This is my recently finished thesis paper.

Beyond What We See
A Christian View of Fantasy
By: Derek J. Belschner


Try this experiment. Walk into a typical Christian bookstore and ask the clerk, “Where is your fantasy section?”

More than likely, she’ll stare at you with a baffled look and say, “Oh I’m sorry this is a Christian book store. We don’t carry books full of lies. Here, why don’t you read a nice G.A Henty book? You’ll find they are full of historical facts.”

This paper will endeavor to prove that this view of fantasy is unbiblical. Although many Christians denigrate fantasy, Christians should be the primary promoters of good fantasy. In this paper, we will first consider evil and its appropriate inclusion in stories. Secondly, we will reflect on how fantasy is often metaphor, and how God uses metaphor. In conclusion we will consider our previous arguments.

First of all, fantasy scares many Christians because the stories contain evil characters such as wizards, trolls, orcs, dragons, witches, hags, and dark spirits. These people also cite biblical references such as Deut.18:14, “The nations you will dispossess listen to those who practice sorcery or divination. But as for you, The Lord your God has not permitted you to do so.”(Also see: Lev. 19:26, 2 Kings 17:17 and 2 Chron. 33:6). Do these Scriptures mean that Christians shouldn’t read anything with magic involved?

Evil is to a story as a foundation is to a building. Can a story be successful without a villain? What would be super about a Superman without Lex Luther? All Superman would have to do is help old ladies across the street.

Evil surrounds us and comes against us everyday. So, why should we exclude evil from our books? Christians should accept evil in our books as a tool to expose our own faults. We see examples of this in Narnia. Eustace in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader knows nothing of dragons because he had read all the wrong types of books. If he had read about dragons he would have been prepared and wouldn’t have been so foolish as to sleep in the dead dragon’s lair. Christians today need to be prepared to face the evil enemy. Christians can not conquer the enemy without knowing what weapons they have, what tactics they use, and what ground they fight on. Fantasy can teach Christians these details on how and what to fight.

Likewise consider a story with a vampire that pranced around flowery meadows chasing butterflies. Would this story seem at all strange? It should. For all stories have principles of right and wrong. A story about a good vampire that enjoys bright, beautiful meadows violates our beliefs that vampires belong in haunted houses while little girls should be out chasing the butterflies.

Secondly, many Christians fear the invisible, intangible, and immeasurable. Magic scares them most of all because magic overturns what people today view as real and true. And, as we all know, no one enjoys being wrong. These people fear the unknown and will do anything to be allowed to stay in their little imaginary idea of reality.

When someone thinks of fantasy the word magic will probably pop into their heads. Although the Bible prohibits sorcery, that doesn’t mean that magic shouldn’t be in our stories. Magic can actually picture God’s power and the supernatural. For example, in The Lord of the Rings, Gandalf has power and performs magic, as we call it. But it is just a painting of how Christ has powers that are unexplainable and supernatural. Magic is a glimpse of the reality of the other world, the world hidden from our eyes.

Fantasy usually contains thing that are unexplainable and immeasurable. Christians should not fear such things. Fantasy is actually more real than reality as we know it, and it also teaches us to use and to think in metaphor. Christians need to realize that God communicates with us, almost always, in metaphor. The Bible is full of metaphor. In the New Testament Jesus taught in parables, which are stories. These stories frequently use metaphor to communicate to the people in a way that they could understand. In the Old Testament God promised that the head of the serpent would be crushed. This, however, didn’t mean God was going to literally crush the head of a snake. It was a metaphor meaning that He would deliver His people from the oppression of the Evil One, or Satan.

Some people today claim that metaphor disguises the meaning of important messages. Like a fog, they might say. But wait? What did they just do? They used a metaphor to communicate that metaphors put a screen over ideas or messages.

Christians need to correctly discern what is good, true, and beautiful in literature. Plain, bare facts are actually less true than the full picture of the world. If used in the right way, magic can also be good. Fantasy should not merely be a story but should also be used to teach us to think in metaphor, which is God’s way of communication.

The question of what stories we should read has been debated for many centuries. But maybe we have been asking all the wrong questions. Consider the use of a historical book that merely fills our head with trivial facts. Any four-year-old can learn facts. Hopefully in the future we will embrace fantasy as an asset to the Christian community.


12-21-06