Nathan Hobby’s blog

In this form of Christian fiction, faith is explored through a Christian character. It is this form which most replicates the experience of faith for most believers. We may have insight into the psychology of faith, the type of thoughts it produces. We should also see the social effect of faith, the way the Christian character interacts with others.

Graham Greene’s novels The Heart of the Matter and The Power and the Glory are excellent examples. In both, we have world-weary Catholics plagued by doubt and sin, but trying to follow Christ in their own way. There is a deep sadness and tragedy to both Scobie and the whisky priest; they are existential figures isolated from the rest of the world.

Maybe this is true of the place faith takes us to sometimes, especially if you are the last priest in Mexico on the run from the government. But I wish that a writer of Greene’s brilliance had given us a depiction of a faith that gives life and leads to connection with others. (It is true that the priest connects with the villagers he ministers the sacraments to, but in a distant priest-layperson way.)

The problem is that the individualism of both liberalism and evangelicalism left both types of Christians with the understanding that the primary mode of believing is as an individual - not as an individual-in-community. Christian characters are usually disconnected from other believers. Faith becomes a privatised, inner state of being.

What I think I’m really wishing for is a great novel about the church, which is the next form I’ll write about.

What: This form of Christian fiction will tend to have a contemporary setting. It’s a subgenre of allegorical Christian fiction, but I wanted to deal with it first. The author retells elements of the story of Jesus, particularly through a Jesus like figure. Depending on the author’s take on the significance of Jesus, we get different aspects of his life coming through - the atonement or his concern for the poor or his outsider status.

Eg: New Zealander Mike Riddell tackles this form in his Insatiable Moon.  He was a theology lecturer at a Baptist theological college. And then, as he says on his website, the publication of this novel was contentious enough to force his resignation. Was it the extended (adulterous) sex scene involving the Jesus-like figure or was it just that the Jesus-ish character was insane? What Riddell gets so right in this novel is how confrontational Jesus would have been to the religious establishment. I suspect that that is the theme he would want us to take away.

In a completely different mode, C.S. Lewis creates a fantasy world in the Narnia books, with a Jesus like creature in the form of a lion - Aslan. Like Jesus, Aslan is sacrificed for the world’s sins. My friend Mark Hurst pointed out that Revelation pictures Jesus as a slain lamb rather than a lion. But then someone else responded saying that Aslan appears as a lamb later in the series. (I don’t remember that; I’m sure it’s true, though.)

If Stephen Lawhead’s Pendragon books are to be considered as an example of this form, then the Jesus-like character is King Arthur. The problem being that this Jesus leads his followers into battle so effectively they manage to kill all their enemies with swords. No turning the other cheek for these fellows! I loved these books when I was a teenager; they were a violent heroism sanctioned by my conservative Baptist church! I wonder what I’d think of them if I tried reading them now?

Dostovesky’s The Idiot is perhaps the most enduring example of the form. The saintly main character has no guile and society doesn’t know how to handle him. It’s so terrible - I didn’t manage to finish this book, either. (I have a terrible record of incompletion with long books, and particularly with Russian writers.)

Should I attempt this form? I started to write ‘no’, because Jesus is unique, and retelling the crucifixion or any other part of his life is tiresome. But then I realised that I’ve fallen into one of the traps I warn against - that of thinking that Jesus is so far above us we can’t emulate him. There is the uniqueness of Jesus, but that doesn’t stop there being Jesus-like figures who are following him faithfully and end up crucified, just like he warned. That would probably be my take on it.

In fact, I sort of did attempt this form in Dreams of Revolution (unpublished). The character of Melchizidek is Christ-like in bringing together a band of disciples who he feeds and teaches about the kingdom. And his name, well that’s kind of obvious… to theology students -Melchizidek being the priestly king of Salem who came from nowhere and, in the book of Hebrews, is seen as prefiguring Christ.  

Do you want to add some more examples you think I should have included?

I’m starting this series exploring forms of Christian fiction, mostly for my own edification, so I can work out how faith and writing and reading fit together better.

Retelling the Bible as fiction is one form of Christian fiction. I noticed that Walter Wangerin did it, and I bought one of his books. I keep meaning to read it, but for some reason I don’t feel compelled to. I like the idea in principle, though. A novelistic treatment of Bible stories.

Bible stories are always such bare bones accounts, with so little psychology. And what style they have isn’t too obvious for us thousands of years later.

The challenge is to flesh out the characters. To get inside their heads, and maybe God’s head, and turn the existing narrative into novel.

Thomas Mann (pictured) did it in his Joseph books,  which I found quite interesting. But not interesting to read past halfway through the first volume. (I know, I’m terrible, there’s so little Christian fiction I like! And Mann’s intention wasn’t even particularly Christian, but perhaps more modernist or literary. )

More recently, Anne Rice did it - with explicitly Christian motive - in her Jesus books. I will try to read them, but I know enough about Tim La Haye and Jerry Jenkins’ attempt to fictionalise Revelation - the Left Behind series - to never read them. (I have actually seen the film version, and the theology was worse than I could have anticipated - what with the antichrist being the one disarming America and feeding the poor.)

My problem with fictionalising the Bible is that I don’t like reading historical fiction, and I wouldn’t want to write it. I feel like the mind and culture of the Hebrews thousands of years ago is so difficult or even impossible to retrieve or appreciate. Or it at least finds its best form in the Scriptures as they stand.

Having said that, I think it is an excellent project to try to fictionalise the Bible. Maybe I need to motivate myself to read the attempts and to think about how I might try myself.

I’d be tempted to fictionalise one of the situations in the house churches that Paul wrote to. Probably Corinth, since 1 Corinthians is my favourite book of the Bible. Robert Banks did something like this in his book, “Going to church in the first century”. This booklet is explicitly theological in motivation - it wants to give people an idea of the first century house churches. But it is also readable and a very interesting intersection of fiction and theology.