This blog will mostly deal with my up-coming sci-fi novel, Johnny Came Home.
Johnny is an action-packed superhero science fiction tale, complete with conspiracies, mad scientists, awesome powers and even flying saucers. It’s the kind of book I’d pick up at the local bookstore, which is essentially why I wrote it. Unlike most other novels of this genre, I’m writing from a Biblical Creationist point-of-view. Survey the local sci-fi rack, especially superhero books and comics, and you’ll quickly recognize that evolution is the standard assumption. Marvel comics in particular has abandoned the standard Golden and Silver Age comic book explanations of superpowers, namely mad scientists, radioactivity and space aliens, in favor of mutants as the next stage in human evolution.
The question I explored as a Christian author was whether a superhero novel could be done from the Biblical Creationist POV instead of the evolutionary assumption. In a blog article called Faith-based Sci-fi as Exploratory Apologetic, I suggested
Of course, some will shrug and ask, why should we write about such things at all? Isn’t it a waste of time to write amusements and diversionary fictions. Don’t we have more important things to be on about? Like spreading the Gospel. And what does it really matter anyway?
I think Hank Hanegraaff’s reply to the question, “What made you write [The Last Disciple]?” is compelling:
“Fiction is a great truth-conveying medium. As Left Behind has become the vehicle for indoctrinating millions of believers into an end-time theology invented in the nineteenth century,” [aka Darbyism, or the Rapturist view]
Fiction, in general, is the perfect medium to make an argument. The more popular the novel, the more folks are exposed to the ideas and,as Hanegraaff put it, “indoctrinated.” They are at least more predisposed to accept the idea’s validity.
Science fiction has specific power to change the future. Many science fiction writers are considered futurists. Their imaginative exploration of possible futures has resulted in present-day technological inspiration. It has also coloured the wordlviews of those who read science fiction, which is predominantly written with Darwinist, humanist and even atheist assumptions.
But we can write faith-based sci-fi not only as anticipatory apologetic, but to provide the world with an intelligent alternative to humanist imagineering.
