I am a scientist, and for the last thirty years, have earned my living from science. There are certain procedures in science which are interesting and perhaps unfamiliar to those who are not part of the discipline. One of those procedures is what we might call ‘what-if experiments’. In these you take some result or conclusion and then say to yourself ‘what if’? What if gravity was that bit more severe? What if global temperatures were 5°C higher? What if the earth had no moon? You sit there and think about the effect, doodle on a bit of paper, or these days, plug it in to the computer and model the results. The virtue of doing such mental experiments is that you often come up with novel insights into how things work which you can feed back to the real world. 

Doing something similar in the spiritual realm is actually rather tricky. Let us consider two potential plots for a novel. In the first a minister of the church reneges on his beliefs, runs off with another man’s wife and commits all manner of evil only to come back to a living faith and be restored to his church fellowship. In the second, we take an extremist of another faith (I name no names) who kills himself in a suicide attack but whose defective faith is accepted by God in his graciousness so that he is allowed into heaven. (As a matter of fact, I have problems with both of these and not the slightest bit of interest in writing either tale.) Now were we to write about either subject within in the genre of realistic fiction we would surely come up with the problem of theological truth. I presume that as Christians we hold to theological truth as being paramount. We are also wary lest others stumble: the first novel plot might encourage recklessness with grace; the second might undermine the great missionary imperative.

So do we ban novels because they explore ideas? Of course not. Actually, I think it is as valuable to explore ideas in Christianity as it is in any other area of truth. But I do think, that as writers, we need to explain carefully what we are doing and make sure our readers have drawn the distinction between theological doctrine and fictional speculation. And I’ll be blunt: it seems to me wisest that whether they fly under the flag of speculative fiction or not, such works state their exploratory nature. So, if I may make a personal reference, at the start of my trilogy of books (the Lamb among the Stars) set far in the future I wrote the following: “On the basis of ecological or theological ideas that are not to be lightly dismissed, many people believe that this present world will end shortly. But supposing, in this or some other universe, it doesn’t?” Effectively that was me playing the ‘fantasy card’. I was saying that if you think my ideas are heretical then I grant you the freedom to assume this is another universe. But it is also a statement which says, in effect, ‘this is a work of speculative fiction. Enjoy it, let it stimulate your thinking, but do not consider it holy writ. It may not actually be true.’

The ‘Reader Beware’ tag of speculative fiction should, I think, be more clearly applied in those works which deal with areas where uncertainty reigns. Two such ‘debatable matters’ are almost everything to do about angels and almost everything written about the Last Days. (American readers might be surprised at the scepticism that even the most orthodox British Christians have about the whole concept of the Rapture and many of the details of Premillennial eschatology that they take to be inviolable truth). In fantasy, the provisional and exploratory nature of our worlds is plain for all to see. Here, the writer – and reader – may more safely play.

There is though, a problem. I have long had a theory that most of the phenomenal selling works of Christian fiction (again, I name no names) have not achieved their success because they were outstanding works of fiction but because readers felt that they were being given an insight into a) the heavenly realms or b) the future. Were such works to have been more plainly labelled ‘speculative fiction’ (and were readers to have understood what that meant) then sales might have been much lower. The works of seers and prophets command attention; those of the humble fantasist don’t.

From the marketing point of view, I would love to have someone proclaim that my works were a sure guide to the future. Even Arthur C. Clarke, who I mentioned in my last blog, seems to have coveted the title of prophet. However I am beholden to a higher authority than sales figures. I would rather be poor and have inspired no theological aberrations than be rich and have led many astray.