Robin Layne's Blog: From the Red, Read Robin - Posts Tagged "christianity"

I wrote the following article for “Robin’s Nest,” my web domain of “Den of Insanity” (later called “Artisan’s Republic”) many years ago. I have made just a few changes to update the progress of the manuscripts in progress. Today the issue it discusses is more pertinent than ever. Picture, if you will, a mob of villagers armed with torches and pitchforks, chasing a “monster” down in the dark of the night. The monster? A writer of fiction.

The writer takes a stand in front of the old, creaking windmill. This is what she says—or tries to, before they cast her down from her pedestal and burn her to death:

Some of my Christian friends don't seem to understand what I am doing in writing my AVS fiction series. It's true we say people don't understand us if they disagree with us, but most of the people who disapprove of my writing about vampires haven't even heard me explain my story and its purpose, much less read a word of it. All they have to do is hear the word “vampire,” and they think I'm doing something terrible. One of them went so far as to inform me, “Don't you know God doesn't want you to write about vampires?” It's interesting that she knows better than I do what God wants me to do, especially when I have been working on this story for years.

Why do I care what people think? These people are my brothers and sisters in the faith. I need their prayers and encouragement over a work whose main idea, I believe, was inspired by the Lord himself. It's hard enough that this is a crossover novel that may be hard to place with a publisher. I need all the moral support I can get. And I love talking about my writing because, second to God Himself, it is my greatest passion.

It has been hard having my various subject matters rejected by fellow Christians over the years, anyway. Fantasy? No, it has to be realistic. Romance? That's naughty. Do any characters cuss? Do any characters have sex? Even think or talk about sex? Then forget it! Some people—not all—are quick to condemn everything they possibly can. They seem to think it is their ministry to discourage people like me.

My AVS series has a few scattered cuss words in the mouths of my characters. Shocked? I cuss myself sometimes, mostly when I'm really angry. God hasn't hit me with a lightning bolt yet. I know that doesn't prove He approves, but I just don't feel it's such a terrible sin to let each character talk in the way that is natural for him or her. I think it would bring more attention to cussing if I censored them each time by always saying “she cursed.” There is a meaning to their words; it's not just cussing for no reason. They are not the kinds of people who cuss all the time so that their words lose meaning. These characters do not start as Christians, but the stories do have a Christian message. When a few of my characters get involved sexually, it is not on camera, as it were. By letting them do that, I am also letting them be themselves, not condoning their activities but instead showing some possible consequences. What is wrong with presenting human beings realistically? Because of the existence of vampires in my stories, they are a type of fantasy, but when I write fantasy, I work all the harder to keep all mundane details as mundane as possible, to create the illusion that such an event could really happen and to express the realities of human life.

What is it that bothers many Christians about vampires? I'm not entirely sure. For one thing, I think these people make assumptions. Does my writing glorify evil? No. The Bible speaks of evil, including Satan himself. It doesn't condone evil but instructs in fighting against it. I'm doing the same thing, and in a similar way—through the lives of imperfect people who struggle with difficult issues. Am I claiming vampires are real? No. There are real people who drink blood but not who grow fangs like dogs and live on blood indefinitely. And there are still some people today who believe the undead exist (like Montegue Summers, who wrote books about vampires), but by writing fiction that uses some of these ideas I am not proclaiming my own belief in vampires any more than Tolkien claimed he believed in the reality of elves. My Christian friends may assume that I am trying to copy Anne Rice or some other vampire writer. I couldn't even if I wanted to. I wouldn't be writing this if I didn't think it was a fresh approach for a worthy cause. Least of all, I'm not copying any vampire movies.

Disclaimer: It is possible to dwell upon evil too much, and I have sometimes done so while writing about my vampires. It harmed my mental, spiritual, and even physical health. I learned from that and sought out greater balance in my life. But you can't write a story about the battle between good and evil without some evil in it. And what subject is more worthy than good verses evil?

I didn't think of vampires as a subject for some of my writing until a certain dream suggested a particular story—the one that started it all. But the more I've thought about it, and the more I've researched the subject, I've found many good reasons to write about vampires. This being represents a lot of things that touch us at a deep level, and it can be used to teach us a good deal about life, death, and ourselves.

In Bram Stoker's Dracula, the Count said, “The blood is the life.” This quote comes from the Bible. God required the Israelites to drain the blood out of all their meat and give it to him as an offering. He did not want them to partake of the blood of animals. This prohibition shows the vampire as particularly evil in a tragic way; he is driven to break this law and cannot find sustenance any other way.

Jesus said, “He who has the son has life; he who has not the son has not life.” What was he referring to? He spoke of people who did not believe in him as being “dead in their sins.” He said that to enter the kingdom of God, one had to be “born again,” or “born from above.” If, as he said, the road to life is narrow and the road to destruction wide, most of the human race is spiritually dead. That is not an idea that most people choose to believe. Why, then, are undead creatures such a popular fiction, and why do many act as if vampires are real? Could it be related to some innate sense of not being fully alive?

Traditionally, the vampire is undead. He is a corpse animated either by some altered form of the original soul or by a demon. This is a gruesome counterfeit of the Resurrection. Christ is the first example of what the resurrected righteous will be like in the end. Most people today are probably not aware that God promises a physical existence beyond the grave. But I think we all have a craving for immortality. In a world devoid of belief in an end-time Resurrection, the lure of immortality attracts people to the vampire. Why not let them learn that it is those who are born again spiritually, not those fictional beings who are re-animated supernaturally, who will live forever?

The vampire represents a neediness that takes and never gives. He is appetite run amok... guilt, addiction of any kind, seduction, rape, violence, and murder. He is the bitterness that lingers in the victims of such crimes and urges them to be too much like their abusers. He is the darker side of all of us, something so bad that we sometimes cannot face him except in nightmare or horror story. In the largest application of the idea, vampirism is sin. In a sense, we are all vampires.

If God doesn't want anyone to write about sin, then why did he inspire the Bible?

If all I wrote about was the dark side, from its own point of view, there would be reason to question it. Yet even the noted Christian writer C.S. Lewis' famous novel The Screwtape Letters used a demon's point of view to cleverly communicate Christian truths. My book doesn't even dwell on the darkness as much as his does. Question if you will, but don't come to conclusions based on nothing but the word “vampire.” That would be as shallow as a vampire who shies away from a cross without any knowledge of what the Cross means.

For you readers of “Den of Insanity, Robin's Nest,” I write this. For my Christian friends, I have fallen into a more comfortable tactic. Now if they ask what my story is about, I tell them it's about a teenager who has prophetic dreams. I get glowing encouragement for that. And really, Mary Lodge needs more attention than her enemy, anyway. A commentator on the “Blade” series complained that in other vampire stories the vampire is the most interesting character but always ends up with a stake in the heart. I want my main character to be at least as interesting as her nemesis. People do like Carletta already. Whether she ends up with a stake in her heart is more than I will reveal here. The novels will also reveal more spiritual truths than I have in this article. Hope you will read the books when they’re finished and published! And if these books are not your cup of tea... at least pray for the many people who will develop a relationship with the living God through them. The world is a large and varied place, and God is much bigger. There is no room for fighting against those who serve Him in a little different way from you.

I have been asked to say something about “when I grow up.” It would seem an odd question for someone about to turn 60, but considering I still don’t fill the shoes I envisioned as a child—and still want to—it’s valid today. I’m frustrated that I’m still not a published novelist, especially when I think how much of my childhood was filled with making up long stories I thought back then that I would write. Portions of those books filled my head especially during the hours I tried to fall asleep at night, those “he said”s and “she said”s I no longer recall. I know what some of the themes and even titles of those would-be books were, but they were replaced over time by other book ideas that interested me more.

In a sense I am what I wanted to be, a writer, but to some I will not be considered an author until I publish a novel. I have published some articles and short stories and a surprising number of poems. I am always working on a novel of some sort--have been since my junior high days--but I haven’t completed one to the point I would send it in to a publisher.

I was having a conversation with God about this subject today. He said, “Are you going to write this week about what you want to do, or who you want to be?

That was a profound question. I saw them as two very separate things. A thing I really want to do, write and publish novels, isn’t nearly as important as who I want to be. When I get too sidetracked with activities, I remind myself I’m a human being, not a human doing. Another thing I heard a long time ago from that still small voice is “people are more important than books.” That conviction is one reason I spend a lot of time keeping up my social life and reaching out to people whenever I see a need. I love people because I love God and God loves people and gives me a love for them. The time I spend with people may take time away from my writing, but if people are more important than books, I have no reason to be ashamed that I haven’t had a book finished and published yet.

So exactly what or who do I want to be when I grow up? It’s not an occupation I strive toward, but an identity and a quality. I want to be so filled with the Spirit of God and so surrendered to His will that I’m as much like Jesus as I can become in this lifetime. If I die without publishing a novel, I and some others will be disappointed, but if I die and don’t hear the words from my Lord that I want to hear, I’ll know I’ve disappointed the most important Being in the universe, and, so doing, many in the universe that I could have touched in a positive way. The words I want to hear when I pass on to Heaven are, “Well done, My good and faithful servant!” I want to please the Lord because I love Him, because He’s worthy to be loved and pleased, and because what pleases Him is all that is right and loving. That’s what I really live for! Too many times I miss making this life purpose my first priority and don't look at myself through its lens. The world pressures me to answer the question, “What do you do?” and when they ask it, they mean, “How do you make a living?” (which isn’t even writing) or “What do you spend the most time doing?” or “What do you consider your career?” How many people want to know who I want to be like or who I want to please? I get too shy of admitting what is really most important to me. Although I love writing, it’s not so much an end as a means. I am indeed driven to write, but to write what? Truth and love are the messages I hope to communicate most. People who don’t like fiction don’t understand how fiction can communicate truth or inspire love. But people who love fiction understand. And they, I hope, can come away changed for the better after reading something I’ve written. What I write flows from who I am. That’s as true in a simple text to a friend as it is in the series of novels I hope to complete. Who I am is a lover of God and people, a follower of Jesus Christ. When I grow up, I want to be more deeply in love with Him than ever—and show it!