Christianity and pseudo-Christianity in otherwise fantasy worlds

Narnia is pretty heavily infused with Christian concepts, minus the clergy.

 

Then again even these questions lead to deeper considerations about what is a religion. Seems to me we fantasy writers often only have a religion of it fits a certain western mold. This I think is another monotone problem. There's one sect with one belief and no individualized or generalized deviation.

 

I have a text book from one of my old college classes titled "The Anthropology of Religion" and a significant part of the first chapter deals with the definition of religion and even then they provide multiple definitions. It's not an easy subject to cover.

 

Bronislaw Malinowski? According to the index, yes. Actually he seems to be referenced a lot in it. It's been years since I took the class though, so I'm not really familiar with him.

 

Whenever people start talking about discrete definitions or academic analyses of religion, it makes me nervous. I don't think religion- or to be more precise, faith- is something you really can understand in an academic fashion. This is partly a problem baked into anthropology as a whole. There will always be a disconnect, no matter how small, between the observer of a culture and someone actually living in it. But I think this issue is magnified to brobdingnagian proportions when it comes to the subject of religion and faith. I came to this conclusion while taking a comparative religion class. It was more or less a guided tour of several of the more influential theories about how religion works and where it comes from. And while I found some more useful than others, ultimately all of them rang false to me. I think the reason for this is that most if not all of these theories came from people who approached the subject of religion trying to explain it away or dissect it. In the process of the dissection, they kill the specimen and end up completely missing the point in one way or another.

 

That is an interesting point. Although, I think coming at this question from a different angle could be important to a fantasy writer. They should ask themselves whether they want to define religion broadly or narrowly. A broad definition would include beliefs but without a formal structure (I am unsure off the top of my head of a real world corollary). A narrow definiton would include belief but would require a certain formal structure (like most Christian sects). So what kind of religion do you want the broad or narrow. I think most of the time we only consider the narrow approach and fail to consider the broader definition, which leads to monotony.

 

ಠ_ಠ

Ummmmmmmmm...

 

Yes, I know. "Man of his time" and all that. But those types of phrases are still markers that cause me to regard a text with suspicion. Or at least to take it with a hefty amount of salt.

 

Going back to OP's topic, why would you use a topic as clearly debatable as religion to establish a platform for your story unless you're story is exclusively about it. The magic of fantasy is allegory, you can prove as many points as you want but deliver it in a way that doesn't offend.

So why single out Christianity in a long list of monotheistic religions? Is it because it's easy? It seems weak to use this religion as a stepping stone to a motive of writing in this context. Either buck up and say what you want or don't make metaphors for something that means a lot to many people.

 

In my personal opinion, every aspect of world-development (especially the religions) should serve to either add more content to a central theme in the story or provide a means of achieving a desired scene.

My current work features a pseudo-christian religion that has some Islamic influences. I'm purposefully trying to remind the reader of apply the themes of my narrative to a greater perspective. I'm attempting to convey very specific ideas about the notion of the Abrahamic religions.

I don't really see why you would go out of your way to use Christianity in your story unless you're trying to say something about it. There are many easier ways to get a good plot device.