Why Christian Fiction Needs More Violence

Recently I've heard a lot of critics of 'The Hunger Games' say that both the books and the movie are 'too violent'. Sadly, even Christians have jumped on that bandwagon.

Christian fiction has a rep of being the opposite of violent. Bland romances in Amish or Prairie settings with nothing to do with the real world.

But should Christian fiction be like that? The Bible is violent--- from the murder of Abel to the wars in the book of Revelation (which is really all about the Eucharist, but still...). History is violent--- Masada, World War III, I mean II.... Mythology is violent--- remember that proto-god who ate all his children? Even peaceful anti-war protests often turn violent.

Violence is necessary to good fiction because fiction is about conflict. And it's hard to have serious conflict if there is no actual or threatened violence. Would we have been mesmerized by the Harry Potter series if Lord Voldemort had been threatening to lower Harry's grades rather than threatening to kill Harry?

The need for violence in fiction is an evidence of Man's fallen nature, as taught in the Christian apostolic tradition (which includes the Bible). Because there is so much violence around us, conflicts without a hint of violence possible strike us as bland, trivial. We don't buy mystery novels where the mystery involves finding a lost Latin missal in time for next Sunday's Latin Mass--- since the prospect of someone going to Latin Mass without their own missal and having to use the Latin Mass booklet provided doesn't thrill us the way the threat of murder does.

This does not mean that every Christian science fiction or fantasy series has to include a character-bloodbath like the ones at the end of Harry Potter or Left Behind, or the recent one in the BBC TV series Being Human. Character bloodbaths are harder for the Christian reader/author because most of us are firmly part of the culture of life and want every human life respected from conception until natural death. Which makes us worry about staging a massive character bloodbath, or even worry about reading one.

I think it's no mystery why the Left Behind apocalyptic fiction series broke out of the Christian fiction ghetto and onto secular best-seller lists. The Left Behind series is not only Christian fiction, but it's centered on a theological belief--- the Rapture theory--- that the majority of the world's Christians believe is invalid. One would think it would not only repel secular readers but most Christians. But it sold, because it was set in a world where the main characters were under threat of death all the time as the Antichrist, Nikolai Carpathia, took power. In fact, several of the important Christian characters did die before the final battle. And this is what made the conflict in the story real and compelling to the reader.

Christian science fiction and fantasy, like Pagan science fiction and fantasy, or secular science fiction and fantasy, have to reflect the real world. Perhaps our worlds will have elves with enchanted spears or semi-Roman emperors with laser swords instead of Crips and Bloods with guns. But there has to be violence--- or at least the implied threat of violence--- to show that the conflict in the story matters.