Faith and Fiction: The Role of Spirituality in Story-Telling:

What role can a person’s faith play in writing quality fiction? If faith is important to life, should it not also play a role in fiction that is true to life? I’ve seen two opposite perspectives on this: (1) writers and readers who say that that the moment a writer mentions faith or has a character express some kind of faith, that automatically makes the work “preachy;” or (2) writers whose whole story seems to be an attempt make a theological point, with the rest of the story being secondary.  Even as a writer with a faith background, I find this second approach disturbing. Anyone can manipulate a story in such a way as to prove some kind of point. What a good fiction writer does is to tell a story that accurately reflects the human condition, excites the reader’s imagination in ways non-fiction often does not, and makes the reader glad they took time to read that book! In such stories, the characters come to life and often lead the writer in a direction he or she never thought the story would go.

            Getting back to that first perspective, however, how can a work of fiction be true to life if avoids referring to faith or characters with a faith perspective? A recent Gallup poll reported that 81% of Americans believe in God and 64% reported they are certain God exists.¹ So, should fiction ignore this reality, and just deal with characters who are non-spiritual?

            My perspective as a writer is that people in general, as well as characters in a work of fiction specifically, wrestle with spiritual issues as they confront the issues which create the dramatic conflicts in the stories they read. Does that mean they end up with all their spiritual questions answered, ready to be “converts” to some religious perspective? No way! But might the character’s story result in a reader examining what role spirituality is playing in their own life story? That is certainly possible, in the same way that reading anyone’s story, can influence how you interpret your own.

            So, here are some fictional stories which I see as illustrating well what role faith can play in a great fictional story:

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. LES MIS is often considered one of the best works of fiction of all time. The characters are drawn exquisitely. It is also a book with so many short little pithy sayings which grab hold of you. You don't want to miss these little trees and leave them hiding in Hugo's great forest. Hugo was best known in France as a poet rather than a novelist, and his prose is often poetry without poetic form. My favorite quotes: “To love another person is to see the face of God,” and “It is nothing to die. It is frightful not to live.” The characters in Victor Hugo’s story, Jean Valjean, Fantine, and Javert, each put themes of redemption, love, and justice into flesh and blood in a way that touches heart and soul.

The Brothers Karamozov by Leo Tolstoy. The Brothers Karamozov is one of the most acclaimed novels in literature. Sigmund Freud called it the “most magnificent novel ever written,” while more recently both Hillary Clinton and Laura Bush have referred to it as their favorite novel. Few novels in all of literature wrestle more with theological themes. Ivan Karamozov tells a story which has become well-known in the history of literature and religious discourse: “The Grand Inquisitor.” It is a story within the story, and it has its own chapter in Dostoyevsky’s book. In the story it is supposed that Christ has come back to Earth during the time of Inquisition. The Grand Inquisitor knows he is Jesus Christ but plans to get rid of him anyway! The reason is that he thinks Christ was wrong to give humankind freedom, because they are too weak and evil to use it responsibly. The Grand Inquisitor sees it as the church’s role to correct this error by forcing people to do right, and he knew Jesus would just try to get in the way of that task. In the story, Dostoyevsky both criticizes the church, but also lays out his own view of humanity – without God, we are all weak and ineffectual in our efforts to do right.

Life of Pi by Yann Martel. Life of Pi audaciously proclaims itself as "a story that will make you believe in God." Well, for some people that is a tall order, but it is a story that testifies to belief in God nonetheless. Pi Patel is a teenager from India. His family owns a zoo in Pondicherry. From an early age he is a religious boy. His family is Hindu, but in his faith exploration, he decides he is also a Christian and then additionally a Muslim. That confuses and frustrates both his family and the religious leaders he seeks for counsel. (I am sure it will also frustrate readers who are exclusivists and who align themselves with one of those three religions.) A delightful scene is when the Catholic priest, the Muslim imam and the Hindu pandit encounter each other one day and find to their surprise that Pi is a disciple of all three! But the three faiths all enrich his spiritual perspective, and all three faiths help him on the treacherous journey that makes up the heart of the book. A great quote:  “’If you stumble at mere believability, what are you living for? Isn’t love hard to believe?...Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer. What is your problem with hard to believe?’

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. An oft asked question is “With all the suffering and evil in the world, how can you believe in a loving God?” Often this is asked by people who have experienced such suffering themselves.  Their Eyes Were Watching God was written by an African-American woman in the 1930’s. I’m not an expert, but I suspect that an African-American woman living in the 1930’s probably knew something about suffering. It is one of the most widely-read novels by an African-American author. Alice Walker regards it as more important to her than any other work. The novel is not a rose-colored-glasses apologetic for God. Like the biblical book of Job, this novel is quite adept at raising the questions. The central character Janie Crawford not only experiences the pain of racism, but also the load which came with being a black woman. Racism of blacks against blacks, and oppression of black women by black men is part of Janie’s suffering. Her first two husbands treat her like a possession and a slave. Only with her third husband, Tea Cake, does she find someone who treats her as a precious human being. Like Job, Hurston is not averse to questioning whether God is being unduly cruel to people. The title of the book comes from a time when Janie and Tea Cake are facing a devastating hurricane down in Florida: “They sat in company with the others in other shanties, their eyes straining against the crude walls and their souls asking if [God] meant to measure their puny might against His. They seemed to be staring at the dark, but their eyes were watching God.”

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. In Sue Monk Kidd’s debut novel, The Secret Life of Bees, we meet Lily Owens, a young adolescent girl who has had a troubled life. Her mother died while trying to leave Lily’s abusive father, and we later find that Lily herself, though quite young, had an accidental role in that death. Lily’s father T. Ray vents all his anger on Lily and uses sadistic disciplinary techniques to try to break her spirit. Lily longs for his love, but with little positive response. The worst suffering comes for Lily when she discovers that her mother had fled from her side to permanently escape her father. What had hurt so badly was the realization that her mother had left Lily behind. The feeling of rejection by her mother, especially in light of how she had been abused by her father, was overwhelming. But she finds a new family, a family headed by a large black woman named August Boatwright. Through this woman and her family she finds a new belief in a kinder, gentler God, which helps her make it through. Toward the end of the book Lily ponders the question, "If you could have one miracle from the Bible happen to you, what would it be?" Her answer is "getting raised from the dead." As incredible as it might seem, I think that is exactly the miracle she finds. She finds new life in a new family, a new view of God, and a new forgiveness of herself and others. This forgiveness is not idyllic but has just enough touch of realism. Looking at her mother’s picture, she says, “I guess I have forgiven us both, although sometimes in the night my dreams will take me back to the sadness, and I have to wake up and forgive us again.” In that forgiveness she finds life.

Hey, this was a long blog post! But there are more I could have referenced. What other works of fiction might you add?

1.      How Many Americans Believe in God?