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Post by rjrfan on Dec 12, 2009 22:22:15 GMT -5
SF offered a ray of hope through a troubled adolescence. "The Stars My Destination," for example, presented a vision of transcendence after turmoil. When I was born again, the zeitgeist insisted that we as Christians had no earthly future to look forward to. With regret, I bid adieu to my beloved genre.
Then, I discovered that premillenialism was not the only game in town -- or even the best. When I embraced a better eschatology, a renewed and better hope transformed my life, calling, marriage, and family. And, I rediscovered SF.
At this point, to our shame, we have to confess that evangelical SF authors are few and minor. The only big name writer who honors Jesus Christ by name in our beloved genre is the Mormon, O. S. Card. Several Catholics also are published, including Michael Flynn and Clifford Simak.
Could it be that our failures to achieve excellence in this genre are connected to a deficient eschatology? How can we envision exciting futures, if we are convinced that we have no earthly future?
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Post by torainfor on Dec 12, 2009 23:26:27 GMT -5
Yes! Well, I don't know about "deficient" eschatology, but certainly space operas are exceedingly difficult to reconcile with the commonly held eschatological timeline. My last year's NaNoWriMo (which I haven't gone back to) tried to rectify that by turning it on its ear and adding time travel and a more ambiguous "timeline." We get the same problem with alien life forms, no?
Elizabeth Moon is also a believer, although I don't know that she would consider herself evangelical. Probably not. Her SciFi doesn't show her belief so much as her Paksenarrion series.
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Post by journeyman on Dec 13, 2009 0:10:34 GMT -5
Oooh a neat subject. If I remember correctly Christopher Stasheff of Wizard in Spite of Himself and many others did indirectly talk about Christianity from the Catholic perspective.
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Post by journeyman on Dec 13, 2009 0:24:42 GMT -5
The dominant view in End Times speculative lit is dispensational with the pre-tribulation catching away of the saints. There is another view called posttribulationism, which asserts that the saints will have to live through much of the tribulation in order for the church to help win as many souls as possible before the grand finale. There is a minor catching away, but it happens late in the Tribulation and is supposed to last weeks rather than years.
The leading proponent of posttribulationism is Robert H. Gundry of Westmont Colllege, Santa Barbara, CA. He wrote the scholarly The Church and the Tribulation. David Silker wrote End-Times Simplified that explains this view in a shortened form.
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Post by rjrfan on Dec 13, 2009 2:27:02 GMT -5
There is another view called posttribulationism, which asserts that the saints will have to live through much of the tribulation in order for the church to help win as many souls as possible before the grand finale. A growing number of evangelical Christians have rediscovered postmillennialism. This perspective asserts that Jesus is Lord. He reigns today, from the right hand of the Father, directly over the believer's soul, and indirectly through fathers, elders, and magistrates. As a result of this ongoing active interaction between God and man, progress happens. Faithful families and nations grow in godliness and in the outer accouterments of godly wisdom we read about in Proverbs, e.g. Progress continues until only one enemy remains unconquered, death. Then, not before, comes the end, the general resurrection. Getting back to the theme -- it's obvious God intends for us to live on Mars, since the day there is just a little longer than Earth's. The closest earth-like place, with a comfortable temperature and one atmosphere of pressure, is around 30 miles above the surface of Venus. IFF (if an only if) we removed the imaginary barrier to the future, the "wall in the mind," what kind of possibilities are possible? I've written a few short stories set in an Afrikaner culture -- God has, in the past, used a tiny faithful remnant to launch something brand new. Another possibility: every age, including ours, has its own blind spots -- see C. S. Lewis's essay in praise of older books. What would be obvious to a society set in space-traveling laagers? What limits would they be blithely ignorant of? 200 years ago, white Christians owned black Christians as domestic cattle. Nowadays, American Christians think it's normal and acceptable to render unto Caesar that which is God's, the children entrusted to their care. Imagine a future where political entities have severely limited power, and the social landscape is dominated by influential, high-achieving families. Another example -- imagine a culture that views with horror any tribe that permits its taxation rate to approach 10%. A government that assented to an 11% rate (income, sales, or some combination thereof) would be seen as having gone rogue, as a nation in apostasy, and as a threat to everyone else. A polity to be shunned, banned, ostracized, or even militarily expunged. How dare any state demand more than God Himself does? As any student of history can testify, people in different eras think differently. It can be really annoying to encounter first-century fictional characters talking and thinking like 20th century American Baptists (see Francine Rivers' "mark of the Lion" series).
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Post by rjrfan on Dec 13, 2009 2:32:35 GMT -5
Oooh a neat subject. If I remember correctly Christopher Stasheff of Wizard in Spite of Himself and many others did indirectly talk about Christianity from the Catholic perspective. Cordwainer Smith, a high-church Anglican, also bore a discrete witness to the gospel. Scanners Live in Vain precisely skewered the plight of 20th century ideologues, such as Communists and Nazis.
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Post by journeyman on Dec 13, 2009 9:41:27 GMT -5
I did very much enjoy reading Cordwainer Smith. "The Dead Lady of Clown Town" is one of my all-time favorites.
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Post by dizzyjam on Dec 14, 2009 0:00:49 GMT -5
Prophet Kim Clement calls the pre-tribulation viewpoint "escape mentality" and criticizes that more believers are looking forward to be rescued from the tribulation by Jesus instead of focusing on the Great Commision we were given. Personally, I don't see why people would slow down if things are getting that close, but when I talk with the "common" Christian it's like the viewpoint is "they'll get saved during the tribulation when they see we were right" more or less. Although I personally don't think we have that much more time before it all winds up for reasons I can show with a combination of Biblically based info and with the Hebrew language and modern speak that aren't normally used, I don't know for sure about anything, and that's why I have no problem with speculative fiction being set in the future from a Christian perspective. I say go for it, and let's have some fun as God uses us to either write the fiction or share it with others as we find it and read it ourselves. ***EDIT*** I just posted and considering I'm talking about the tribulation it's interesting what the number of my Posts are at. I think I'll refrain from posting for a while to see how many people notice. Fascinating timing. RE-EDIT - For those curious that are reading this later, this post was Post # 666 for me. Strange, eh? - END RE-EDIT ***END EDIT***
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Post by journeyman on Dec 14, 2009 0:28:06 GMT -5
"Fascinating!" as Mr. Spock would say.
I am in agreement with your post. Kim Clement, Mike Bickle and the IHOP crew, and a number of others are neither pretrib nor postmillennialists. Speculative fiction set in any time period can be used to make people think, and thinking a rare thing in any setting. :-)
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asinus
New Member
A Fish Dinner
Posts: 29
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Post by asinus on Dec 17, 2009 11:07:44 GMT -5
I am always afraid that events will outrun my imagination before I can get anything significant written. Thirty years ago, I thought our Lord's arrival couldn't be delayed more than a pair of years, and we weren't even in the zip code of weird like we are now.
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Post by journeyman on Dec 17, 2009 20:07:05 GMT -5
Yup! My dad who passed in 2004 was convinced he would see the LORD'S glorious appearing. Events are speeding up and the really strange stuff is around the corner. I still think we have time to write what God has put within us. It HAS to be a witness to a dying and largely clueless world.
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Post by newburydave on Oct 29, 2010 20:32:11 GMT -5
Don't know if anyone is watching this thread but thought I'd throw in a thought.
I think the common pre-trib, mid-trib and even post-trib eschatology, that eveyone seems to favor, is nothing but arrogant, Anglo-American chauvinism dressed us as religious dogma. We are the center of the world, so if things are hard for us it must be the end times. (Blech!) I mean grow up and look at the world beyond our "sacred anglophone" community.
If you study church history at all you will see that each major center of the Gospel light has passed through a rise, mature supremacy and collapse phase. The collapse usually involved increasing persecution of the remaining faithful as reactionaries.
This goes for Israel, Galatia/Iran, Rome, Constantinople, Afghanistan, Western Europe, Parts of China in pre-Portuguese times, England and now North America. Nations and empires rise when the Gospel is transcendent and fall when Apostasy becomes dominant. That is the pattern of history.
To say that when the dominant Anglophone culture goes into decline we'll pull the whole world into the great tribulation is arrant nonsense. It smacks of the nationalistic racism of the nineteenth and early twentieth century that claimed that the pinnacle of biological and social Evolutionary development was the Anglo-American WASP with all of our cultural institutions.
(I personally think that the whole Biological Evolution thing was just a psuedo-scientific, Anglo-American racist justification for enslaving the brown people of the world.)
When the Roman empire crashed and burned all the Roman subjects thought the end of time was upon them. God obviously had bigger plans and moved the center to Western Europe. I expect that when we fade the center will move to China and the emerging South American and African nations where revival fires are burning right now.
Ethno-centrism is just as sinful as any other form of corrupt pride. God wills to have a full host from every nation, tribe and tongue under heaven. To say that our tongue or tribe is the last one that matters is just wrong. Look at the harvest fields in the world where people are flocking to the Gospel our of pagan darkness today, whenever someone dares to go bring the Message to them.
Missionary friends of ours tell of people in the Amazon that are begging them to send missionaries up river to tell them. Our church missions paper tells of incredible response among third world and emerging world people in the southern hemisphere and Asia. India is exploding with revival among the Dalit's, the black skinned untouchables of the Hindu caste system.
I don't believe my Abba Father would shut everything down, declare time for repentance to be ended while the exploding, poorest populations of Earth are just beginning to be penetrated by the Gospel. What arrogance is this that says that time will end when our day in the sun is over?
I've come to think we have been looking in the wrong direction. We're looking for an air evacuation out of persecution and martyrdom, when we should be looking for how many more souls we can reach with the Gospel in the midst of tribulation. The Jews said that the "End Times" start when Messiah comes, and tribulation is merely the "Birth Pangs" of the kingdom of God.
That would mean that "The End Times" started in 4 BC when Jesus was born. All the tribulations that the church has endured since then have been the powerful witness in the teeth of adversity of the Bride of Christ bringing forth the Kingdom of God. Let's man up and stop looking for a fire escape from the Antichrist and battle the antichrists of our generation in the power of the Spirit of Christ for the souls of our contemporaries.
Okay, enough ranting about eschatology.
How does this effect our SF writing?
IMHO, as long as there are new nations, tribes and worlds to redeem, the Gospel will not be done. God's purpose in all this, the price Jesus paid on Calvary, is to redeem a host of immortal souls that can't be counted. Look at the stars in the heavens, that's how many God is looking for in His bride. Stop thinking in miserly human measures, look to the heavens and grab hold of God's abundance.
I've been inspired with a story arc timeline that is between 8,000 and 10,000 years long, that spans multiple Galaxies, to tell a story of the sweep of God's redemption of this created universe.
I see other races from other planets as either faithful servants of God and his Christ, or subjects of Redemption by faith in Jesus. I see human and non-human missionaries crossing the gulfs between Galaxies, seeking more of the lost to bring them the Gospel. I see entire races of beings, presidposed to sell themselves into demonic slavery to the lord of the Abyss, doing battle with the forces of light to stop the spread of the Gospel.
I see Man, the fallen ones, being prepared to be the Bride of Christ and these others joining him or coming as friends of the groom. It's all based on the actual revelation in Scripture, put into plausible allegory, or perhaps revealing the true nature of God's story of redemption writ large.
Jesus could come tomorrow or he could tarry for another 10,000 years. A day or ten millenniums, Peter says it's all the same to Him. Jesus said we can't know that time of His return, the only thing we should concern ourselves with is to keep occupied in fulfilling the Great Commission, however far it takes us.
So let's let His inspiration run over and write the stretch of redemption to as large a universe as we can find a vision for.
Write on Brothers and Sisters The stars themselves are our limit in Christian Sf.
SGD dave
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Post by almarquardt on Oct 30, 2010 9:50:44 GMT -5
I couldn't have said it better, Dave. As you and others above us said, we should not concern ourselves about the future but concentrate on doing God's will. I also don't think there's a single generation that didn't believe they were the last.
As for me (although it takes serious convincing at times) I will trust in God's timing, do his will today and let tomorrow take care of itself.
Back to the original subject, convincing some readers that not all futuristic fiction has to follow their current eschatological (sp) beliefs is an uphill climb at best -- especially since it's constantly changing. It is fiction after all. Regardless of what we write, however, there will be those who vociferously disagree. Oh, well. Those people aren't are target readers anyway. As one who loves science fiction, I don't care so much about the calendar as the strength of the story and characters.
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Hisart
New Member
"His talent, Hisart, His way"
Posts: 12
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Post by Hisart on Oct 30, 2010 11:28:59 GMT -5
When Jesus walked the earth in the Roman held territory known as Israel, He said that the generation that sees Israel become a nation will not pass away before He returns. According to the Bible, a righteous man can live to the age of 120. Israel became a nation in 1948, so Jesus will return before 2068AD. I think a lot of space travel can happen over the next 58yrs, look where we were in at in 1952 (58yrs ago) and how much faster technology is improving. Fiction is simply an environment based on an educated guess in which your story occurs. The real question is, what have you done with the gift of The Lord Jesus? Are you living like the dying masses or are you trying to accomplish the Lord's will and show them the way? Can you fit it into your technovel so some geek can get it and see the light?
I stand guilty as charged.
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Post by choosybeggar on Oct 30, 2010 11:57:30 GMT -5
You know, it's funny, but I personally don't think I'm going to be part of the last generation if you're talking about the "end of the world is near" eschatology. But I wouldn't be surprised if by the time I have kids there is a worldwide revival going on and the Kingdom of Heaven has arrived.
I know I don't have very much straight up biblical foundation for this idea but this is what I believe: the Kingdom of Heaven (and possibly the end of the world in the traditional eschatology sense) is not coming until we the church bring it. Until we are all in agreement (though there will be lots of disagreements about various details of life) God cannot bring His Kingdom back.
But I believe my grandkids will live to see the sun. Things may have changed, but I don't think the world will have ended in the way a lot of people think it will.
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