Fantasy and a Christian Worldview, Part 7

I admit it. I got totally distracted and almost forgot to post on the blog today. YIKES!

So what was the distraction? I was actually working. I, along with the other finalists in the ACFW Genesis contest, must put together a proposal for the story we entered. I had made the decision to wait until the announcement of the first round results before working on this. My first priority has always been to complete The Chronicles of Efrathah. But now that I’m moving on to the next round, I have this deadline.

So I’ll let you voice an opinion if you care to. Here is my proposal intro, the overview of my story, horribly named The Only:

What happens when an orphan becomes king? Novo, a poor yeoman in the king’s service, wants to restore his people’s worship of their ancient God. When he comes of age and exhibits the sign of the true king, his guardian puts in motion events that bring Novo to the throne. Now he must decide to keep the illegitimate wealth he obtains, in order to accomplish his goal, or to restore it to its rightful owner, losing his chance to achieve his life’s work. Through symbolism The Only portrays a Christian’s spiritual struggle to do what is right, sometimes in the midst of success.

Thoughts? Does it bore you? Is it in need of tightening? What’s missing?

Back to our discussion of magic and especially my proclamation that we should not outgrow pretend. Remember, I believe that our imagination is part of the creative equipment God gave us when He made us in His image. So to me, saying I will outgrow pretendis like saying I’ll outgrow the ability to love.

Unfortunately, as adults we get so focused on the stuff of our physical world—things like making a living and raising a family—we kill off our imagination, or at least allow it to lie dormant so long it is pretty weak when we try to exercise it.

Fantasy allows us to exercise our imagination in a useful way, a spiritually engaging way.

But there’s another reason Christians should care about fantasy. We’ll look at that next time.