How does reading fantasy -- works by Rowling, Lewis, or Tolkien -- inform and influence our thinking, our living, and our beliefs?
C. S. Lewis said that in literature that seems to be separate from our own experience -- I’d include fantasy, science fiction, horror, and other otherworldly genres here -- we find it easier to absorb moral lessons. He used the analogy of stealing past sleeping dragons! Since it doesn’t look like our world and our experience, our guards are down, and we are more willing to mark, learn, and digest what the stories have to teach us. That’s why the Narnia books, the Lord of the Rings epic, Madeleine L'Engle’s Wrinkle in Time series, and the Harry Potter books -- all of which, incidentally, are written by confessional Christians -- have the power to shape our thinking and encourage our faith. They present lessons that reinforce our faith and because we think we are reading about other worlds, we aren’t saying -- “Wait! This is about me!”
You have written a number of nonfiction and fiction books. What are the differences in the writing process? Do you have a preference for either?
I’m a novelist at heart, because, to paraphrase Orson Welles, storytelling is the biggest and best play-set there is. But it’s arduous and often time-consuming work, and I can’t write a novel every year or even every other year. So in the in-between times, I love looking at narrative from my standpoint as teacher, cultural critic, and theologian, which is what I do in many of the nonfiction books. Fiction is more about gathering, shaping, and discovering; nonfiction, for me, is more about paying attention. If I have two years to read or watch carefully, I can write a nonfiction book, and I’ve discovered that if I choose a topic that has meaning for me and I explore it faithfully, it tends to have meaning for many others as well.
You have written many books about different cultural elements -- from the Matrix to U2 to comic books and graphic novels to Harry Potter. What leads you to write about these various topics? How do you go about researching and developing your thoughts?
I’m drawn to stories, films, and music that teach us how to live, and since so much of my spiritual journey has been mediated by stories and experiences outside the Church, I pay close attention to the possibility that something sacred might be happening in the movies, music, and fiction to which I’m drawn. When I write, I’m doing a faithful reading of a text or texts, but I’m also trying to place it in the midst of a centuries-long exchange, what Stanley Hauerwas has called the ongoing conversation about God we have from generation to generation in the Church. So with each book, I read primary texts and I read theology, ethics, and other cognate fields, and I try not to get lazy, relying on old conclusions and sources. That way I can learn and grow with each book, as well as give something fresh to my readers. And because I get bored easily, I find myself moving in new directions all the time. My next few books include a work on 21st-century Christianity (The Other Jesus, out in February), and my books in progress are a cultural and theological history of the war on terror, and a book on a Christian political ethic, in time for the 2012 election. I’m reading up a storm for them.
You are the Writer in Residence at the Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest. What does that role entail? How does being a part of both that community and your community at Baylor University affect your writing?
My relationship with the Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, Texas, is a way for me to serve the Church that rescued me and redirected my life, and the seminary that trained me as a theologian. Like anyone who wants to be responsive to the ways God has moved in her or his life, I look for opportunities to give back, and my work with faculty and students there -- as well as my ongoing writing and research carried out from my office at the seminary -- has been a blessing to me and, I hope, to others. I also serve St. David’s Episcopal Church in Austin as a licensed lay preacher -- that community too has been formative for me.
My twenty-plus year relationship with Baylor has been a search to find myself and the best way to serve others. That call to vocation is something Baylor takes very seriously and has encouraged in me and in many others. I love teaching and do it well, I think, and Baylor is the place where I’ve been offered the encouragement to teach, to write and speak, and to be a public intellectual and theologian as well as a novelist. Not many employers would have given me permission to be a fulltime student knowing I might never return, but my seminary education made me a better Baylor professor, and has launched my writing in new directions toward theology, ethics, politics, and culture. I can’t say often enough how grateful I am to Baylor and to the administrators who have supported and do support the work I do. I couldn’t write and tour and speak without that support.
Community is one of the lessons that Harry Potter has reinforced for me. Although our culture often celebrates so-called “self-made” men, it’s not enough to be individually brilliant. Voldemort is one of the greatest wizards in history, and he’s a disaster for himself and everyone who comes into contact with him. We need to be shaped and loved by community in order to turn into the people God has called us to be. And that’s what I think these communities have done for me -- they’ve given me the chance to become the person I think I’m supposed to be, or at least to take some giant steps in that direction.
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