the champions of the status quo.

    Try The X President by Philip Baruth, which features a time-traveling, 109 year-old Bill Clinton attempting to save history from the disarray of the Tobacco Wars.

    As far as there being 200M Christians in China, that is pure fantasy, and one designed to keep money pouring in to various ministries claiming to do missionary work.

56. 56. Mike Brotherton on Sep 12th, 2007 at 11:34 pm

    >.I don’t see much SF about going to the bathroom

    In my first novel, which has a lot of bioengineering and almost everything is alive on board the starship, I use the bathroom to drive home this point. The toilet licks everyone clean.

    Yeah, I know, but it was fun to write.

57. 57. Steve Buchheit on Sep 13th, 2007 at 4:42 pm

    Mike Brotherton, cat lick, dog lick, or human lick? Inquiring minds want to know.

58. 58. Mike Brotherton on Sep 14th, 2007 at 10:54 am

    Well, Steve, here’s the relevant line from Star Dragon:

    “Fisher plastered his bottom against the toilet, letting its mouth seal and suction to hold his bottom in place as siphoning tongues licked him clean.”

    So, it isn’t like a cat, dog, or human. Space toilets in my universe have multiple tongues that siphon as they lick. This is science fiction. Expand your mind. And your perspective on how toilets can lick.

59. 59. Moondancer Drake on Sep 15th, 2007 at 1:35 am

    All I have to say I’m going to write in general about something close to my own belief, I know them best. Spirituality/religion is a very complicated and involved subject if you want to do it right. The amount of research it would take to write about a society that practices a religion very unlike mine when you add the world building task many SF/fantasy writers have to do anyways, seems a huge task to add on.

    Bottom line for me at least is, if Mr. Stewart wants more Christian based SF he should WRITE it and stop worry that other people aren’t.

60. 60. Carroll on Sep 18th, 2007 at 2:37 pm

    Nick Mamatas — Ha, I was totally pulling that out of nowhere, but I guess I was pretty close. I will definitely check it out.

    (Out of curiosity — are there other immortalized politicians (who are currently alive) running around as well?)

61. 61. bellatrys on Jul 11th, 2008 at 6:18 am

    What’s funny about this is that probably the most famous Christian genre writer in the world explicitly argued that putting Christianity into fantasy made for problematic world-building, and left organized religion entirely out of his fiction, except in backstory where it was organized by the remaining Big Bad and thus, obviously, a negative thing.

    Odd how the Triumphalist apologists always overlook this…

62. 62. Irene Delse on Jul 13th, 2008 at 5:41 pm

    The writers that Guy Stewart used to illustrate his point are not even good examples, not in the case of LMB. Her sci-fi universe is not “unencumbered by religious dogma” at all. In fact, one of her most important characters, Cordelia, is a theist (though not from a recognizable Christian church) and we see her pray and conduct a funeral service in the first chapters of a novel, for instance. And she repeatedly refers to God when talking about her beliefs, offers advice, etc.

    Religion is not portrayed as absent from the universe either. It’s just not the focus of the series. But the books manage to suggest that religions themselves could change in the future, in ways related to social and political events. Just as in the history we know, really…

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