On the Supposed Unsuitability of Fairytales for Children

This is a guest post by J. Aleksandr Wootton. It originally appeared on his online writing scrapbook, Smithy of the Written Word, on April 13th, 2012.

J. Aleksandr Wootton is the author of the folktale-based threshold fantasy Fayborn, and of the poetry collection Forgetting: impressions from the millennial borderland. Please check out his writing.

On the Supposed Unsuitability of Fairytales for Children 

 
Shortly after supporting a local library event promoting fairytale literature, the folklore department at Lightfoot College received an animated communication from a very concerned mother regarding, in short, the "unsuitability of fairytales for children." As this seems to be a rather widespread idea (I might mention the Daily Telegraph article of February 12, 2012) as well as an oddly long-lived one, I take the liberty of public response. 


Dear Madame, 

Though you may be unaware of it, your email represents sentiments that have been argued ever since people first began to collect folklore into written volumes. As soon as the stories were set down in writing, they became frozen and lost that greatest attribute of oral storytelling: the ability of the storyteller to adapt the story to her audience. Consequently some writers, including such visionaries as Charles Perrault and Andrew Lang, have contended for permanently revising some or all fairytales to make them "more suitable" for children. 

Additionally there have been, and continue to be, modernists who consider fairytales to be too "unrealistic" or nonsensical, and who have proposed or written new stories to replace them. These new stories take their settings and characters from contemporary, everyday adult life and communicate whatever values and ideas their authors believe are particularly suitable to the times. 

Others -- J. R. R. Tolkien and child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim, for example -- have disagreed with this approach. I will attempt to explain why I myself agree with the latter, and not the former. I have two primary objections. 

Firstly, it seems to me that those who claim to be revising or producing stories "more suitable" to children than the old fairytales are really succeeding only in making stories more acceptable to the adults of the time, with their particular conceptions of what childhood is, or ought to be. And this seems a bit presumptuous. It ignores the reality that those adults (especially in the early days of the movement) were themselves -- as well as their parents, and their parents, and every generation preceding -- raised, as children, on the very same types of folklore they now propose, in their solitary wisdom, to "improve." 

Even Christians, Madame -- with whom you identified yourself in your email, and among whom I hope to be numbered as well -- even Christians throughout the whole world have been, for centuries, brought up on the old "pagan" folklore, without any detriment to their religion; or, if there has been a detriment, it is one that you and I and all who believe with us have inherited. 

The whole contemporary world has been founded on a more or less common folklore. Popular stories disseminated just as thoroughly -- though not as quickly -- in the ancient world as they do in the modern. 

(It is probable, for example, that the "French" story familiar to us as "Cinderella" originated in Southeast Asia. The tale we know as "Beauty and the Beast" evolved from retellings of the Greek myth about Eros and Psyche, which was probably based on older works in its turn. Both the Jews and the Tibetans tell of the Tower of Babel, or a building project quite like it. Etc.) 

Therefore we must ask: What right or standard have we to criticize or reject these stories? 

If the movement you represent, Madame, should ever gain the velocity necessary to escape the gravity of the old folklore, what kind of people should we expect to become? 

You might justly respond, to my second question, "I don't know," and still say, to the first, "the right of a mother who knows her own children, and what is best for them." 

Very well; to that assertion I can make no objection. But I ask you to observe, Madame, that you cannot by that argument make any prescriptions regarding the suitability of fairytales for anyone else's children. And I direct you to my second point. 

It seems to me that the fairytale-content which provokes, in some, the desire to revise or eliminate, is a matter of the details of the stories, rather than their essential structures or themes. It is, in other words, the witches and monsters, the magic and the violence, and the most whimsical or least "natural" elements that spark the controversy, and not what the stories are actually about -- not, that is to say, the essential themes or messages communicated by folklore. 

For these are the messages of the old fairytales: 

• Sorrow is real, and so is joy 
• Joy is freely available to all, just as sorrow comes freely to all, whether rich or poor, and without regard to changes in material fortune 
• The world is fraught with danger, including life-threatening danger, but by being clever (always), honest (as a rule, but with common-sense exceptions), courteous (especially to the elderly, no matter their apparent social station), and kind (to anyone who has obvious need), even a child can succeed where those who seem more qualified have failed. 

I do not have any children of my own; therefore what I am about to say may be hopelessly naïve, and if so I beg you to excuse it, and me, and leave my ideas out of the discussion on those grounds. But at least until the revelation of fatherhood I expect to hold the view I am about to state. 

Namely: The messages of these old fairytales are precisely those that children most need to hear. 

Is it not so? Ought not children be affirmed in the deepest feelings they, along with all people, experience about life? 

Ought they not be taught that material disparity exists, that fortunes do change for better and for worse, and that wealth cannot shield us from knowing sorrow any more than poverty hold us back from realizing joy -- in other words, that possessions are not what matters most? 

Would we not be doing a disservice to them, as well as to society, to let them go on believing that the world is safe; that they will be provided for and achieve worthwhile things even if they should remain stupid, shirk integrity, and ignore courtesy, acting only in self-interest; that they should rely on those stronger, smarter, and more able than themselves to solve their problems? 

It is not the details, the fiction, of the stories that really matter; it is the stories themselves. Nobody that I know of has expressed this idea more elegantly than Neil Gaiman, in his paraphrase of G. K. Chesterton: "fairytales are better than true; not because they tell us that dragons are real, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten." 

What better message for a child to understand from her youth? What better medium than a story? 

If you can change, or re-write, all of the details of objectionable stories while preserving their essential themes, well and good. Hans Christian Anderson did both very well. But if not -- best not throw out that bathwater just yet. 

The story is told by means of its details, and the story should be preserved. There may well be devils in the details (in some stories there most definitely are); but we are told there are devils in the world too, walking about seeking to devour the unwary, and we may certainly hope our children will not be discovered in that group.

Therefore we come to folklore monsters and fairytale violence, which some suggest children should be sheltered from. I do not disagree that stories, and what they contain, should be revealed with discretion. Some stories are beyond the proper grasp of tiny hands, just as some books are above their reading level. But I don't believe that children should never be afraid. 

Of course it's very inconvenient for parents when their child develops an irrational fear of the dark or of the bedroom closet. That struggle, to exert rationality against unwarranted instinct, unfounded imagination, and overblown emotion, lasts long into adulthood. To act on what we know, when what we know is contrary to how we feel, can be just as difficult for adults as for children; but such discipline, at the very core of what it is to be human, must be learned, and somebody must guide children to learn it. If we never knew fear, we have never learned to be brave in order to do what is right -- and what better thing to practice and hone bravery against than an imaginary monster, in the closet or under the bed, before we are confronted by a real one? 

There are other lessons, lost lessons, that might have been communicated to us through the common wisdom of past peoples, had we not given in to this instinct to revise and censor their stories. For example: 

I can't help but wonder whether, if children grew up being told how Cinderella's evil stepsisters cut off their big toes and heels in order to fit their feet into the glass slipper in an attempt to deceive the prince's herald (effectively trying to look like somebody else in order to become somebody else, through dishonest and self-destructive means), we would have such an epidemic of eating disorders and self-harm. 

 I can't help but wonder whether, if entire generations had not forgotten the story of how "simpletons" -- somebody who thought differently than everyone else, someone whose accomplishments were not easily measured by normalized standards -- gained their fortunes through unusual means or by heeding shrewd advice (one even became the crown prince through a cleverly-performed, out-of-the-box comedy act that cheered up a depressed princess), we might not have gotten ourselves into our current factory-inspired, standardized-test-driven educational mess. 

Once upon a time, there was a saying: "it takes a village to raise a child." Whether that was considered so because a well-rounded child needs a diversity of perspectives to grow by, or because parenting is simply too big a job for one or two people to undertake alone, or both, you may take your pick. The fact remains that the old fairytales are the child-rearing stories rigorously selected and rigorously polished by the commonsense and everyday wisdom of a thousand thousand villages in a thousand thousand nations over a thousand thousand years. 

So let us have done, Madame, with this silly notion that my fairytales are unsuitable for your children - as if it were the children who have stood the test of centuries, and need no proving. Say rather, if you must, that your children are unsuitable for my fairytales, and pray do not leave them in that sorry state for long. 

 Sincerely, 

J. Aleksandr Wootton

2013 Book Survey

Here's a silly survey sort of thing, but it gives me a chance to reflect back on some of my reading last year--even though I'm a few days late. A lot of my reading didn't make it on here, because it consisted of articles, poems, short stories, textbook material, and books I read around in for research, but didn't go straight through.

1. Best Book You Read In 2013?

I'm probably supposed to say Hamlet here, but I think I'll go for The Fall of Arthur by J.R.R. Tolkien. The Fall of Arthur is startlingly good; I didn't know Tolkien could write such great poetry, or such a powerful female character, or something so strong outside his Legendarium. You can review my reviews of it via this post.  
Busman's Honeymoon by Dorothy L. Sayers gets second place: it is the best psychological exploration of marriage I've ever read. I wouldn't recommend taking it out of order; read it where it belongs in the Lord Peter Wimsey series, if that's your thing.

2. Book You Were Excited About and Thought You Were Going To Love More But Didn’t?

Ender's Game by Orsen Scott Card. I am a sucker for compelling narrative fiction, especially with a fantasy, sci-fi, or dystopian twist, but this was a creepy story. Eek. 

Also Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor. I adore her stories, but this novel felt like all the darkness of her tales drawn out way too long without any light to relieve the darkness.

3. Most surprising (in a good way!) book of 2013?

A Myth of Shakespeare by Charles Williams. You know how crazy I am about Williams's writing, but that doesn't mean I always find his books easy or even enjoyable to read, especially his early works. This is an early play in verse, and I was prepared for it to be difficult and dry. Not at all! It's a very lively imagined biography of Shakespeare's life, with lots of scenes from Shakespeare's plays cut-and-pasted in. It's quite performable; if you've got connections to a theatre company, I recommend it.

4. Book you read in 2013 that you recommended to people most in 2013?

The Fall of Arthur by J.R.R. Tolkien. I think I'm going to mention this one most in answering these questions.

5. Best series you discovered in 2013?

The Legend of the Redeemer series by Richard Berrigan. It's also the only series I discovered this year, so.

6. Favorite new author you discovered in 2013?

Brenton Dickieson and/or Richard Berrigan (wait, am I allowed to mention friends of mine?). I readA Stone’s Throw Away by Brenton Dickieson and The Legacy of Kings (the first volume of the Legend of the Redeemer series) by Richard Berrigan. Brenton is a fellow Inklings scholar; I had only read his academic work before this, but loved his novel (which he wrote in three days). Richard is a co-worker and member of my local artists' fellowship. Check out Brenton's work on C.S. Lewis on his blog, A Pilgrim in Narnia, and check out Richard's author page on amazon.

7. Best book that was out of your comfort zone or was a new genre for you?

A Theory of Adaptation by Linda Hutcheon. Of course, I read tons of academic stuff (the sorts of things that you don't read cover-to-cover, so they don't get mentioned here), and I've read some film theory and books about particular page-to-screen adaptations, but I hadn't read a work specifically about the theoretical concepts behind translating a book into a movie. I learned a lot from it, and also from The Tolkien Professor's Riddles in the Dark podcast, in which he applies his own theories of adaptation to Peter Jackson's Hobbit films.

8. Most thrilling, unputdownable book in 2013?

Shroud for a Nightingale by P.D. James. All decent murder mysteries are “unputdownable” (don't we have a better word for that?), but this one, while remaining thoughtful, literate, and disturbing, was also compelling enough that I read it in flash.

9. Book You Read In 2013 That You Are Most Likely To Re-Read Next Year?

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. I'll probably reread it again next year before the final installment of Peter Jackson's adaptation. (You can read my reviews of the first two Hobbit films here, here, and here.)

10. Favorite cover of a book you read in 2013?

I read almost every one of these on my Kindle, with the exception of the Williams books, that are all in a nice but fairly boring imprint from Apocryphile Press, the Inklings Heritage Series (I'd better be careful what I say, as I'm scheduled to contribute a book to that series this year!). Even though it's plain, I really loved the cover of The Fall of Arthur.

11. Most memorable character in 2013?

I reread most of the Hornblower books by C. S. Forester this year, and I'll never forget Captain Horatio Hornblower, especially as played by the gorgeous Ioan Gruffudd in the TV adaptations.

I finally met Poirot this year, too, in The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie. I wonder if that's the one that fooled the Doctor?

2. Most beautifully written book read in 2013?

The Fall of Arthur (sorry to sound like a broken record). 
 Measure for Measure and Hamlet by William Shakespeare aren't bad, either (although I think Hamlet is a mess of a play, it's got some good lines....)

13. Book that had the greatest impact on you in 2013?

Not to be boring, but the real answer is The Fall of Arthur again, since I am now practically staking my professional career on my ability to squeeze an academic book out of it.... But That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis also continues to hit me hard, every time I read it. I got to teach it for the first time ever, this past spring, and the result was surprisingly good. I had a classroom full of ordinary Penn State students defending CSL's conservative views of marriage and gender roles. That was unforgettable. 
Speaking of that Humanities class at Penn State, the anthology that we used, Being Human edited by Leon Kass, also had an enormous impact on me. It's a collection of literary selections organized around the “big questions” of life, death, human nature, suffering, and so forth. I found it very powerful.

14. Book you can’t believe you waited UNTIL 2013 to finally read?

The Masque of the Manuscript, The Masque of Perusal, The Masque of the Termination of Copyright, The Silver Stair, Windows of Night, Outlines of Romantic Theology, and the Arthurian Commonplace Book by Charles Williams. I'm supposed to be a Williams scholar, and there are still many of his books I have yet to read straight through. I hope that next year will find me with an even longer, more embarrassing, list of his works that I have finally read.

I guess Ender's Game belongs here, too, because I read the first chapter more than twenty years ago and have been meaning to finish it ever since.

15. Favorite Passage/Quote From A Book You Read In 2013?

Maybe this poem from The Silver Stair:. Sonnet XXXIII, “Of Love's Enemies—The Cross”:

In sight of stretched hands and tormented brows
How should I dare to venture or to win
Love? how draw word from silence to begin
Tremulous utterance of the bridal vows?
Or, as the letter of the law allows,
If so I dared, how keep them without sin,
While through our goings out and comings in
That Sorrow fronts the doorway of our house?


It is the wont of lovers, who delight
In time of shadows and in secrecy,
To linger under summer trees by night.
But on our lips the words fail, and our eyes
Look not to one another: a man dies

In dusk of noon upon a barren tree.

16. Shortest and Longest Book You Read In 2013?

That's a dumb question. Who cares?

17. Book That Had A Scene In It That Had You Reeling And Dying To Talk To Somebody About It?!

Well, since most of the books here that would fit that description were assigned in classes I teach, I did get to talk to somebody about it right away. 1984 by George Orwell and Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton would have fit this category when I first read them, years ago, as would That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis.

There were several startling scenes in She by H. Rider Haggard. Many vivid, visual, gripping scenes. And I haven't found anybody to talk to about it yet.

18. Favorite Relationship From A Book You Read In 2013 (be it romantic, friendship, etc).

That would have to be Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane in Have His Carcase, Gaudy Night, and Busman's Honeymoon by Dorothy L. Sayers. 
I also read something or other by P.G. Wodehouse with Jeeves and Wooster in it; they're hilarious. 
And Tommy and Tuppence from Secret Adversaries by Agatha Christie are, as I said, sparkling. 
There's also a fantastic relationship between the angelic character and the demonic character in the first chapter of The Ball and the Cross by G.K. Chesterton.

19. Favorite Book You Read in 2013 From An Author You’ve Read Previously

I assume you mean that I've read something else by this author before but haven't read this particular book? Well, then The Fall of Arthur by Tolkien, followed by A Myth of Shakespeare by Williams.

20. Best Book You Read In 2013 That You Read Based SOLELY On A Recommendation From Somebody Else:

I don't know about SOLELY (and what's with the caps?); there are many factors that influence anyone's reading: time, energy, cost, availability, connections... But anyway. 
Ender's Game, recommended by Marian (a member of my artist's fellowship).

I also read three biographies of C.S. Lewis, for my job as book review editor of Sehnsucht: the C. S. Lewis Journal. Does that count as a recommendation, when they get sent to me by the publisher to review? I didn't know where else to queeze them in. They are: C. S. Lewis: A Life: Eccentric Genius, Reluctant Prophet by Alistair McGrath, A Life Observed: A Spiritual Biography of C. S. Lewis by Devin Brown, and C. S. Lewis: A Biography of Friendship by Colin Duriez. My review will appear in the next issue of Sehnsucht. In short, McGrath's was excellent, Brown's was good, Duriez's you can skip.

21. Genre You Read The Most From in 2013?

Fantasy.

22. Newest fictional crush from a book you read in 2013?

I don't have one this year. Any recommendations in this category for next year? Peter Dalgliesh is very admirable, and I reread most of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories and novels, but I already had a crush on Sherlock (of course) and my admiration for Dalgliesh is not of the romantic kind.

23. Best 2013 debut you read?

Legacy of Kings in The Legend of the Redeemer series by Richard Berrigan

24. Most vivid world/imagery in a book you read in 2013?

The Hobbit, in the context of the larger legendarium and all the other Tolkien bits and pieces I read this year.

25. Book That Was The Most Fun To Read in 2013?

The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie. It was totally hilarious and such a surprise. It was quite unlike anything I've read by Christie, a side-splittingly funny genre parody. The characters are delightful: they really sparkle.

26. Book That Made You Cry Or Nearly Cry in 2013?

Uh... I'm very hard-hearted. I think I saved all my crying for Doctor Who this year. Plus there were a lot of re-reads, so the initial shock was gone from many of the plots.

27. Book You Read in 2013 That You Think Got Overlooked This Year Or When It Came Out?

Anything by Charles Williams. All his works are under-rated.

Where is "The Hobbit"?

You are invited to attend

Where is "The Hobbit"? 

Sørina Higgins discusses 

TOLKIEN’S FANTASTICAL GEOGRAPHY

Lehigh Carbon Community College (LCCC) 

is hosting an event in preparation for the release of 

 Peter Jackson’s film 

The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug.

Everyone is invited!

* When: Thursday, Dec. 5 at 6:00 p.m.
* Where: LCCC Main Campus, Science Hall (SH) 144.
* What: A lecture, discussion, & quiz game 

about Tolkien’s Legendarium, 

especially his imaginative geography.
* Extra credit may be available for LCCC students 

(ask your professor).
* A suggested donation of $5 will help defray the cost of refreshments and the lecturer’s presentation.
For more information, 

please contact Sørina Higgins at shiggins@lccc.edu.

Guest Post: "How Shall We Then Write?"

How Should We Then Write?
Guest Post by J. Aleksandr Wootton


“We can make people (often) attend to the Christian point of view for half an hour or so; but the moment they have gone away from our lecture or laid down our article, they are plunged back into a world where the opposite position is taken for granted.
 
As long as that situation exists, widespread success is simply impossible.

We must attack the enemy's line of communication. What we want is not more little books about Christianity, but more little books by Christians on other subjects – with their Christianity 'latent'.”


– C.S. Lewis, Christian Apologetics (essay collected in God in the Dock)

In college I had an ethics professor who taught that the foremost task of religious persons is to relate that religion to every aspect of their lives.

Imagine someone's life captured in a series of Venn diagrams: Each circle would represent a different activity or worldview: “work,” “political outlook,” “gym,” “book club,” and so on.

Because the diagrams are made at different points over the course of this person's life, the labels on the circles and their relative positions and degree of overlap vary from diagram to diagram. When arranged chronologically, the circle labeled “religion” first appears on the periphery and barely touches any other circle.

However, as we move forward in time through the diagrams, the “religion” circle moves (we hope!) gradually towards the middle, and as it moves, it also grows to encompass every other circle. As time gets on, religion should come to centrally dominate this person's life and expand to its furthest edges, eventually providing the context that informs and explains everything else about them.

Including what and how they write.

In 2 Peter 3, the writer asks us to consider, in light of the revealed truth of God's Word, what sort of people we ought to be. Francis Schaeffer famously paraphrased the question as How Should We Then Live?

I propose to consider a much smaller piece of that question: How should we then write?

1. With Subtlety

From the opening quote it should be apparent that I do NOT believe that Christians should only write Christian books [i.e. books about Christianity; books meant primarily for Christian audiences]. Just the opposite.

Later in that same essay Lewis asks us to imagine how startling and potentially life-changing it would be to read a physics or biology textbook which inferred, in its conclusions and suppositions, that Hinduism were true.

“It is not the books written in direct defense of Materialism that make the modern man a materialist,” he writes. “It is the materialist assumptions in all the other books.”

Although these remarks were a digression from the main argument of the Christian Apologetics address delivered in 1945, Lewis would soon follow his own advice with The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, published in 1950.

Lewis famously wrote that George MacDonald's fairytales had “baptized his imagination” as a child, laying the foundation for his lifelong love of mythology and for his eventual acceptance of J.R.R. Tolkien's argument that Christianity is the True Myth. In The Chronicles of Narnia Lewis successfully replicated that experience for perhaps thousands of children around the world.

The Narnian allegories are an excellent example of a Christian fairytale. They are subtle enough that even atheists don't worry much about “exposing” children to them, delightful enough to engage those children, and deep enough that readers who return to them later in life glean theological insight during nostalgic enjoyment of great stories well-told.

2. With Discernment

I also do not contend that Christian writing must be saccharine or “squeaky-clean.” I oppose – and, as a reader, do not enjoy – gratuitous violence, sexuality, and crude language in all fiction; quite apart from any moral objection, they make for poor storytelling.

But those who argue from Philippians 4:8 that such things “have no place” in Christian art rely on a simplistic reading of that verse and on ignorance of biblical context. In the original Hebrew, the Old Testament does not shy away from recording earthy “taboo” language when those words appropriately describe the situation. The Prophets unblushingly use near-pornographic hyperbole to call out the idolatry of God's people.

(It's not until later translations that scribes apparently begin to feel a misguided need to protect God's reputation or people by watering down His Word.)

Concerning these things we are called to be both wise and innocent, not delicate and willfully ignorant.

As writers, we must exercise discernment in our portrayals of sin and evil and the moral confusion of fallen people.

As readers, we must exercise discernment regarding the media we consume and recommend, regardless of the author's religious claims.

The Church has received considerable spiritual nourishment from certain pagan authors (Plato is an obvious example). Meanwhile, some Christians are presented with significant stumbling blocks by certain popular Christian authors I could name.

There is no simple, clear, hard-and-fast rule for this. Neither is there no rule at all. “All things are permissible,” Paul writes, “but not all things are profitable.”

Writers and readers should be guided by what is profitable, rather than by what is permissible.

3. With Excellence

Quid frugiferens est? What is profitable?

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn declared in his Nobel lecture that


“The convincingness of a true work of art is completely irrefutable and forces even an opposing heart to surrender.”

He argues that although Relativism has cast considerable doubt on direct claims to Truth and Goodness, Beauty, through art, retains the power to transcend cultural barriers and awaken and provoke humanity towards universal community. Art transmits truth capable of bypassing our cynical intellects to penetrate our spirits directly.

(I urge you to read the full lecture, it's absolutely beautiful.)

We Christian novelists must aspire to literary masters like Solzhenitsyn and Lewis and their peers; anything less is a disservice to our gift, craft, and heritage, not to mention our readers.

(Aspire, by the way, does not mean idly wish for or daydream about; it means to “seek ambitiously”, literally to pursue someone so closely that you “breath upon” them or “pant after” them. As a deer in the wilderness aspires for flowing streams, so my soul aspires for God.)


After twenty years as a committed Communist activist, Douglas Hyde became uneasy about the disconnect between ideology and action manifest in the Soviet Union. In March 1948, he resigned his position as editor of the London Daily Worker, renounced the Communist Party, and converted to Catholicism.


He later wrote Dedication and Leadership, an analysis of the Communist Party's methods and effectiveness in spreading its message, intending that their tactics be put to use for worthier causes – specifically, Christian evangelism. One of the primary tactics he identifies is the mantra that Communists should strive to be the best at their jobs.


“In any profession,” Hyde writes, “you will be respected if you are good at your job – not because you are good at talking about your beliefs. It may be quite irrational, but the fact is that, if you are recognized as being outstanding on one thing, you will be listened to on all sorts of subjects in no way related to it... and so, if you are going to be really effective [for your cause] in your place of work, you must set out to be the best man at your job.”

I suppose there is no need for me to repeat any of the Bible's various exhortations to Christian excellence; they are favorite passages for “Christians in the workplace” sermons. But perhaps the why of it tends to slip from our memories?

Conclusion: True Art

We should not try to boost generic “Christian involvement” in media and the arts, as if any quality of Christian-themed art will have a positive impact on anybody.

We should not suppress boredom or distaste from a misplaced sense of loyalty (although it might be appropriate to do so for other reasons).

We should not support or recommend poor and unworthy art simply because the artists happen to be Christian. It is good they are Christian, but that doesn't automatically make them good artists. All art is craft, and any craft must be learned and practiced and developed.

Tolkien observed, in his Andrew Lang lecture On Fairy-Stories, “We make in our measure and in our derivative mode because we are made: not only made, but made in the image and likeness of a Maker.”

When God looks at what He makes, He says “it is very good.”

In our measure and in our derivative mode, we should be able to say that too.

Only then are we truly imaging our Maker in what we have made.

Only that kind of art does what Solzhenitsyn describes – uses Beauty to communicate Truth Immutable, Morality Universal, and Spirituality Irresistible.

True art, then, must be our ambition and our creed. In aspiring after creative excellence as we relate the Christian faith to our writing, we reveal the refracted Light of the world.

Sehnsucht-forged, our art shall “pierce like swords or burn like cold iron.”

Our works will become islands of joy.

Writing as J. Aleksandr Wootton, Jason M. Smith is the author of the Fayborn novels Her Unwelcome Inheritance, The Eighth Square, and A First or Final Mischief (forthcoming), as well as a poetry collection, Forgetting, due out next month. He can be contacted at www.jackwootton.com.