The Christian Science Fiction & Fantasy blog tour begins!

Hi Everyone!

Happy Monday to you! Today is the first day of my first Christian Science Fiction & Fantasy (CSFF) Blog Tour. We’re going to skip my regular Monday Motivation post today, but that will be back next week!

The CSFF tour is something I hope to participate in fairly regularly from this point on, as this is a topic that is near and dear to my heart.  My first tastes of Christian science fiction and fantasy were The Chronicles of Narnia and The Seven Sleepers series when I was a kid.  Then I discovered Lord of the Rings and Kathy Tyer’s Firebird series later in high school, and I suddenly had a glimmer of what I could do with my life!

Since this is a blog tour, please hop around and visit the other participants, you can find them in the sidebar .

The focus of this run of the tour is The Realms Thereunder (Ancient Earth Trilogy, Part 1) by Ross Lawhead.

For those of you have read much (or grown up reading) Christian fiction, “Lawhead” is a very familiar name, and Ross is Stephen Lawhead’s son. Ross has a lot to live up to in this book for me, because his father’s Song of Albion series is one of my favorites.

I’ll have a full review of The Realms Thereunder on Wednesday, but for now I want to share a particular paragraph that has really been resonating in my mind since I read it.

This part of the story is from Freya’s point of view (one of the main characters, the other is Daniel). She and Daniel went through an experience when they were young children that plunged them into the unseen, supernatural battle happening in the world, and they’ve been struggling with the outcome of their experiences since that time.

Freya is living in a state of fear, never knowing who or what might come and pull her back into that experience. She is desperate for someone outside of herself to see the true scars she has come away with, but also desperate for the people around her to see the truth of their existence. She doesn’t always know how to express herself without becoming defensive. It’s in the aftermath of one of these frustrating exchanges that we glimpse her thoughts.

Why did she do it? What did it matter what people thought and believed, even if it was a lie? What right did she have to burst the fragile bubble of unreality that people surround themselves with? So long as they live happily, what does it matter if they live a lie? Ignorance is a blessing. It was futile to try and wake people up, so why did she do it?
~ The Realms Thereunder, Chapter 1, Section 3

I think this is the question that every single Christian struggles with when it comes to evangelism, especially in the world today when so many people exist around us with a familiarity of Christianity and its teachings, but they are not willing to even consider it.

Let me say this – it is much easier to NOT be a Christian than it is to be one. When you are not a Christian, you don’t have the burden of knowing that you are responsible for letting other people know that the state of their souls is a very important thing. When you are not a Christian, there are no spiritual battles. There are no demons, no angels, and no sin. You don’t have to see the spiritual forces behind the terrible, evil things happening in the world.

When you are a Christian – one that pursues an active, living, breathing relationship with God, life is not the same. I have wept for friends who know the message and yet still choose not to believe. I have been a victim of spiritual attacks – demons and angels are very real, let me reassure you of that. My brothers and sisters in Christ around the world are under attack – literal, physical, attack. They are dying, at times being martyred for simply whispering the name of Jesus Christ, let alone actually sharing the Gospel. But being a Christian means that there is so much more beauty in life, because there is a purpose for it!

This is why we do it – because there is something about our faith that demands a response. Why would something that doesn’t matter incur such hate among those who don’t believe? I know that not every unbeliever reacts that way, but look at the world around us. Christians who claim a living relationship with God are the targets of such hate, especially by those who claim to be advocates for tolerance.

This is why I write fantasy – because there are spiritual concepts and spiritual truths that are hard to be taken at face value by those who won’t even consider the existence of a spiritual realm. If we can suspend the rules that are ingrained in people in this world (rules that usually spread through fear and falsity), then we can sow truth into hearts that wouldn’t hear it otherwise.

Disclaimer: Through participation in the CSFF Blog Tour, I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.