Science Fiction vs Christian Science Fiction
The genre of Science Fiction has influenced Americans, and indeed, the entire world, for a long time. Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and Edward Bellamy produced a profound effect on society. Some of those effects, in the case of Wells and Bellamy, were intentional.
Writers such as Boston novelist Edward Bellamy and H.G. Wells used the vehicle of science fiction to espouse their views of a government that would come to exist in the form of Stalin’s totalitarianism and Hitler’s Nazi state. Wells was an extremist who actually believed in a totalitarian government, provided it went to extremes, namely, that the weak were weeded out. Truth be told, reading Wells’ words one can only surmise that he essentially approved of the central ideas that lay as foundation to Hitler’s ideas of utopia.
While both writers were dreamers and it is doubtful that either man had the foggiest idea of what such a government would in fact do if it truly existed, both of these men were instrumental in making socialism popular with millions. Indeed, some hold that Bellamy was the sole reason socialism was able to make such serious inroads in America. The Social Democratic Party actually passed a resolution in which they noted that “no more effective work had been done for socialism in the United States” than the work done by Bellamy.
Bellamy’s science fiction story Looking Backward, a kind of Rip Van Winkle tale where a man falls into a coma and awakens to find himself in the year 2000, had sold over 200,000 copies by 1890 and sales were a healthy 10,000 copies a week. Even Christians were seduced by the power of this man’s cherub-like tales of utopia under a government that ruled with efficiency and absolute power. The Society of Christian Socialists was formed and instituted formal ties with Britain’s Fabian Socialist organization.
Today, approximately 50% of the highest grossing films are found in the science fiction genre. The sci-fi genre, along with the romance genre, dominates the paperback scene. Add to that the innumerable sci-fi movies and television shows, and it is clear that Science Fiction has permeated our culture and world. Not surprising, like the earlier writers such as Wells and Bellamy, most of the sci-fi stories show a totalitarian government in control, such as the Star Trek series which united the world and other worlds under the umbrella of the United Federation of Planets, a government that is reminiscent of the United Nations.
Captain Picard of the Starship Enterprise quipped once that “The acquisition of wealth is no longer a driving force in our lives. We work to better ourselves and the rest of humanity.” A worthy future, no doubt, but one that fails to account for absolute change in human nature that would endow humanity with such an ability to achieve such a society.
The Science Fiction series Star Trek espoused the notion of a global humanism, where humans had evolved to a state where they overcame war, sought peace, and lived consistent with moral codes that made war obsolete. Star Trek saw the universe as empty of a God, but filled with god-like creatures with powers that resembled those of a real God. The immensely popular Star Wars held similar views, with an absence of diety but filled with demonic-like beings whose powers were spectacular, and whose nature was completely evil. The only way to combat these evil beings was something Lucas chose to call “The Force.”
Contra to those views were the works produced by men such as C.S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, who penned what can only be termed as Christian Science Fiction, or Christian Fantasy. It was Christian fiction taken to a new level. They no doubt were inspired by the early writings of John Bunyan whose immortal Pilgrim’s Progress has enthralled millions over the centuries.
Lewis and Tolkien were devout Christians who, like Bellamy and Wells, espoused a particular viewpoint, a personal one, albiet theirs (Lewis and Tolkien) was a viewpoint that included God. In the fictional worlds of Tolkien and Lewis, there is no absence of God. One knows the stories are allegorical and, like the Pilgrim’s Progress, understands that there is a battle between good and evil. The reader knows that battle is about God and Satan and mankind’s choices in those battles. Their stories are filled with biblical principles.
Today’s Christian Science Fiction writers need to review their goals. Writers of Christian Fiction ought to aggressively counter the messages emanating from today’s science fiction that seeks to show a world devoid of God. Christian writers need to affirmatively and creatively seek to portray fantastic worlds of the future in stunning portraits of God and His workings in the domains of humanity.
Christian Science Fiction writers can, and should seek to influence their culture today.
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