I Wish I Wrote That: The Briggs Picture

Not long ago, I picked up, or rather, my wife picked up, a paperback entitled Mooncalled, by Patricia Briggs.

Brief overview: In the near future, all of those things that we consider to be mythical creatures are outed. Society is faced with a hard fact: elves, fairies, vampires and werewolves exist among us and have done so for the whole of human history. Mercedes, the main character, a shape-shifter with a coyote alter-ego, falls into the middle of a werewolf culture clash that threatens to destabilize the happy relations between the magical community and the rest of us.

Unlike Mooncalled, your typical Christian novel (until the last few years or so) relays the message of the bible in the most superficial of ways, through the transcripted words and choreographied actions of the main characters. Good guys are Christians. Bad guys are not. The solution to nearly every problem lies in a sudden outburst of prayer. And so on.

Patricia Briggs' novel is hardly Christian fantasy literature, just to be clear. I do believe there's a "No Werewolves Allowed" policy for most Christian retailers. Her novels, however, point to a magical veil that separates this natural world from its supernatural counterpart. Sometimes this veil is torn, sometimes pulled back outright. In some places, the curtain is so sheer that you can see the supernatural from the sidewalk. That's where it gets interesting.

To be sure, Jesus exists as savior in Briggs' world. Demons fear him. Vampires are limited by his authority. Mercedes is even a believer of sorts. She despises the cross, wearing instead, the figure of a lamb around her neck. The difference is that, in the world of Mooncalled, God is active in something other than the King James Bible. Maybe the most important factor is that God is brought near, not by some manufactured "sinner' prayer" but by personal, even silent, submission to Him and love for others.

Before this begins to sound like a book review, let me turn to my main point. Briggs' fantastical tale, with all its lights from above and cries from below, is the kind of story that Christians ought to be writing. C.S. Lewis once said something to the effect that the world needs less Christian authors and more good authors that are Christians.

For example, one thing that's always stood out in my mind as an obvious symbol for the Judeo-Christian belief system is vampire mythology. I got some dirty looks the last time I brought this up at a bible study, but I hope you'll be more forgiving. At least until I can explain myself. Vampire mythology, insofar as it disincludes bloodbaths and orgies, has always felt like a good addition to my religion bookshelf. As I once said in discussion with Eric Wilson, author of The Best of Evil and A Shred of Truth, vampires and Christians have at least three things in common:

A blood-centered belief system. Blood means life. In both cases, it's someone else's blood. For one group, the drinking of blood is a metaphorical communion; for the other, it's a way to survive. I won't get into all the wonderful digressions that can result from a discussion of transubstantiation; you can read Peter Leithart's blog, Why Evangelicals Can't Write (Blame it on Marburg), if that's what you're looking for. For this monologue, it should suffice to say that the symbolism is there for all to benefit from.

Immortality. It's an understatement that mankind is obsessed with not dying and for good reason. From an Edenic outlook, death is unnatural. It's the end of everything we know. From almost every angle, it's something to be avoided. Christians have their way of doing this; vampires have theirs. Both echo back to that blood-centered belief system and reach forward towards something that looks very much like the first and second chapters of Genesis.

Strangers in this world. We call ourselves aliens, citizens of another kingdom. Vampires are out of place in time. No undead individual illustrates this better than Anne Rice's character Marius, a man out of time, removed from his culture, constantly reminiscing about the world where (and when) he belonged. In either case, you're looking at a minority of people who "get it" who are hunted and haunted by those that don't.

To briefly illustrate these three points one final time, ask yourself, what would happen if I came up to you and said, "This world is not my home, but I shall live forever, because of the blood of another. I can show you the way, if you're willing." On one hand, I might be preparing to explain to you how Jesus Christ came two thousand years ago to set you free from the dreariness and despair of this life. On the other hand, I might just bite you on the neck. It's a gamble, really.

This is certainly not the only way to tie together the magical and the spiritual. I'm sure that someone more versed in banshee, gremlin, or fairy folklore could do an even better job at pointing our parallels between those worlds and ours. In fact, it doesn't even have to be fantasy. The cyberpunk novels of the nineties--authors like Bruce Sterling and Wlliam Gibson--could do the same with the wonders of technology. Romance isn't exempt from this discussion either, for what is Jesus but love?

At the danger of sounding as though I'm authoring a preface to the latest edition of "Finding God in Harry Potter, Chronicles of Narnia, Lord of the Rings, and Superman," let me make this final statement. Our deepest thoughts, our most closely held daydreams, they all spring from the fact that we're created in the image of God and are longing to see in fiction what we know to be true in our hearts. Write accordingly.

-JM