Christianity in a Fantasy World?

I have to agree with your thoughts there. I think allegorical stories are great. They allow you to create a world where you can integrate Christian beliefs in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. But at the ends I think it depends on the target audience. If you're targeting purely Christian audience, then this might not be the best approach, but if you're targeting the general public, this might be a good approach. I personally really enjoy this style and I believe it translates well to visual storytelling.

Just my two cents. Thanks for letting me participate in the discussion.

I've written an overtly Christian fantasy series. I get a lot of flak for it in Christian communities. In fact, I was fired from a church when a parishioner heard about it (about halfway through the first draft of the first book). People don't understand that WE INVENTED THE GENRE! Pilgrim's Progress (Bunyan) is commonly attributed as the first modern "fantasy" work

The way I see it, Christianity could have never come about had it not been for the early writers, writing stories about a man or god they never met in person. It was their own interpretations and those that believed in it that formed modern Christianity that we know today. Had it not been for the emperor Constantine, busy monks copying old manuscripts, or who won a particular war, that Christianity might or might not exist as a religion.

Many questions I always asked myself as a kid was, "Why did magical things happen so often in the past and not in modern times?" "Why did god show himself to people of the past yet ignore people in modern times?" I don't believe that the nature of the universe has changed since Biblical days, but I do believe in exaggeration and that the reporting of ordinary events took on lots of literal liberties to make the story sound more exciting. I believe most religions started from people setting around a fire telling and retelling stories that they heard someone else tell. Stories of heroism and of good vs evil, that parents tell their children to make them behave.

Look at modern Christianity today where it is widely believed that Jesus was born on December 25 and they have adapted the pagan mid winter festival and renamed it Christmas and celebrate with yule trees, Santa Claus and flying reindeer. And Easter another pagan holiday that moves around according to the spring equinox where little Christian children partake in old pagan fertility worship of Easter eggs and Easter bunnies. In some churches you would think that gay bashing is more important that loving your enemies or that if you do good things for the church, god will reward you and make you filthy rich, or that is what the TV preachers would have you believe. Every time you revise the Bible as in the Living Bible, or translate it to a different language, you alter the meaning to fit your own belief. Over many generations it could change into something else entirely.

Calla Lily said:

So, technically, Christianity can't take credit for inventing the fantasy genre, ancient or modern. I'm guessing a boatload of writers are clamoring to rise from their graves to claim the title of "first"!

Click to expand...

Yeah, there are bunches of better candidates than PP.

Sir Orfeo c. 1400
Middle English
Translated and edited by Tolkien

Queen Herodis falls asleep under a fairy tree. The fairy king kidnaps her, taking her to the fairy otherworld.
Her husband King Orfeo, devastated wanders his kingdom, playing his harp to the wild animals.
One day he sees his wife in the midst of a group of fairy riders.
He follows them into the fairy hill "in at a roche."
He gets the fairy king to agree to a bargain; Orfeo will harp for him, and if the king likes it, Orfeo gets a boon.
Orfeo asks for his wife back; the king is not happy, but must keep his word.

http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/orfeofrm.htm

Lightly edited version with notes from the Norton Anthology

Or Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Also translated and edited by Tolkien.

The medieval genre of the Breton lay (cognate with lais) is pure traditional fantasy all the way.

Cool, another Orfeo fan! I have to admit I stole most of it for the big secondary-world fantasy my agent is pitching now.

If you want to go a little further back, there could be some validity to claiming Revelations as a good fantasy tale. Some earlier Christian mystical writing has a poetic, almost fantasy feel to it.

Filigree, raised on the western end of the Bible Belt.

I'm going to re-answer your question with, hopefully, a less pathetic answer than the one I originally provided.

Recently, I decided it was time to work on my writing style and therefore sought out modern fantasy masterpieces to aspire towards and enjoy. Now do know before I continue that I'm a Christian. If you'd like the specifics, I'm Pentecostal though I prefer not to associate with any one denomination as I don't really believe in the concept of denominations. But that's for another day.

Anyway, Harry Potter was the first series to come to mind. The movies have been completed for almost four years but people are still talking about it altogether. Naturally, I decided that since I'd heard so many good things about J.K Rowling as she develops her writing throughout the series I thought it would be an excellent idea to sit down and read all seven books. I mean, I'm developing my writing or seeking out to do it, and i love imagination, so it's a perfect fit.

Before I started reading Harry Potter, my mother was all for my writing dreams. I want to write secular fantasy books (and she knew it), and I've been slowly developing several series that take place in the same world and simultaneously work together to overcome one evil. Anyway, I'm about three or four books in. One day I'm in the car and my mother says, and I quote, "I wish you'd use your talents for God."

She's never said anything like that before. Not until after I started reading Harry Potter (I'll probably mention that if she says it again. I'm like that. I address things bluntly and head on to get any conflict out of the way).

I think Christianity connects fantasy with anti-God. Back when a lot of culture was Christian based, dragons and witchcraft became the prime target for being casted as the evil in the story. It's where today's stereotypes come from. If you think about it, that makes a small portion, therefore it's being generalized as bad. But, that's also something the world is doing today. Focusing and generalizing one section of something and coming up with a faulty conclusion. Look at the conflicts in the Middle East. Because of that, a lot of people are generalizing a new negative stereotype against Muslims. It's, of course, false.

However (please no one take offense) I believe that generalizing is the wrong way to approach this. Because all good can have some bad, and all bad can possibly have good. While people believe that fantasy are very anti-God, that doesn't mean they are anti-God. In addition, it's just a book! It doesn't reflect reality, or make some massive statement about being anti-God. It reflects one writer's imagination, and the world they've put together.

When it comes to writing, every writer has, most likely, ticked off many readers or offended others. Never be afraid to write what you're passionate about. If people have issue with it, it's their problem. I'm writing with a protagonist that has chestnut skin. People are going to call me racist because of my character's skin colour, but i don't care (we need more multi-cultural protagonist's) because what I have to say is more important.

This is all opinion. Do know that if anyone decides to argue me, I suck at arguing, so i probably won't answer...or I'll wait a bit so I can come up with a good counter argument...hopefully.

Dream of the Rood is not a fantasy though. It's a liturgical meditation, it's tropes and imagery generally following the Orthodox liturgy for the Exaltation of the Holy and Life Giving Cross, first composed in its present form in the East so far as we know around the beginning of the 9th century...which means, given the DotR and its cousin pieces, predate it by about 2 centuries. So these notions, and poetical interpretations of the event are well rooted both east and west far earlier than most would surmise.

Well the last book in the series quotes two or three verses about the Resurrection. There's a lot of baptismal imagery (redemptive scenes that occur in or around water), the hart patronus, an ancient Christian symbol of the resurrection, you've got a thoroughly reformed formerly evil man that lays down his life for both friends and enemies, the climax is "underground" at King's Cross (nothing subtle about that), the moment of the wands often resembles the making of the sign of the cross...I could go on, but there is nothing I found of any substance unChristian about the Potter books, and there is a great deal of substance that draws upon Christian imagery...and I began reading them to identify what they contained that would be harmful or unprofitable for Christian reading. Came away convinced of just the opposite.