It’s been quite fun to observe the reactions throughout our solar system of the blog-universe, following the Washington Post’s article last week that dealt with Christ-honoring fantasy — which, of course, had a quote from our very own blogger, author Wayne Thomas Batson, right there on the very front page.

The article, though, only somewhat focused on Christian fantasy authors and books like Wayne’s Door Within series. As Wayne himself later expressed, other prolific fantasy authors such as Bryan Davis, Christopher Hopper and Sharon Hinck received nil mention, despite being with Wayne on the recent Fantasy Four Tour. Also lacking essential inclusion, I would add, was the name of one Prof. J.R.R. Tolkien, Patron Saint No. 1 of Christian fantasy; though one Prof. C.S. Lewis, the other Patron Saint No. 1, received a brief reference, it wasn’t nearly enough to match his influence on the fantasy genre.

That’s a substantive oversight, I would suggest. Surely any story remotely pertaining to Christian fantasy would have to include Tolkien and Lewis.

Meanwhile, though, two errors of pure fact crept into writer Jacqueline Salmon’s article: first, a reference to Dr. James Dobson praising the Potter books — the Focus on the Family founder quickly cried foul and said they weren’t at all good and the Post corrected; secondly, a Mormon writer’s erroneous attribution as a “Christian,” a somewhat-understandable, common mistake committed by non-Christians. (In fact, I’ve always thought that Mormonism itself, with its hierarchies of universes, with sets and subsets of Gods and Mrs. Gods, Jesuses and Satans and Adams and Eves, would make a great controversial fantasy series — far more heretical than anything Harry Potter ever conjured up.)

More perplexing, though, was the article’s strange swerve into the subtopic of Christian fiction in general. That I didn’t get at all — especially the text’s strong implication that Christian Romance Genres were somehow the latest and greatest thing right alongside fantasy. As Rebecca LuElla Miller noted last week, “Uh, no. Chick lit is entering the been-there-done-that phase.”

And that seeming misunderstanding by the author about a basic facet of the Christian literature field unfortunately leads me to conclude that maybe Salmon had also failed to grasp the existence of continuing opposition within the Christian community to fantasy-related fiction.

I can certainly hope I’m wrong, though.

But my strongest stylistic, even philosophical, objection to the article’s substance regards its implication that Harry Potter — who of course Apparated into the article from the very first paragraph — is the Big Original Fantasy Cheese right now, and all the Christian fantasy authors are coming after.

That’s just not the case. Christian epic fantasy authors were there first. And I’m not just talking about Lewis and Tolkien.

The original True Myth

I must admit, the misunderstanding is mostly understandable. After all, religious ripping-offs already happen way too often in the world: that is, Christendom’s plagiarisms of secular trends for the sake of Evangelism or Becoming Intentionally Relevant. For example, rock/pop music begats CCM, business methods and advertising begats modern Megachurches, and yes, for some, the success of Harry Potter begats the anything-they-can-do,-we-can-do-too,-but-not-necessarily- better,-only-More-Spiritual! idea.

But, the field of Christian epic fantasy is entirely different from this. Christ-following authors, both contemporary and deceased, who’ve allowed their imaginations to roam into new worlds with fantastic stories, characters and creatures, were never plagiarizing the concept from Harry Potter.

The exact reverse is true. Authors like Tolkien and Lewis came first. The likes of J.“K.” Rowling would surely not have found such success were it not for the writings the Inklings spilled over civilization.

Yet even Lewis and Tolkien were themselves inspired by a previous Source for epic fantasy fiction. That Source is revealed in the very comments of dozens of “Jesus-haters” (as Wayne Thomas Batson referred to them) following the Washington Post article. Nearly every one of those critics repeated the canard that went something like “Ha! Ha! Why do you need fantasy? You stupid Bible-Belters already have the Old and New Testaments, ha! ha!” and then laughed at themselves over such anti-Christian cleverness.

To this, I react more positively than they could have imagined; I nod assent and submit, “Yes, that’s right, thou cleverest of secularist sneerers — the Bible is a fantasy, it is mythology — true mythology, that is. And you’ve merely proven the point the article above incidentally avoided: that the Bible is the archetype of all fantasy literature and good-versus-evil thrillers.”

After all, what do we find in Scripture? Ancient civilizations. A dark menace from a distant past. Warriors, kings, prophets, workers of miracles. Stunning displays of supernatural power. Crowd scenes, epic quests, and wars between true Good and Evil. Am I now referring to Israel B.C. or to Middle-earth?

The only difference — besides Tolkien’s addition of nonhuman beings and creatures — is that the Bible describes real events. God, the Author of Scripture through the handiwork and styles of human writers, laid out the true-life account of His involvement with history and His plan of redemption for His people — Deeper Magic from before the dawn of time. Every element of any epic fantasy is included there, but Scripture more than makes up for the exclusion of sentient dragons and such by virtue of being true.

Taking fantasy back

With that exciting truth in mind, then, it seems to be that Christ-following authors and readers can forge forth into the world with a strong confidence that we had the genre first.

Though we might cringe at the accusations that CCM steals styles from secular pop music, or that some of our Christian t-shirts pathetically rip off corporate logos and slogans, we can raise eyebrows, grin knowingly and say, “Well, you may have something there — but we had Lewis and Tolkien, and even before them, the Bible itself. God’s Word itself is the epitome of epic fantasy fiction.”

Therefore, any fantasy story involving warriors, battles, ancient civilizations, strange new worlds and fantastic cities and empires incidentally borrows concepts from Scripture. Any story involving the supernatural also plays off the concept of the Triune God as supernatural (though uses of magic and such can of course be highly distorted). And any fantasy stories involving elements of True Good versus Evil tributes God’s division between ultimate Right and Wrong, even if their writers don’t know it.

That’s something of which Christ-followers can be staunchly proud. And we can keep that in mind and boldly go into our culture, and the Church especially, as — Lord willing — popular media and readers’ attention to Christian-worldview fantasy and science fiction continues to increase. Soli deo Gloria!