In Defense Of Fiction

By Tyler Thomas

10 min read

At the earliest age, children seek out fantastic worlds of adventure and exploit in order to unlock creativity and unlatch innovation. Such wonderment arises without prodding or pressure. It comes naturally. Fiction literature is the inherently and universally beloved avenue. By the time those same children reach middle-school though, quizzes, questions, quandaries and educational quagmires have sapped a great deal of joy from reading, and especially from reading fiction.

Unfortunately, our learned distaste for that literary world follows many (particularly many men) into adulthood. Those of us inclined toward the spiritual and intellectual pursuit of truth (including ministers like myself) are like to spend weekly scores of hours parsing the pages of book after book without so much as a thought for fiction. “Fiction is for children,” some say. “Those books are frivolous and vain,” they suggest. “Fiction is, by nature, nothing but lies. I prefer reading fact” (unfortunately, an actual statement I’ve heard).

Yet, one highly revered teacher in antiquity disagreed fervently with those assertions above; one Jewish rabbi from Galilee who walked on water and fed five-thousand; one Jesus bar Joseph, carpenter and Christ of God. Jesus’ teaching, more frequently than any other format, took the form of fiction. We call those lessons parables.

The Bible always uses existing human literary genres. Without exception. Nowhere did God invent a new one. Even the law of Moses finds parallels in ancient near eastern covenant contracts between powerful nations and their vassal states. God communicates at a human level, because we are incapable of communicating at a divine level. This beautiful condescension is what makes Him knowable. One of the many ways He chose to convey truth to His people, was through the existing genre of parable.

The disciples would have much preferred nonfiction. Parables, like all fiction, require much effort to discern and dissect. Such was Jesus’ intention. “Master, why do you speak to them in parables,” they asked Him. His response; “because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear” (Matt. 13:10, 13). Only those committed to truth could detect it in Christ’s masterful and meticulous storytelling. Yet truth aplenty there was to be found. Our storytelling God shows us that truth can be conveyed as efficiently (sometimes more efficiently) by fiction as by fact. Fiction, at its best, is concentrated truth.

There are ample benefits to engaging with the literary world, and the English canon in particular. One of these is the access to (un)lived experience. In our several decades, most of us will not travel the globe. We will not engage with the varied cultures and contexts which various authors have made available. We certainly cannot leap backward (or forward) in time. Literature holds the vast reservoir of collective human experience.

Perhaps the most immediate application of the above is learned empathy. Reading is of itself an exercise in entering someone else’s mind. It is the transmission of thought. Good fiction allows for more than information transfer. It allows us to see through another's soul. In one sense, we catch a glimpse of the author’s own heart, but in a more immediate sense, the characters themselves become very real to us. I recently revisited Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card (long-time required reading for U.S. Marines). Without spoiling the plot, one major theme is empathy for the enemy, and our moral responsibilities toward not just our own people, but those we oppose (to believers, this should sound familiar). As a twenty-six year old man, I felt hot tears stream down my face while reading an adolescent novel. That’s the power of fiction to evoke an empathetic response, and it’s indispensable.

More practically, I read fiction as a preacher and teacher, in order to better my communicative craft. For eloquence and elegance, F. Scott Fitzgerald is a peerless instructor. Shakespeare can teach rhythm, metre, and rhyme absent effort. Need I mention Dickens’ humor, Hemingway’s thrift, the Brontë sisters’ suspenseful brooding, or Tolkien’s tasteful archaism? The passive benefit of simply absorbing their words and wisdom compensates every hour invested.

When I commit myself to a novel, settling in with a cup of coffee and a (generally) hard-cover edition, I exercise intellectual, emotional, and even spiritual muscles often neglected since childhood. The reality is that fiction doesn’t need defending. The western literary canon has withstood generations of philosophical reductionism. Book burning is no longer in vogue. It behooves me though, personally, to recognize that while sometimes truth reveals itself with facts, figures, and findings, it often begins “once upon a time…”

Recommended Reading:

“A Christmas Carol” By Charles Dickens

Name one English novel with greater cultural impact than Dickens’ Christmas classic. Scrooge’s trio of phantasmic, holiday harbingers continue to herald the joy and generosity of Advent to every successive generation. Few novels better exhibit the idea of “concentrated truth” than this moving story of a miser redeemed, right perspective restored, and a sickness stricken child’s exclamation; “God bless us, every one.”

“Ender’s Game” By Orson Scott Card

As mentioned above, Ender’s Game has been on the Commandant’s reading list for many years and with good reason. The story of young Ender Wiggin’s battle school tribulation in preparation for an impending alien invasion may look adolescent on the exterior, but its resonant adult themes of empathy, grace, and restraint are pertinent to any leader.

“Jane Eyre” By Charlotte Brontë

I wrote an essay in college, responding to Gilbert and Gubar’s “Madwoman in the Attic;” the seminal feminist essay on Jane Eyee. They suggested Jane Eyre’s underlying function was to dismantle patriarchal religious systems. Nothing could be further from the truth. Jane Eyre is the story of a decidedly common woman, whose principled lifestyle puts her in conflict with a succession of male authority figures. Yet, Jane’s refusal to compromise on biblical morality illustrates that common women and men alike, are entirely capable of hearing the voice of God individually. In that sense it is both proto-evangelical and proto-pentecostal. A worthy addition to any bookshelf.

“The Hobbit” By J.R.R. Tolkien

It goes without saying that J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis cornered the market on English fantasy novels in the earlier part of the 20th century. Whereas both exude passion for Anglo-Saxon myth and biblical meta-narrative, Tolkien’s work is unanimously considered the superior literary achievement. His legacy will potentially endure for centuries as having influenced an entire genre, such that no fantasy novel might ever exist independent his work as a precondition. That’s certainly the case at present.

“1984” By George Orwell

The term “Orwellian” is frequently applied to any government intrusion by way of surveillance or censorship. While 1984 deals with those subjects, they’re set dressing for its real theme; the danger of subjectivism. Truth is true and lies are lies, no matter who affirms them. The collective human psyche can be bent, broken, and bereft of sense, but there remains an objective reality. Although a seminal English literary work against 20th century communism, Orwell’s masterpiece remains just as relevant in this fast changing, relativistic world of post-modernity.