Can There Be Such a Thing as “Christian Science Fiction”?

The old trope says there’s no such thing as a dumb question, but obviously that’s not true.  Questions like the above and “Will government intervention actually lower the cost of college (or anything)?” are patently stupid questions.

Yet, we ask them often, mainly in the hopes of starting an argument.  I mean, that has to be the answer, right?  Because to pretend the answer to our dumb question is not self-evident is to be even dumber than our question.

Actual photo of a real--not fictional--mushroom growing in central Oklahoma

For starters, let’s look at the last word in our headline question: “fiction”.  What is fiction?  According to Merriam-Webster, fiction is defined as “written stories about people and events that are not real, literature that tells stories which are imagined by the writer, or something that is not true.”  Examples of fiction might include “Gone with the Wind”, “Catcher in the Rye” or the Affordable Care Act.

Fiction, then, can be set in any world, in any world-view.  Want to write a story set in the mythical world of Candy Land?  Go ahead.  Want to envision a world where the sky is plaid with floating cans of aerosol cheese the only sentient life?  You can do that, too.

The thing is, there really are no rules for fiction, per se.  There are rules for writing … sort of.  If you want to write something and have it graded for school, it needs to conform to the grammar and spelling rules your school subscribes to.  If you want to write something for publication in a magazine, check with that magazine to find out what rules they enforce.  Even if you were to try and write sports articles for the website SB Nation—where there are no rules concerning grammar, spelling or coherence—there are vague guidelines (I assume without evidence) stating the article needs to be about sports.

Now, in front of the word “fiction” we (mankind) often attach like a spavined horse unwillingly dragging a rattletrap wagon loaded with carcasses to the butcher (where the horse, too, will be executed) certain qualifying words.  “Western” fiction, “romantic” fiction, “pulp” fiction and, yes, “science fiction.”

These words rarely mean what any rational person would think they mean.  While “western fiction” conjures up in the mind images of cowboys, Indians and log forts in lands where there are no trees, it is often interchangeable with “frontier fiction” and can be set in the forests of Maine or on the beaches of Barbados.

The term “science fiction” might lead one to think that writings falling under that general heading are based in science.  Oh how innocent you are, little blacksmith!  Among the aficionados of science fiction, one of the favorite pastimes is the casting of aspersions on anyone who deviates from orthodoxy in the slightest way.

What is the orthodoxy from which people stray?  Each aficionado has their own definition.

See, for most of us, “science fiction” describes a wide variety of “fiction”.  (Remembering, of course, that the word “fiction” means “they made it up.”)  Most of us luddites consider science fiction to contain Stars Trek, War and Gate, as well as Captain Midnight, the works of Poul Anderson, and that episode of “The Dick Van Dyke Show” where they dream about the walnuts.

Not the aficionado.  The thing the science fiction aficionado loves best about science fiction is arguing what’s in and what’s out.  One aficionado considers “Star Wars” to be science fiction because they hold a very broad definition which includes “anything in space” while another considers “Star Wars” to be space opera and most definitely not science fiction because there’s no scientific basis for X-wing fighters to make a sound in the vacuum of space.  Still another likes to argue that “The X-Files” was science fiction because they pretended to use science even though they never went to space.

However, I have tried to argue that the greatest science fiction show ever on television was “Quincy, M.E.” because it was “fiction” that used and highlighted “science” and have found that this idea generally makes the aficionados collective heads explode.  (In fact, the only person I have ever unfriended on Facebook was this knucklehead who’s only apparent joy in life was belittling everyone who didn’t subscribe to his exact take on what did or not constitute science fiction and I’m pretty sure he would have physically accosted me over my Quincy take had we not been in separate states. [I was in Texas, he was in Denial.])

This all being said—for no easily discernible reason—of course there can be Christian science fiction.  Fiction is a story someone made up.  To be at all palatable, it has to be set in some sort of setting.  That could be the above-referenced plaid-sky planet, a world where there are no deities or a world (or universe) where there is a deity.  Christian science fiction would, therefore, simply be a science fiction story that—in some way—subscribed to Christian tenets.

The funny (as in the sense of “ironic” rather than “ha-ha”) thing is that those who argue most vociferously against Christian science fiction are often the same people who will argue that the point of science fiction is to explore the possible and impossible, to speculate on what is or might be or never was.  In other words, they want limitless creativity … with limits.

Some will argue Christian science fiction is possible, there’s just never been any good Christian science fiction.  I’ll not deny that there has been bad Christian science fiction—by someone’s rubric—just as there has been bad agnostic or atheistic science fiction.  When I hear this argument being made (or that there are no more good westerns, romances, or military thrillers) I generally tune out because the speaker has already revealed their bias and their willingness to be dissuaded is not worth my effort.