Is reading fiction a waste of time?
I realized that most of the people who tell me that fiction is a waste of time are people who seem to have a unique view of the Christian life that simply does not correspond to the Bible. The Bible does not refer to man simply as a cognitive process, but as a being that bears the image of God who recognizes the truth not only through categories of syllogisms, but through imagination, beauty, wonder and admiration. Fiction helps shape and sharpen what Russell Kirk called “moral imagination. “
- My friend David Mills.
- Now editor-in-chief of First Things magazine.
- Wrote a brilliant article for Touchstone a few years ago about the role of stories in the formation of children’s moral imagination.
- As he noted.
- Moral instruction is not simply about knowing what is right and what is wrong (although it is also part of it); is to learn to feel affection for certain virtues and revulsion for others.
- A child learns to sympathize with the heroism of Joo.
- The giant bean killer.
- And is repelled by the cruelty of Cinderella’s sisters.
When you think about it, this is how the scriptures work. Proverbs, for example, paint a vivid picture of the terrible tragedy of adultery (Proverbs 7). Jesus not only speaks of God’s forgiveness in an abstract way, but tells a story. , of the prodigal son, designed to shock (a son who spends all his inheritance) and evoke sympathy and identification. The apostles do the same. They use literary and visual language to appeal not only to intellect, but also to consciousness, through imagination. Think of Paul’s language when he says, “Do I suffer the pains of childbirth, until Christ is formed in you?Or the use of literature topics in the New Testament (“the fruit of the Spirit”, etc. ).
Fiction can sometimes, like the story of the prophet Nathan on the lamb of the poor, awaken parts of us that are insensitive, whether out of ignorance, laziness, ina attention or sin. One night, on the way home, I was talking to my 86-year-old grandmother on the phone, she told me the story of the last time she saw my grandfather alive, she told me how she felt the cold on her feet when she changed her socks in the hospital bed, how she looked at her eyes, even though he couldn’t talk She told how, when the nurses told him she had to leave, she kissed him, said she loved him and could feel him staring at him as he left the room for the last time. I knew she’d lost her husband. I know people die. I know about husbands, do you love your wife? (Ephesians 5).
But this story triggered something in me, I had to kiss my wife with special affection when I got home, I had imagined what it would be like to say goodbye to him in this way, and suddenly all the pressures of children’s daily lives, bills, household chores and vacation seemed to be part of a broader context. Fiction often does the same. When I read Leon Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilitch, I gain imaginative sympathy for something I could avoid in the rush of life: what it is, in fact, to die. When I read Wendell Berry’s stories in Henry County, Kentucky I have access to the feeling of what it would be like to face the loss of all family property during the Great Depression of 1929. This type of fiction offers a richer and broader view of human life.
Moreover, I believe that fiction is a great help to those who are called to preach and teach (which, in terms of Christ’s good testimony, is a call to all of us). Fiction helps the Christian learn to speak in a way that navigates between the tedious abstract and the off limits. It also allows you to learn more about human nature. I’ve never had a substance abuse problem. I can’t imagine what kind of things would encourage someone to try meth. Reading life stories in places where this is common and the motivations behind an addict can teach me how to handle these things in a biblical way and see where I have similar idolatry that would be equally incomprehensible to someone else.
I would say that fiction, along with song composition and personal counselling, are constant ways in which God teaches me empathy. It is easy in evangelical Christianity to assume that anyone who opposes or disagrees with us simply has to be verbally evaporated as an enemy to be destroyed. But no false teaching or misleading guide has power until it seems to be right for someone. Jesus teaches us that those who give the disciples to death “will think they are doing God’s will. “Almost everyone feels like the hero of his own personal story.
People don’t consider themselves comic book supervillains, rubbing their hands and planning?The kingdom of Maaaaaaal in the world! Mwa ja ha ha!?. Fiction helps people honestly present these intimate stories that people tell themselves, things they won’t discuss, for example, in a debate or monograph about their way of life. living a life resembles a meaningless universe, but it can also show where it finds those things, such as love and admiration, that can only be fully found in God.
But, in conclusion, isn’t good fiction?Waste of time? For the same reason that good music and good art are not a waste of time, all this is rooted in an infinitely creative God who has chosen his image to be represented by human beings who also believe, culture is still important. This is part of what God told us to do at first, and that he declares to be good, when you appreciate truth and beauty, when you are blessed by the gifts God has given to human beings, you enjoy a universe in which, though fallen, God rejoices and considers it “very good. “