In the first part of this two-part series, I raised a question no one was asking: Should Christians Write Novels? (Actually, I do I know at least one situation in which a Christian friend had to choose between writing novels and a church ministry position). The purpose of the question, however, is to conduct a theological thought experiment to see if we can explore what theological resources might be called upon for writing fiction. In part one we explored three approaches: (1) a Reformed account that draws on the doctrines of Creation and Covenant; (2) a more Catholic approach focussing on Sacrament and Incarnation; and (3) an account (sometimes favoured by evangelicals) that justifies novel writing via Education (or proclamation) and Eschatology.
Here in part two I want to road test an alternative: what if we centre a theological account of fiction in the resurrection of Jesus Christ?
1. Resurrection and the Created Order
The bodily resurrection of Christ secured the continuity of this creation with the new creation. Resurrection, as Oliver O’Donovan puts it, is a redemption of creation, not a redemption from creation. Creation itself was never independent of Christ as all things were created by him and through him (Colossians 1:16). And in the resurrection we see God’s purpose to vindicate his original act of creation in Christ. In other words, by focussing on the resurrection of Jesus, we do not lose the resources of the doctrine of creation, because this creation is precisely what God is redeeming in Christ.
The created order is in Christ and for Christ, and yet it is a genuinely coherent reality and is other than God. It is not an emanation from God, but a creature of God. The world, though charged with the grandeur of God, is not God. And it doesn’t need to be God to be good. Its goodness is in its creatureliness, not its hidden divinity. It is this doctrine of creation that secures for Christianity a realist epistemology, and allows us to investigate the world heuristically and freely. We know the creation by discovery, not dogma (because the dogma of Creation frees us for discovery).
Novelists are, like scientists and non-fiction writers, disciplined by the reality of the created order. This is the paradox of fiction: on the one hand, its creators exercise an almost god-like control over the worlds they create in their prose. Characters can live or die, suffer or rejoice, love or hate at the will of the author. And yet, on the other hand, the fiction writer is disciplined by reality. Their characters and plots must connect with the reader in such a way that the reader’s experience of reality is illuminated. In other words, fiction must tell the truth. As Samuel Johnson noted, created worlds “are not mistaken for realities but … bring realities to mind.” What Picasso said about art can equally be applied to fiction: “art is a lie that makes us realize truth.”
It is an amazing fact not just that fiction can be written at all, but that it can be written badly. All bets are not in fact off. The world of fiction is accountable to its readers and to reality. A world of wizards and warlocks can be truer than a grim realist novel. A fiction writer cannot, as Flannery O’Connor put it, write “as if his church has already done his observing for him.” Fiction is a kind of wisdom literature. “History tells you what happened, literature tells you what happens.” (Ryken) This is why a good novel, like biblical wisdom literature, has you exclaiming, “Yes, that is so true!” The writer, in telling you about something that never happened, tells you much about what happens.
Novelists are in this way a kind of priest, but not between God and humanity. Rather, to use Jeremy Begbie’s phrase, there are “priests of creation,” mediating and articulating experiences of the created order to the reader. Art and fiction mediate to us truths of this creation—truths we often could not adequately access in another way.
Are Marilynne Robinson’s novels Christian? Well, yes, in a broad sense they are artefacts of Christian (rather than, for example, Hindu or Islamic) culture. And specifically they arise from a very subtle and profound Christian mind. But they do not need to be justified with a tract at the end with Robinson’s email address and an invitation to “find out more at a course I am running in February.” They are justified because they tell the truth about our world. Great novels are fiercely obedient to the 9th commandment: “You shall not bear false witness”. As Reverend Ames (Gilead’s narrator) says: “This is an interesting planet. It deserves all the attention you can give it.”
2. Resurrection and a Disordered Creation
The creation as we now experience it is fallen, broken and subject to decay. It might be worth saving, but the resurrection of Jesus Christ also tells us that it needs all the saving it can get. Things are not okay. Nothing is untouched by sin and evil.
A Christian novelist is still a Christian, negotiating their art in a world in rebellion against God. It is hard to think of a topic that a Christian novelist should not in-principle address, but as a servant of Christ they will orient their readers to the topic in a way that is not evil, voyeuristic or detached. Genres like the pornographic novel are problematic for Christian writers, not because of the topic (sex), but because of the way in which such novels orient their readers toward their topic.
(The academic essay is another written form that probably should raise more problems for us that it does. The academic conventions of the passive voice, an aversion to personal pronouns and the absence of prayer and commitment all contrive an apparently disinterested epistemology, which is profoundly at odds with Christian accounts of knowing. How different to read Augustine or Calvin—theological writing full of passion, of prayer, of commitment, full of personal pronouns and the active voice!)
3. Resurrection and Eschatology
The resurrection of Christ is God’s pledge to save this creation, but it is also a declaration that this creation needs saving. All of it has been scheduled for judgement, transformation and liberation in the resurrection of Jesus. If marriage—that most obviously creational of ordinances—is impacted by the death and resurrection of Jesus and his return (1 Corinthians 7:20-31), how much more should an activity like novel writing be exposed to its light? We ought to be able to affirm with C. S. Lewis that “the salvation of a single soul is more important than the production or preservation of all the epics and tragedies in the world.”
The Christian novelist may be a worker, fulfilling humanity’s image-bearing work; they maybe a priest of creation and even a herald of the gospel. He or she creates something that may both reveal and delight. A novel that merely co-opts the form of the novel for proselytization tends to leave us cold in the same way the insistent charity-muggers in our cities leave us cold—they mimic the conventions of the friendly conversation for ulterior purposes. A Christian novelist does not need to co-opt. Great fiction tells the truth. We live in a creation that God has not abandoned, and whose truths are worth telling.
