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Movement Issue 153 summer 2016 Beyond the Walls of the World The Theology of Fantasy Recently a friend and I were talking about how surprised we both were that fantasy literature and theology aren’t discussed together more often. While it’s true that as PhD students both specialising in theology and fantasy we’re a little bit biased, I definitely think it’s odd that whenever I try to describe my research, even to other academics, I’m often met with raised eyebrows. It’s no secret that some of the most popular fantasy texts of the past century have been written by devout Christians. The works of C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Madeleine L’Engle, and J.K. Rowling (to name just a few) have not only captured the imaginations of millions, but have sparked discussions on deeply spiritual themes in mainstream pop culture. While it is encouraging to hear people outside of Christian circles discuss sacrifice, belief, doubt, and radical acceptance and take these themes seriously, a question that’s not so often asked is, why fantasy? What is it about strange fairy-worlds (‘secondary worlds,’ as Tolkien called them) and parallel societies that attracts authors and readers of faith? Could it be that fantasy is somehow inherently theological? Taylor Driggers Fantasy as recovery I’m fascinated by the desert fathers and mothers of early Christianity. Shortly after Constantine converted the Roman Empire to Christianity, these devotees led simple lives in monastic communities on the fringes of society as an act of protest against the new church of the empire. Every year during Lent, in reflection of Jesus’s forty days in the wilderness, the brothers and sisters would venture out into the desert alone, often experiencing mystical encounters. Even today, their reflections on these journeys read as strikingly subversive; the encounters they describe see them wrestling with more than just spiritual demons. Whenever someone comes face-to-face with a supernatural being, their entire understanding of the world, its social-spiritual order, and where they stand in it is also completely upended, turned inside-out. What was traditionally seen as dark and unclean is revealed to be a
Movement Issue 153 summer 2016 trace of the divine, and what appears pure and spotless is revealed to be harmful and exclusionary. I think as readers, and especially readers of faith, our experience of fantasy literature can be very similar. Tolkien called this process – in which journeying into an alien world reveals divine, but uncomfortable truths about ourselves and the ‘reality’ we take for granted – ‘recovery’: the ‘regaining of a clear view.’ His novel The Lord of the Rings dramatizes this beautifully; the simple hobbit Frodo trusts a frightening-looking stranger because, in his words, a servant of the enemy ‘would – well, seem fairer and feel fouler.’ As those familiar with the story will know, he is more than proven right. This theme of recovery crops up even in less overtly religious fantasies. Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere and Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus both revolve around underground collectives of people who have been rejected by society because of their strangeness, and in both novels, these communities offer profound challenges to the main character’s worldview. As Christians, we can understand these stories as reflections of the incarnation: divine truth revealing itself in the least likely of places. By embracing what is strange and ‘other,’ fantasy reminds us that our faith is in something outside of ourselves, something that rarely fits into the safe and tidy categories we try to construct for it. Fantasy and creation Tolkien called the worlds of fantasy ‘secondary worlds’ because he felt that the human artistic impulse mirrored God’s own role as creator. As inheritors of the divine image, we also must create, even though we largely have to borrow from and rearrange elements of the world we live in. Tolkien called this act ‘sub-creation,’ and it goes much deeper than just making something new out of existing elements. Instead, Tolkien saw sub-creation as a relational act, born out of a desire ‘to hold communion with other living things.’ As a result, his own fantasy and many other fantasies concern themselves with the stewardship of creation. In The Lord of the Rings nature seems almost indistinguishable from myth itself; on entering the forest of Lothlórien, for example, Sam comments, ‘I feel as if I was inside a song.’ Later, the passage in which the forests of Isengard rise up against the wizard Saruman’s industrial military state has been interpreted both as an ecological parable and as a metaphor for the mythic and religious reclaiming a mechanised, violent modernity. Similar spiritual-ecological themes are found in the fantasy of Ursula K. Le Guin. The wizards in her Earthsea series have to practice humility and sensitivity in relation to their environment, carefully weighing the consequences of their actions. Her experimental novel Always Coming Home imagines a future society living simply with reverence toward the earth, allowing for greater sustainability. Just as the creation narratives in Genesis foreground the interrelatedness of creation, so the sub-creative impulse of fantasy can highlight our duty to look after creation. Fantasy, eucatastrophe, and the Christian story I want to conclude with what I think is one of the most profound parallels between fantasy literature and religious faith. Tolkien and many of his colleagues believed that at the core of any good fantasy story was the theme of radical, unlooked-for redemption, ‘a sudden and miraculous grace’ that Tolkien called ‘eucatastrophe.’ It was this that led C.S. Lewis to call the Christian narrative ‘myth become fact,’ and for Tolkien as well eucatastrophe suggested ‘a fleeting glimpse of […] Joy beyond the walls of the world.’ This, ultimately, is why I feel fantasy is at its core profoundly theological. In broadening and challenging our understanding of the divine, in showing us alternative ways we might live alongside creation and each other, fantasy points us towards the hope against all hope that constitutes the Christian message. By reading, creating, and experiencing mythic stories, we can learn to see our own dayto-day existence as small parts in a story that God is telling – one that is far from over.
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Movement-153

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