It seemed more exciting, more romantic, more adventurous than my own farm childhood.
I often wished I had been born in another time and place.
~
At a recent academic conference, I was chatting with an acquaintance from another university, catching up on our private and professional lives. We discussed her past research in Canadian literature, and a novel both of us had read. She raved about this novel, while I expressed that although it was a page-turner I had read within the space of 24 hours, years ago in a tent while camping in Austria, I had found some scenes in the novel extremely disturbing.
"Am I just overly sensitive when it comes to protecting children and abuse?" I wondered. The novel gave a stark and realistic portrayal of a Maritime community, a certain kind of life in a specific time and place.
Knowing each other to both be believing Christians, we cautiously broached the subject of what is acceptable for a Jesus-follower to read, to research, to teach.
Is there merit in fiction which portrays evil? In filling one's mind with images, stories which disturb, even disgust?
This is a topic I have wrestled with for a few years. On the one hand, I believe each reader must be discerning about what does them good and may cause them to have thoughts which are negative, unhelpful, even sinful. The Bible teaches us to "gird up the loins of our minds." To think about, to dwell on, that which is honourable, pure, just, lovely, excellent, commendable, praiseworthy.
But perhaps there is a difference between reading, and dwelling on.
I do not believe Christians should confine their reading to the sterilized "Christian fiction" (often taking place in a romanticized 19th century or among the Amish) of the Christian bookstore. This kind of reading seldom portrays realistic, present-day characters, with real questions and problems, real sin, real struggle, and real redemption. It rarely helps you to better understand your neighbour who is facing a divorce, your brother-in-law's alcoholism, your high-school aged son who feels lost and isolated, hiding a porn addiction, the bi-polar colleague with erratic behaviour, nor the homeless man you pass everyday in the street feeling guilty about. Rather, "Christian fiction" provides escapism from the realities of life in the here and now, the place God has pulled me out of eternity to live in.
Escapism does not honour a God who determined the exact times and places where we should live.
~
As I've mentioned before, I found great encouragement in knowing that the prophet Daniel did a Bachelor's in literature. He was appointed to a place of influence in a foreign Kingdom after having studied the language and literature of the Chaldeans for three years.
Jesus hung out with people of all walks of life, from the despised prostitute to the hated rich tax collector, from working-class fishermen to the religious leaders of the day. He engaged with his culture, ate and drank and went to parties, and never shied away from a controversy. He cared about people. Messed up, broken, sinful people like us. He was not oblivious to the world going on around him, to the needs and struggles. He was not hiding in his holiness.
~
Literature - short stories, novels, poetry - is an amazing tool for understanding and engaging the culture we live in. Classic works of a nation's fiction, as well as current bestsellers, should be required reading for anyone hoping to impact that culture. Fiction gives us a window into understanding peoples' motivations, their world view, the history and politics which impact their way of reasoning, behaving, deciding, believing.
There will be things which disturb. You probably won't like all of the characters and wish you were like them, or even want to cheer for them.
Fiction gives us eyes to see, ears to hear. It enables us to go where perhaps our own feet never will, to ask questions we are too embarrassed to speak out, to understand and give a frame of reference for starting a conversation.
Here.
In the real world, with our real, broken, messy colleagues, family, neighbours, ourselves.
Now.
For such a time as this.
