My Dad, as I have mentioned before, was a Lutheran minister and a science fiction fan with a large collection of SF paperbacks in our basement. Both these elements, Lutheran Doctrine and Old-Style Science Fiction, were strong influences on the peculiar way I turned out. Dad's tastes in SF leaned towards writers from the Campbellian Age of Science Fiction, stories written by engineers, or at least had a strong engineering point of view, who tended to view religion with skepticism, Christianity in particular. Religion was often absent in these stories -- it was assumed that by the future we would have evolved past that or something -- or when it was mentioned, it was treated like a superstition.
So when I came across a science fiction work where Christianity was treated seriously, whether in a positive or a negative manner, I took some notice.
Digging through some of my old Street Prophets diaries this week, I came across this piece. It was written in response to another diarist who had said that science fiction often mines the religions of other cultures for ideas, but rarely Christianity. I'm probably doing a disservice to the original diarist's contention, but at the time I was in a contrarian mood and so I rattled off several instances that came to mind of SF writers playing with the toys of Christian teachings.
I intended this to be a reply to a comment made on another thread but it got a bit long. Lonespark commented that science fiction and fantasy writers have no qualms about playing around with other religions in their stories, but they seem reluctant to tackle the Sacred Cow of Christianity.
I beg to differ.
I don't think I agree about sf/fantasy writers shying away from using Christianity. I can think of several examples.
There's a famous Arthur C. Clarke short story entitled "The Star" about space explorers who find the remnant of a supernova that was the Star of Bethlehem and about the crisis of faith the ship's chaplain experiences because of it.
Or Michael Moorcock's novel Behold the Man, about a time traveler who goes back to the time of Christ and who actually winds up becoming Jesus.
I once read a novel by John Maddox Roberts entitled The Strayed Sheep of Charun. Two clerics, a Benedictine and a Jesuit, are sent to a former earth colony which has descended into barbarism after the fall of the Galactic Empire. They have one month to convert the entire planet to Catholicism before another religious sect declared jihad on it. It's been decades since I read it, but I recall it as an interesting blend of science fiction and the traditional sandal & toga Ancient Roman epic.
Poul Anderson, as far as I can tell, was an agnostic; but he wrote a number of books where Christians and their beliefs are important. One of my favorites is The High Crusade, in which a group of medieval knights encounter alien invaders... and kick their butts. The book pokes fun at medieval beliefs, but in a affectionate manner. Anderson may mock the narrator Brother Parvus' grasp of science, but the book is respectful of his spiritual beliefs.
Another good book by Poul Anderson is Three Hearts and Three Lions, about a Twentieth Century man who finds himself in a world based on the legends of Charlemagne. Christianity in this world is a major bulwark against the forces of Chaos, and the hero finds himself fighting in that battle.
Then there's Anderson's Operation Chaos, set in a world where magic and technology developed side by side. The title novella in the book involves a journey to Hell to save an innocent soul with the help of an angel and a dead Russian mathematician. Anderson uses Medieval Christian cosmology in this story, but gives it a twist of physics depicting Heaven, Earth and Hell as having different energy states, like the electron shells of an atom.
Then again, pretty much any story involving Hell and demons plays with the trappings of Pop Christianity, even when they play fast and loose with actual Christian doctrine. Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's Good Omens is a good example of this, but there are many others.
Even Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light, which is a classic example of using Other People's Religions, doesn't leave Christianity unscathed. In his book, the crew of a colony spacecraft have developed cosmic powers and have modeled themselves after the gods of the Hindu pantheon. The hero, Sam, rebels against the divine establishment and decides to undermine it by setting himself up as Buddha and introducing Buddhism to the planet. A minor character, Niriti the Black, is a Christian, the ship's former chaplain, who developed the power to raise the dead as zombies and is considered unstable by pretty much everybody.
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That was where I ended the original diary because I was up late at the time and was running out of steam. There are many others which I could have mentioned had I given myself time to think about it, such as Walter M. Miller's Canticle for Leibowitz, or the "Lucifer Rising" story from Yukinobu Hoshino's manga series 2001 Nights, or several Ray Bradbury stories. Of course, mentioning C.S. Lewis's Out of the Silent Planet would have been cheating.
So I leave it to you. What notable SF or Fantasy stories can you think of which have used themes from Christian teaching or culture? Or what ones can you think of that have done a particularly good job of exploring non-Christian religious ideas, (although that would make a good diary of it's own). Let me know in the Comments.