A Christian Perspective on Authorial Responsibility

[alixtii]

Note that the subject heading reads "a Christian perspective" and not "the Christian perspective." I figure there's at the very least two billion different Christian perspectives on any given subject. However, the authorial responsibility discussion (once again, cf. metafandom) has already produced response on authorial responsibility from explicitly religious positions, both Buddhist and Wiccan Feri. Since I enjoy talking about religion in this journal, I thought I might discuss, as much for my own benefit as anyone else's, how my Christian faith informs my position in the discussion. While I'll use phrases like "Christianity teaches..." I don't claim that Christianity is a stable thing or that "it" teaches the same things to all people; know that my meaning is actually much closer to "According to my interpretation of Christianity...." Of course, Christianity is probably much better known in the English-speaking world than Buddhism or Wicca (eta: or Feri), so a lot of this might seem old hat, but I'll say it anyway. (Also, for those already familiar with my theological moves, I'll be speaking mostly from "within the metaphor.")

All that said, Christianity teaches that words are incredibly powerful things, so much so that Jesus Christ is himself referred to as the Word of God. St. John famously opens his gospel with "In the beginning was the Word [logos], and the Word was with God, and the Word was [a] God," deliberately echoing the writers of the Pentateuch which begins:

In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless wasteland, and darkness covered the abyss, while a mighty wind swept over the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. God saw how good the light was. God called the light "day," and the darkness he called "night." Thus evening came, and morning followed--the first day. [Gn 1:1-5, NAB]

The very act of creation is presented as a verbal command, followed by an act of naming. Christians turn to words, to language for a metaphor for divine power because we recognize the potential power inherent in words. As an Episcopalian, I believe in consubstantiation, that words spoken by a priest can make bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. When I recite the words of the "Our Father"--words given to us by Jesus himself--and those set down by the Council of Nicea in the Creed (not to mention the rest of the mass, really), I am reaffirming my connection with two millenia of Christians. Words are heavy things to Christians.

Okay, but so far we've just been talking about words in general. No one's been denying that words can teach and instruct and persuade and obfuscate and be powerful. It's fiction that the debate is over. That's just made-up stories, right--nothing like divine commands or a metaphor for a person of the Trinity.

The Bible itself in many (some would say most) places composed of fiction; I think even most Biblical "literalists" accept the Song of Solomon as love poetry and not a documented account of actual love affairs in history. It's the rare Christian who would use "It's just fiction!" as an excuse to ignore those parts of Holy Writ entirely. 

But Jesus himself also used fiction to teach, famously--and not all the stories he told are pretty. The Parable of the Good Samaritan [Lk. 25-37] is, essentially, hurt/comfort, no? The Parable of the Rich Fool [Lk 12:16-21] is deathfic. The Parable of the Unforgiving Servant [Mt 18:21-35] involves torture (which is treated as justified within the world of the parable).

But it might be argued, that despite taking on these topics, Jesus was being "responsible" about them. After all, the above parables are all, essentially, morality tales--they use their macabre subjects to teach lessons about how we should live our lives. And that's true, of course. Jesus did indeed preach God's law according to the mandates of the Father. But it must be remember that not everyone who heard Jesus recite his parables had the context to understand them. All three of the synoptic gospel writers (St. Mark, St. Matthew, and St. Luke) make a particular point of this fact in the Parable of the Sower (Mt 13:1-23, Mk 4:1-20, Lk 8.4-15), which must be explained for the disciples away from the crowd. All three evangelists go on to quote (the Greek translation of) Isaiah:

Listen carefully, but you shall not understand! Look intently, but you shall know nothing! [Is 6:9, NAB]

Many times it was only his inner circle of disciples who had that necessary context to understand what Jesus was saying. (Sometimes even they didn't understand.) Within the community, he could be understood to be responsible, but outside that inner circle his words would be reviled and misconstrued. (Can you see the parallel I'm drawing here?)

Jesus knew his stories would be heard by those who did not have the context to understand them, and would be misinterpreted by them--and he was okay with that. He knew he couldn't (well, he could, I suppose, being God and everything, but he wouldn't) control  how every person would understand what he said, but it was important nonetheless to preach for the benefit of those who could understand. And maybe, just maybe, some of those people who lacked the context to understand would be driven to find out that context, and be transformed.

The Bible itself is filled with rape, incest, genocide, slavery--you name it, it's probably in there, sometimes described in glowing terms. And God knows that atrocities have been committed based on what is found within that book. Christians believe, however, that with the grace of God received through the Holy Spirit, we can become responsible readers with the wisdom to be able to use these stories to inspire us to good rather than evil works in his name. Why wouldn't the same be true of fanfiction?

[Yes, I just wrote a Christian defense of incest fic. I love religion.]

Comments

[amyheartssiroc.livejournal.com]

Wow. That's very interesting.

[flamewarrior.livejournal.com]

Thank you, this is wonderful! I'm a Feri witch-in-training myself (followed your link from elfwreck), but I so love what I read you as saying here about the co-responsibility of author and reader in drawing good real life effects from a story, whatever the story's content or tone.

[tacky-tramp.livejournal.com]

*hearts*

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

One of the things I love about religion is the so many different things to which is able to speak.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you liked it.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's it exactly: I really can't agree with the people who want to dump all the work on either the author and the writer; there needs to be a moderate position in between.

[http://users.livejournal.com/peasant_/]

I just wrote a Christian defense of incest fic.

You really did! ♥'s you.

I think this is a brilliant treatment of how the Bible puts the responsibility for interpretation on the reader - and how that is an entirely good thing. So much of what I understand about Christian teaching depends on that idea. Especially because the very way in which the parables are presented inspires us to seek meaning and understanding, so if we don't understand them straight away we can very easily see that we don't understand them and know to go looking for more.

One of the things I love about Christianity is that the older I get, and the more I learn about it, the more sense it makes in a very real human way. And the very fundamental ideas about how the message is transmitted make more sense than anything else.

I'm babbling. I'm basically just here to say great essay.

And also, I didn't know you were Episcopalian. I had the idea you were Catholic. How silly of me. And hopefully without being rude about it, it makes more sense to me that you are Episcopalian, I have sometimes thought some of your ideas were unusual for a Catholic.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

I was only baptized in the last few months, so I have to agree that it makes more sense for me to be Episcopalian, since that was the thought process that went through my mind when I decided to go for baptism. I went to a Catholic high school, and went to Roman Catholic masses all through college (and was even on the executive board of the Catholic community there [I'm in ur church, planning ur events]) but as you say, my ideas didn't fit quite comfortably there.

I'm glad you liked the post.

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

Christians believe, however, that with the grace of God received through the Holy Spirit, we can become responsible readers with the wisdom to be able to use these stories to inspire us to good rather than evil works in his name.

Mmm, interesting. [Though I'm surprised to see radical feminist you using male pronouns for Deity;) ]

(P.S. Your "Buddhist" link doesn't have an actual link. I assume you're referring to umbo's post linked to in elfwreck's post.)

Somewhat unrelatedly, I'm surprised to read that you're a consubstantiast(sp?) given your assertions over on ladyvivien's journal about not being a supernaturalist.

[xanphibian.livejournal.com]

Absolutely fascinating post. Thank you!

[alexseanchai]

metafandom flyby with nothing to say but "wow".

[umbo.livejournal.com]

Interesting post--thanks for the link. I don't have any problem at all with where you're coming from, but I would gently remind you that my personal (and agnostic) practice of Buddhism, which is what I was writing about, is not the same thing as an "explicitly religious" Buddhism. It's also, as you say about your Christian perspective, a single Buddhist perspective, not the Buddhist perspective--while Buddhists in general might agree on things like the Four Noble Truths, there's a huge difference between, say, Tibetan Buddhism and the Engaged Zen of Thich Nhat Hanh's tradition.

Again, I think this is a great post about where you're coming from--just wanted to clarify where I was coming from.

[slashfairy.livejournal.com]

i love YOU !!!!
raised quaker, one of the first things i learned was that it's my responsibility to quietly allow grace to work in me, and to /reach/ for grace when i need it to help me understand something in a responsible way.

manomanoman, i'm sooooo happy you wrote this!!!

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

I don't see consubstantiation--or, for that matter, transubstantiation--as a supernatural claim, as it doesn't make an empirical claim about reality. Since both the Episcopal doctrine (we have doctrine?!) of consubstantiation and the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation recognize that the consecrated sacrament remains in the form of bread and wine while its "substance" changes, and thus registers as bread and wine to all empirical tests, the claim that it is making is not falsifiable. Rather, it is a claim about language and/or what lies beyond language (they are the same thing, really) and thus IMHO falls well within the "proper" realm of religio-philosophic endeavor.

Does that make sense?

Being a Discordian and worshipping God as female in that context makes me much more comfortable with the patriarchal language of more orthodox Christianity. (I've said before that I had to find Goddess in order to find God.) For example, after I recieve Communion anjd return to my pew to kneel, I always make a quick prayer to Goddess in explicitly Discordian language. I still use female pronouns in explicitly Christian contexts when I feel it is appropriate, but I can slip into the patriarchal metaphors as well without feeling guilty. God is our Father just as much as She is our Mother.

Although more than anything else I was just dropping naturally into "churchy" language, I think.

[karathephantom.livejournal.com]

Adding to memories. As a Christian, I've struggled long and hard on this issue, and where I should stand on it, taking my faith into consideration. As much as I tried to convince myself that I needed to take a hard anti-incest stance... It never felt that way, I never felt convicted of that.

This post has gelped me to realize that it is possible to read stories with these themes and get a good, uplifting, moral message from them. A message of love, and hope, and triumph over adversity.(I speak mainly of incest fics in this comment, as I don't read non-con, torture!fic, etc.)

Also, I'd like to note that Abraham and Sarah were half siblings, and the Lord blessed them by making them the parents of his chosen people.

linked from the metafandom

[rhap-chan.livejournal.com]

I'm glad to see someone weighing in on this with both a background in Christianity and fandom. As someone who walks the same steps, I have to say that your essay was amazingly interesting and I might have to show it to some of my friends who "just don't get it."

Fascinating post, thank you!

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

Actually, it's referring to the Holy Spirit as "he" in the Creed that usually has me gritting my teeth.

I'll also use the "Godself" set of pronouns if context calls for it. It really depends on my mood as much as anything else.

[babydraco.livejournal.com]

*claps*

On the same subject, here's a
A quote you might like (http://community.livejournal.com/christianleft/283037.html)


And I don't see why you shouldn't be able to use the bible to defend incest fic, since there's incest fic in it. Not always *nice* or consensual incest (Tamar and her brother, for example, or Lot and his daughters) but where people often fall down is in thinking that because the Bible showed it, that must mean God approved. Not neccessarily, it's just a story about what happened, just like fanfiction on touchy topics is just a story about what happened.

[daegaer.livejournal.com]

This was very interesting!

I've always been partial to Tolkien's idea that as the Good News comes to us in the form of stories, story itself is a redeemed (or at least redeemable) thing that can give a glimpse of what is beyond. "[T]his story has entered History and the primary world; the desire and
aspiration of sub-creation has been raised to the fulfillment of Creation,” as he says in "On Fairy Stories."

There's an interesting article on Tolkien's views here: Catastrophe and Eucatastrophe: Russell and Tolkien on the True Form of Fiction (http://ethicscenter.nd.edu/archives/documents/Toner.pdf) by Christopher H. Toner, and here: Tolkien's Faerie Stories (http://home.comcast.net/~gcaichele/handouts/tolkienfantasy.pdf) by George Aichele. Another, that I haven't yet had a chance to look over is Faith Seeking Fantasy: Tolkien on Fiary Stories (http://dlibrary.acu.edu.au/research/theology/ejournal/Issue3/kelly.htm), by Tony Kelly.

[miriammoules.livejournal.com]

Wow. Fellow Christian here, and I find it interesting about a Christian defence of writing incest.

The rape of Dinah and Lot?'s daughters (the ones who shag him in order to get pregnant) would be good examples of the sort of "irresponsible" writing in other places. However the response to both actions is woven through the entire history of the Judaeo-Christian-Islamic tradition. We cannot escape with just the writing, the consequences are spelt out for us.

Proclaim the gospel, if necessary use words (Francis of Assisi). As Christians we argue for the "living" author, not just a "dead" author. We do not simply read and interpret, but we also have the spirit to guide us. Different stories in the bible have different layers of interpretation, and we need to judge them with reference to God's perceived actions in the here and now.

The body is the temple of the holy spirit - we need a varied spiritual/mental diet in order to be able to see God's presence in the world. It feels as if getting caught up in our own little niches can be spiritually damaging. If our main diet is just incest-fic + bible with side orders of the spiritual vegetables, then we can easily warp our own brains.

The variety within the bible shows us the variety we need - the highbrow lit is as important as the trashy fic, and we need to engage with the darker sides of life. however, reading without reflection is not necessarily a good idea. I have a paper journal, and I note down my responses to stories as I read them, something that comes from studying Ignatius and others. If something is illuminating me, then I keep on, but if I am being dragged down by it I stop and think. "illuminating" is by no means the same as "worthy", because all sorts of things shed light on humanity, and thus the incarnation. However, not all things are good for me - the poison is the dose not the substance itself.

While I believe that a Christian defence of incest-fic can be done, as you have, I don't believe it's the whole story.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

It feels as if getting caught up in our own little niches can be spiritually damaging. If our main diet is just incest-fic + bible with side orders of the spiritual vegetables, then we can easily warp our own brains.

I agree with this (and pretty much everything else you say, even if sometimes I would put the emphasis somewhere else), and it's the main reason I dislike the use of warnings in fandom. Warnings seem to allow the reader to control her reading experience so radically she never has to read anything which challenges her, which really seems to be a shame. Even just within fandom, there's such a wide range of stories, from those written directly from the id-vortex to those which could easily be high-brow lit, and some which do both at the same times.

I'm glad you found the post interesting!

[maygra.livejournal.com]

Picture me standing up and clapping.

I come from (and am still active in) a fairly conservative branch of ECUSA, Anglo-Catholic, and much of what you say and illustrate hear echoes a conversation I had with my parrish priest just few weeks ago, regarding not authorial responsibility but the discussion of how a hugely diverse social and political spectrum can find common ground, and how the responsibility of that falls to each of us -- it does no good to push it off on other people, even within the church. That no one comes to the Word of God in perfect understanding, and it's a little arrogant of us to think we can in or imperfect states.

I don't think I could have put this together at all, much less as well as you did, but I'm very glad you did.

[miriammoules.livejournal.com]

As a fandom, we're quite fragmented. Unlike going into a bookshop where I might browse under "fiction" or even "literary fiction"/"genre fiction" things here are so ridiculously fragmented that to make fic-lists manageable the sorting isn't done by editing/buyers but by the reader.

Genre is quite important - perhaps a better idea would be to have blurbs rather than the tagging.

The call of faith is in part an open-ness to the widest world, that good can come out of the most fucked-up recesses of human nature. God can work through paedophilia, incest, human frailty in its most disgusting forms and bring about His work, but She doesn't solely do so.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

I appreciate the clarification.

I really love thinking about religion, and drawing upon religious themes to make something relevant to the present in a way which challenges popular assumptions, so I really enjoyed following your lead to write this.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

I went to a Friends school for a few years in elementary school. The effect it made is not as visible as the effect that the Catholic high school I went has had, but it served to provide many important foundations nonetheless.