Christian fantasy

[Mad Swede]

I don't see a lot of Naria type fantasy out there, where the reader can learn something about Christianity via a fantasy story, so I'm thinking about writing some.
I'm pondering creating a world based on real biblical history. My concern is that I'll need to use fiction to fill in some of the gaps in my back story and I'm afraid the readers might take that fiction as truth since the rest of the story would be truthful (like folks did with The Da Vinci Code).
The goal of the book would be to show how a true Christian exemplifies faith in daily life, so I don't want the reader to walk away with bad theology from the book.
Is this something I should be concerned about?

Hmm. The first question I'd ask you is how you want to teach Christianity. Did you want to do directly, or by using allegory, or by using supposition? Or do you want to be really indirect, like Ellis Peters (Edith Pargeter) in the stories about Brother Cadfael, or like Tolkien in the Lord of the Rings?

The Narnia stories, like Lewis' Space Trilogy, aren't allegory. They're an example of supposition. Tolkien and Peters were even more indirect than that, though they did weave a number of very Christian themes into their books. I'd suggest that you need to decide what it is you'd like people to learn. What is it in Christianity that you think is important? Do you specifically need to reference Christianity, or can you take some of its key themes and have them run through your book as a way of teaching?

 

[Alexander Knight]

Hmm. The first question I'd ask you is how you want to teach Christianity. Did you want to do directly, or by using allegory, or by using supposition? Or do you want to be really indirect, like Ellis Peters (Edith Pargeter) in the stories about Brother Cadfael, or like Tolkien in the Lord of the Rings?

The Narnia stories, like Lewis' Space Trilogy, aren't allegory. They're an example of supposition. Tolkien and Peters were even more indirect than that, though they did weave a number of very Christian themes into their books. I'd suggest that you need to decide what it is you'd like people to learn. What is it in Christianity that you think is important? Do you specifically need to reference Christianity, or can you take some of its key themes and have them run through your book as a way of teaching?

I agree. You're bringing up the very questions I'm wrestling with. The more I think about it, the more an indirect approach makes sense. But I'm, still trying to see if I can create a way of teaching by example while being consistent with a fantasy world. I don't want to lose the fantasy feel of the story. If that is needed then it wouldn't/shouldn't be a fantasy book.