LICC - connecting with culture

fact and fantasy

This Christmas, the big fantasy treats are The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. With the rest of the Narnia books, possibly two more Harry Potters, and Philip Pullman’s works, there are plenty more Christmases catered for.

But what are the rapt readers and enthralled watchers of fantasy absorbing? Is fantasy simply an escape, an avoidance of reality and fact? Does it encourage the view that anything not plain, ordinary and factual is a fairy story?

We know, as we read and watch, that fantasy is a creation of the imagination. Do we then dismiss other ‘spiritual’ truths that are difficult to understand as mere fantasy? This is an important question since adults are reading more fantasy these days and, what is more, they are reading the same stories as the children.

Books and films about the ‘real’ world often fall into two categories. They are either too uncomplicated, with problems too easily resolved, a kind of ‘Mills & Boon’ view of life. Or they are too dark, too ‘realistic’, giving too much substance to genuine fears, like, for example, the BBC series ‘Messiah’.

But fantasy, on the other hand, can help us handle the big issues, the nightmares and the glories, because we know we are looking into a different universe. We love Superman, not because we believe in him, because we do want there to be a rescuer, a power who can deal with evil. We love to walk with Frodo and Sam because we do want to be challenged, to do good even if it is very hard.

As Christians, we should not simply be looking for the growth and development of rational, orderly, logical minds that think they know a fact when they see one, and are suspicious of ‘story’. If we wish to encourage the maturing of wise adults, then we should look for imaginative lateral thinking that knows there are half understood other worlds; that there is a battle of good against evil, that justice is built into the universe, that there is a place, through some crack in the fabric of creation, where the glory of a redeemed and renewed world fulfils all our dreams and hopes.

Fantasy is very good for us and, although we may not realise it at the time, it can help to prepare our hearts for the enormity and riches of God’s truth.

Margaret Killingray

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