Three Tips to Help Families Engage Fantasy for God’s Glory

On my tenth birthday, I received a gift that made me nervous. It was a seven-book set called The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis. Their strange covers bothered me a lot. So did the first book’s title: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

I thought, Whoa, that title has the word “witch.” Those are bad. Should I even read this?

Eventually, I read Lewis’s first Narnia chronicle multiple times, and have long since realized the titular witch was not the story’s heroine. I grew to love Lewis’s “simple” stories, which honored both biblical truth and fantastical imagination.

But what about other fantastical stories that seem new, strange, or harmful to kids?

Five simple questions to ask about popular culture

Every child has unique temptations, fears, and sensitivities. Parents should certainly mind their children’s needs and practice protective caution whenever appropriate. For example, when I was a child, even the Bible-anime series Superbook had “scary parts” that were not sinful, but for me they provoked nightmares and other fears.

As your kids grow, however, they will likely want to take some risks with the stories they enjoy. Imagination is God’s gift that reflects his common grace yet also the idols of human hearts. So we must prepare to join our kids’ popular culture explorations, helping them discern these works and always bringing in the gospel. To explore fantastical worlds, Christians need a biblical world map.

For this vital kingdom work, I’ve found these five questions very helpful. Parents can first ask these on their own as they engage popular culture works. Then, depending on your child’s age and ability, you can work these questions into conversations:

1. What is the story?
2. What is the moral and imaginary world?
3. What is good, true, and beautiful in this world (common grace)?
4. What is false and idolatrous in this world?
5. How is Jesus the true answer to this story’s hopes?

Fantastical stories pose unique challenges for these conversations. This is especially true if parents are less familiar with dragons, spaceships, or creepy creatures, or have special concerns about this genre’s spiritual nature.

These three tips can also help your family explore fantasy, sci-fi, and beyond.

1. Ask: Let’s think about the heroes. How are they like or unlike Jesus?

Not all fantastical stories have easily identifiable heroes, but most do. As you explore, ask your children: Whom does the story present as heroes? How do these heroes fight, fail, and win? Who are the “unsung” heroes?

Finally, ask: How are these heroes like or unlike the true hero, Jesus Christ?

For example, in superhero tales, Superman’s origin story and adaptations often reflect Jesus. The 2013 film Man of Steel embraces these parallels. It even showed our hero preparing to surrender to his enemy, while sitting before a stained-glass window that portrayed Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. Similarly, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe portrays C. S. Lewis’s Christ-figure, Aslan the lion.

Still, if we only compare popular heroes to Jesus, we may stop too soon. We may miss a story’s other ideas (or idols!). Or we may give kids the notion that any story with a Jesus-like hero is a simple “Christian” tool for teaching morality.

That’s why we must keep fictional heroes in perspective. In a culture with so much Judeo-Christian heritage, of course non-Christian creators will borrow from the gospel to improve their own stories. But these fictional heroes have many flaws. In their own universes, they struggle to fit in. And they can’t save us in reality!

2. See the story’s heroes, villains, and others in light of real people.

The best stories do not go wild making characters as “other-worldly” as they can. Instead, they present imaginary people—or other creatures—so that we can follow their journeys and think, “That imaginary person is like me, or someone I know.”

Heroes and good guys

In these characters, we may see reflections of Jesus, but first we may recognize reflections of us. In Jesus, we fight our old natures, yet are sainted “Christ-figures.” After all, followers of Jesus are Christ-ians. We are the original true-life “Christ-figures.” This means we are one degree removed from our Hero, and our fantasy heroes are one degree further. So we needn’t only see heroes such as Superman and Harry Potter as Christ-figures. We can also consider them as Christian-figures.

What about villains?

In fantasy’s mirrors, we spy exaggerated reflections of real-world evils. For example, Disney’s Tangled (2010) imagines Rapunzel’s evil guardian, Mother Gothel, as a narcissistic “parent” who repeats slogans borrowed from real-world manipulators. Meanwhile, George Lucas wanted viewers of his Star Wars prequels (1999–2005) to compare the future emperor, Senator Palpatine, to then-modern political leaders.

Parents can ask children if stories accurately reflect these evils, or if real-world people are really as evil as a story may wants to suggest they are.

What about characters who are morally mixed-up?

Like many real people, these characters reflect mixes of grace and idolatry. These fantastical figures often appear as bounty hunters, mercenaries, “good witches,” antiheroes, or criminals with hearts of gold. Joss Whedon’s famously cancelled space-frontier series Firefly has a ship-full of such mixed-up folks. So does the manga/anime series One Piece, whose pirate crew includes Sanji, a high-kicking chef who openly lusts for women, yet also protects them with chivalry and honor.

In real life, we often meet similar people whose motives and actions confuse us. Our discernment is limited to what they do and say. Only God knows their hearts.

These “gray areas” call for tough conversations, especially with older children. So let’s carefully explore with children such morally mixed characters. Let us especially challenge older children to practice wisdom about every character and motive.

3. Behold fantastical worlds in light of future and present realities.

Finally, we come to one of the best reasons to explore fantastical stories: these tales remind us of possible realities in God’s promised world to come. Could Jesus someday fulfill our longings for strange planets, fantastic worlds, and epic journeys in reality? Author Randy Alcorn believes Jesus could:

It’s hard for me to believe God made countless cosmic wonders intending that no human eye would ever behold them and that no human should ever sit foot on them. The biblical accounts link mankind so closely with the physical universe and link God’s celestial heavens so closely with the manifestation of his glory that I believe he intends us to explore the new universe.  . . . The worlds of Star Trek, Star Wars, and E.T. are fictional, as are the worlds portrayed throughout the long history of mythology, fantasy, and science fiction. . . . Should it surprise us that God creates the substance of which science fiction, fantasy, and mythology are but shadows?

When we get excited reading Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy or Lewis’s The Chronicles of Narnia, it’s not our sinfulness that arouses that excitement. It’s our God-given hunger for adventure, for new realms and new beings, for new beauties and new knowledge. God has given us a longing for new worlds.

Imagine your family explores a science-fiction story with adventure, new planets, and spaceships. Could these ideas help you share anticipation for similar joys in New Earth, maybe even with these same wonders (except the battles with aliens)? Similarly, could a beloved fantasy tale help us anticipate the miracles and epic quests that await future redeemed kings and queens in God’s new creation?

Until that future, God’s redeemed heroes have a mission in this world: to worship our true epic Hero, Jesus Christ, who slays evil dragons and rescues his people.

Randy Alcorn in his book, Heaven
(Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2004), 431–432.

Other popular cultural stories and songs may reflect portions of Christ’s story. Fantastical tales, however, often reflect the whole good-versus-evil gospel. So in a surprising plot twist, fantastical stories can uniquely serve as Christian parents’ natural allies, to help children engage the world God has called us to serve.

Let’s not ignore or dismiss fantastical stories, but explore them with discernment and biblical thanksgiving to our Author, and teach our children to do the same.

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