Syncretism in Christian Fantasy Literature

My friends, there is an old temptation among Christians, and it is not a new one. It is the temptation to take a thing that does not belong to the faith, place a Christian name upon it, and then persuade ourselves that it has somehow been sanctified.

But a Christian name does not sanctify an unchristian thing.

We have seen this throughout history. Men have taken customs, symbols, entertainments, philosophies, and practices from the surrounding world and tried to baptize them. Sometimes a thing may indeed be indifferent in itself and may be turned to a good use. A language can be used for pagan poetry or for preaching the Gospel. A building can be used for idolatry or for worship of God. A melody can carry a foolish song or a sacred hymn.

But not everything is morally neutral.

There are some things which Scripture does not present to us as empty vessels waiting to be filled with Christian meaning. Sorcery is not one of God's neutral gifts. Divination is not a tool that becomes holy when used by a good man. Necromancy is not made righteous because the dead are called upon for a noble purpose. Witchcraft is not purified by placing it on the side of the hero.

And this is where I believe many Christians have become careless in the matter of fantasy literature.

We have become accustomed to speaking of "good magic" and "bad magic," "good witches" and "bad witches," white magic and dark magic, lawful enchantment and unlawful enchantment, as though the principal question were not the nature of the act but the character of the person performing it.

That is not the distinction Scripture gives us.

The Scriptures do not say, "Thou shalt not practice evil sorcery." They condemn sorcery itself. They do not tell Israel to seek the proper sort of familiar spirit. They forbid the thing. They do not teach us to distinguish between righteous divination and wicked divination. They direct the people of God away from such practices altogether and toward dependence upon God.

Yet we put these things before children in stories, and because the author is a Christian, we suppose no danger can come of it.

I do not believe that reasoning is sound.

If a Christian author writes of witchcraft, spells, magic rings, charms, enchanted objects, hidden powers, magical incantations, and wizards, and if some of those things are presented as wholesome, admirable, or morally good, then the Christian label on the author does not settle the matter.

Indeed, it may make the matter more serious.

For now the pagan thing comes to us already clothed in Christian respectability.

That is what I mean by syncretism.

Syncretism is not always a man standing in a temple before two altars and openly declaring that he worships two gods. It may be much subtler than that. It may consist in taking a category from a pagan or occult worldview and quietly relocating it inside a Christian moral universe.

The names remain. The imagery remains. The fascination remains. The imagination is trained in the old categories. Only now the child is told that there is a proper Christian use for them.

That should trouble us.

There is also a second danger, and I believe it is perhaps even less noticed.

When we place sorcery, spirits, witches, supernatural powers, and spiritual conflict almost exclusively inside the category of fantasy, what do we teach the child about the unseen world?

We may think we are awakening the imagination, but we may also be teaching him that spiritual realities belong to the same mental shelf as dragons, talking animals, and imaginary kingdoms.

And that is a strange thing for Christians to do.

The Bible does not present the spiritual world as imaginary.

Angels are not literary devices. Demons are not symbols for bad feelings. Temptation is not a poetic metaphor. Spiritual wickedness is not make-believe. The unseen world is part of creation. We do not see all of it with our eyes, but Scripture does not therefore demote it to fantasy.

Yet modern man has already been trained to believe that what cannot be measured materially is probably unreal.

Why should Christians help him in that error?

We may unintentionally teach a child two contradictory things at once.

First, we may teach him that magic can be harmless, noble, or even good, provided it is used by the right person.

And second, we may teach him that spiritual powers are not really part of the world in which he lives anyway, because those things belong to fairy tales.

One error domesticates the occult.

The other unrealizes the spiritual world.

And the two can live quite comfortably together in the modern imagination.

Now someone will say, "But surely you are not objecting to all imagination."

No.

The Christian faith has no quarrel with imagination.

Christ Himself taught with parables. The prophets spoke in signs and visions. Poetry fills the Psalms. Scripture contains beasts, kings, angels, monsters, dreams, symbols, and great cosmic images.

The question is not whether a story is imaginary.

The question is what moral and spiritual categories the story teaches the imagination to accept.

There is nothing wrong with a story in which evil is shown as evil.

There is nothing wrong with showing temptation, darkness, deception, or spiritual conflict.

Indeed, a truthful story may do great good.

But there is a difference between portraying witchcraft as an evil and rehabilitating witchcraft as a morally neutral power which may be employed nobly.

There is a difference between showing a deceiver and teaching the child to admire the techniques of deception.

There is a difference between warning of darkness and making darkness attractive.

And I do not believe we should excuse these distinctions merely because we admire the author.

We are not called to judge a doctrine by the reputation of the man who teaches it.

We are called to test all things.

If an unbeliever teaches something true, it does not become false because he is an unbeliever.

And if a Christian teaches something dangerous, it does not become safe because he is a Christian.

Truth is not sanctified by celebrity.

Neither is error.

This is especially important where children are concerned.

A child does not analyze fiction as a theologian.

A child receives images.

He receives categories.

He receives associations.

Long before he can explain a worldview, he has already learned what sort of things are admirable, frightening, noble, ridiculous, desirable, or harmless.

That is why stories matter.

The imagination is not morally empty ground.

It is one of the places where the conscience is formed.

What we repeatedly present as charming, safe, heroic, or innocent does not remain outside the moral life merely because it arrived in a storybook.

And here I would urge Christian parents to recover a more serious understanding of their responsibility.

Do not ask only, "Is this book written by a Christian?"

Ask, "What does this story teach my child to love?"

Ask, "What does it teach him to fear?"

Ask, "What does it teach him about spiritual authority?"

Ask, "Does it teach him dependence upon God, or fascination with power?"

Ask, "Does it make forbidden things appear innocent?"

Ask, "Does it place spiritual wickedness safely in the realm of unreality?"

Those are better questions.

I know that some will object that this is too severe.

They will say that children know fantasy is fantasy.

But that is precisely the difficulty.

If the magic is safely unreal, then spiritual evil is pushed farther from reality.

And if the magic is morally real within the story, then the child is trained to accept good and bad forms of what Scripture forbids.

Either way, we should not be casual.

I am not saying that every child who reads a magical fantasy will become involved in occult practice. That would be foolish.

I am saying something more basic.

Christians ought not train the imagination in categories contrary to Scripture and then assume there can be no consequence because the training took place under the label of fiction.

We have been told to bring every thought into captivity.

That includes the imagination.

The Christian task is not to make peace with every surrounding mythology.

It is not to take every pagan category and find a place for it inside the Church.

It is to discern what is true, reject what is false, and refuse to call darkness light merely because someone has painted a cross upon it.

There are beautiful things in pagan literature. There are noble fragments. There are shadows of truth. There are longings that point beyond themselves.

But Christianity does not need witchcraft in order to possess wonder.

It does not need sorcery in order to possess mystery.

It does not need enchantment in order to possess the supernatural.

We already have creation.

We already have angels.

We already have providence.

We already have miracles.

We already have prophecy.

We already have resurrection.

We already have the Spirit of God.

And these are not fantasies.

They are the claims of the faith about reality itself.

So let us be careful what we baptize.

Let us be careful what we place before children.

And above all, let us not suppose that something becomes Christian merely because a Christian man has written it.

The test is not the author.

The test is truth.

And whatever cannot stand in the light of truth ought not be given a Christian name merely to make it easier to receive.