Big Questions

I've always loved fantasy and science fiction. These genres are asking the big questions in ways that no other does. While I think it's fair to say that all literature is at its best when it asks questions that challenge us to rethink our perspective, the speculative fiction genres do it better for me than any other. Questions of origin, purpose, ethics, the clash of cultures literally alien to each other - this is what these kinds of stories are for.

It's no surprise, then, that for me, these genres only reinforced the kinds of questions I was taught to ask through my faith. Why are we here? Where did we come from? How do we love people with vastly different perspectives than our own? And how much can we actually understand of the answers to these questions? As a writer, I want to encourage others to ask the same kinds of questions.

Thus, although I am a Christian, I am not writing Christian fiction. Christian fiction tends to bypass the very real tensions that are a part of the human experience, because it wants us to find resolution in God. That's not bad in and of itself, but it comes across as preachy and easy to dismiss. I don't want to easily dismiss the very real questions and doubts that we all have - I certainly have them - even if the answer may be to let go of them and simply trust God. But we can't get to the point of letting go if we aren't honest with ourselves and God about our struggles. That takes wrestling, struggle, acceptance of the inherent tensions between God's perspective and ours. Thus, the power of story is to carry us through such struggles as it grapples with those questions. Ironically, perhaps, this power is all the greater when it doesn't provide answers.

I don't intend to provide those answers in what I write, but I hope my writing will raise questions and invite you to struggle through them.