By Josiah DeGraaf
When you think of the fantasy genre, three things probably quickly come to mind: swords, elves, and magic. And it’s the latter that can become a problem for the Christian writer.
We’ve all probably read, or are at least familiar with, the passages in Leviticus and Deuteronomy that condemn magic and warn God’s people not to practice it. Yet, we’ve also read fantasy novels where magic is used, whether it be in The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, or The Inheritance Cycle. And while perhaps it may be fine to read books with elements that you disagree with, when it comes to what’s okay to write as a Christian, the fantasy writer may have a more difficult problem with this issue.
There are many different positions taken and answers given by Christians on this issue, ranging from those who say any “good magic” in fiction is wrong, to those who say that anything is permissible in a fictional universe. My hope is to not gravitate to either extreme. Given that, in this article, I’d like to present a defense of magic in fantasy from a Christian worldview. I’m not going to try to defend every instance of magic in fiction; rather, I wish to provide a perspective from which magic in fiction can be understood. To do this, I’ll begin by looking at what magic actually is, before moving onto when it may be appropriate to use magic in fiction.
What Is Magic?
While we all know what magic is when we see it, actually defining magic is difficult. Is magic simply a disruption of the natural order? If that’s the case, the question must be asked about what the natural order is. In addition, this definition would also seem to define many of God’s miracles as magic, which may very well make us uneasy.
Another problem arises when we look at how far technology has brought us in the past four hundred years. If you were able to time-travel to the Medieval Ages, and you showed people an object that could listen to someone talking hundreds of miles away, you may very well have been burned at the stake for being a witch, even though it was just a phone.
Often, magic is simply that which we can’t explain; thus, not all magic systems really deal with the supernatural.
Magic is an incredibly broad term that is used to define a whole host of things, from the angelic magic used in Lord of the Rings, to the mismatched group of powers displayed in Harry Potter, to the more systematic and language-based magic utilized in The Inheritance Cycle. We even use it to describe the illusionary tricks a “magician” can do today. While we might use the same word to describe all of this, we’re really describing many different things with the term.
The Biblical Prohibition Against Magic
In order then to understand when it is permissible for a Christian writer to use magic in fiction, it is necessary to understand the Biblical prohibition against magic and why God put it in place.
In 1 Corinthians 10, addressing the Corinthian church about sacrificing to idols, Paul writes that “what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God.” This verse provides a foundation for understanding the type of magic that is condemned in the Bible.
In Deuteronomy 18, we find that one of the primary condemnations of magic is sandwiched between two passages concerning the provision of the Levites, and future prophets that the Lord will raise up. I don’t think that this is a coincidence.
The problem with magic in the Old Testament is that it was a way of rejecting God—it was a refusal to listen to His prophets and go to His speakers of truth in an attempt to seek truth or power apart from the only true and living God. By going to foreign nations, and participating in their magic, the Israelites would have been conducting this within their worship of idols. And, as Paul makes it clear in his letter to the Corinthians, this was really a worship of demons.
God therefore condemned magic because of what it was trying to do: it was trying to understand, and even manipulate the supernatural apart from God. Worse, it was attempting to do so by going to demons for help. This is why there is such a clear distinction, say, between Moses’ act of turning the river to blood, and Pharaoh’s magicians’ similar act. It isn’t just the fact that Moses’ act was more impressive and rampant. It’s that Moses’ miracle was accomplished by the power of God, while the magicians’ act was likely accomplished by the power of demons.
Why then was magic condemned in the Bible? I believe that it is because it was an attempt to manipulate the supernatural through demonic power. It was trying to find a replacement for God’s power. And, in doing so, it was a direct rebellion against God.
How Christian Writers Can Use Magic
How then can we apply this then to magic, and using it in fiction? Given how broad the term “magic” is, and the plethora of systems associated with it, it would be hard to lay down a direct set of rules. However, I believe that most of this application can be answered in this simple question: “What is the power of magic based on?”
Is it based on your story’s version of God, and a type of angelic power, as is the case in The Lord of the Rings? Is it just another way the natural world works, similar to science, as is the case in The Inheritance Cycle? If so, I don’t believe the biblical prohibition applies to this activity.
On the other hand, if your magic is based on a pantheistic force (Star Wars), subverts the natural order of life and death (Abhorsen trilogy), or looks and works very similarly to the magic that the Bible condemns (The Craft), then I’d say we have some problems. And while it may be fine for discerning individuals to read or watch some of these works, there are higher standards set for writers.
Examining this question may require writers to think a bit more about their magic systems. A lot of the times, fantasy writers just create a magic system but don’t really explain how it works, or what it does. In my opinion, this lack of depth or explanation may be part of the reason that this can be a tricky question.
However, by building a legitimate foundation for magic and providing an actual reason for why it works—whether it be channeling the power of your world’s version of God or simply part of the natural laws that He set in place in your world—many of these questions can be easily answered when there’s a clear understanding of the role of magic in your fictional universe.
Summing It Up
Yes, the Bible does condemn magic. But it utilizes a different understanding of the term “magic” than we use today. The appropriateness of magic in fiction therefore depends on what kind of magic is particularly used in the book.
This doesn’t easily answer all of the questions. While one can easily make a new foundation for magic in a completely fictional world, when set in our own world, some, myself included, may question how appropriate it is to tamper with the laws of our own world, given the clear dichotomy given in Scripture between the two uses of the supernatural. But this discussion can only really happen once we understand what magic is and what the Bible is addressing. The magic the Bible addresses is distinct from many of the types of magic presented in many fictional stories today. The Christian writer can therefore be free to include certain types of magic in his writings.
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I found this article highly helpful in my personal writing and reading. i love fantasy stories but have always had a problem with understanding what was okay by Gods rules. Thank you very much! God bless!
Excellent article! This is something I’ve wondered about, and formed some similar (although not nearly as well thought out or expressed) ideas. Two thumbs up.
Excellent summary! As Nattie says, I’ve already arrived to similar conculsions, but having it laid down in such clear terms really helps to think about it.
Excellent explanation, Josiah. One thing that caught my eye was your declaration that “there are higher standards set for writers.” This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, and wondering where “the line” is between what I’m okay with writing and what I’m okay with reading and how those are different. I have personally decided not to write anything I wouldn’t condone/promote, even under the statement that the author does not necessarily agree with everything written and yadda yadda, simply because it could be taken that way, and as a Christian I have a testimony to guard. But as for reading things I don’t agree with…the line is a lot fuzzier, one could say. I know this doesn’t directly pertain to writing, but I’d like to hear some other people’s thoughts on what gives a book redeeming qualities even if it contains things we don’t agree with.
Anyway, wonderful article. Thank you!
Good thoughts. I agree that discerning what exactly is fine to read can be a difficult question. I tend to look at Philippians 4:8 as a good guideline for what makes a book worth reading or a movie worth watching. But it gets messy when you have stories that have a lot of stuff on both sides of the moral spectrum.
For me personally, I tend to draw a distinction between stories that are bad because they have bad morals or arguments (e.g. Star Wars, Asimov’s Foundation series, The Epic of Gilgamesh) and stories that are bad because of unsavory content, whether it be sexual stuff or stories that dwell on darkness more than is necessary or appropriate. The former class, when well-written, I think is fine for mature Christians to read when they’re grappling with the false ideas and rejecting them. They can force us to think more about deeper matters and also help us to understand where different people are coming from. The latter, however, poses more of a problem because there parts of the story are just tempting and lack any redeeming elements.
Where you draw the line I think is dependent a lot on wisdom and individual circumstances. I believe that discerning readers can wade through some of the latter safely if they aren’t dwelling on it or are skipping certain portions of the book. But not every book is worth reading.
For me, it’s easier to look at a particular book and judge whether or not it’s worth reading than to create a general principle to apply to all works, so I’m not sure how helpful this comment has been, but hopefully my above thoughts are somewhat coherent. 🙂
I think they were coherent. 🙂 It’s a good point about the difference between the morals/opinions and just the kind of content in the book or movie. And that makes it more clear how Christians can write books with imperfect characters and still be promoting the kingdom of God. I realized my statement of “I don’t write things I wouldn’t condone/promote” might’ve sounded like I have a cast of perfect characters, which wouldn’t be such a great idea…!
Thanks for your thoughts!
These are good thoughts. I agree, it’s important not to write anything that may seem like you’re saying something that you’re not in “real life.” The writer of The Shack and Eve has used his “fictional” books to try to share his idea of God and the Bible in a way that he seems to be meaning to. It’s a danger to accidently do the same; putting ideas in writing that you don’t think but that makes it look like you do.
Hi!
I usually judge books and movies by the effect that they have on me. I was reading a series that made me think some pretty bad thoughts that wouldn’t go away. I realized that the series didn’t contain any strong redeeming character qualities, just entertainment, so I dropped it. (Also, after watching certain TV shows, I dreamed that I was murdering someone. Needless to say, I’ve dropped those, too, though they don’t seem to affect my friends that way). But then, I also read a novel practically riddled with bad language, that I was mostly able to block out. It had great redeeming character qualities and moral questions. So, I’d say, if it looks like the risk will be greater than the real, character-based reward, don’t read it.
Yes! I definitely appreciate your thoughts here, Megan. That’s a great concise way of putting it and I agree wholeheartedly with your standard. Thanks for sharing!
This was extremely helpful. I had thought kind of this way before, but I wanted to get my ideas straight before I wrote a novel. One thing I wonder about is this: can you have both “good magic” and “bad magic” in a story pleasing to God? Can you have an evil witch or warlock over here fighting the star character and then the star character using good magic against the evil? I’m not sure if I’m going to have religous elements in the story (apart from good characters who do honorable things, that type of thing). Thank you for this article and thank you for this website, I knew the website before but a Google search of “how to have magic in a Christian story” led me to this article. Happy writing!
Hey Levi! Good question!
Short answer:
Yes! Just look at the story of Moses.
Long answer:
If we were going to put the story of Moses in a fantasy story context, one could call Moses a wizard, and the duel he had with the magicians of Pharaoh was an example of “good magic” against “bad magic.” Or how about when Moses parted the Red Sea with his staff? Or made water spring from a rock when he tapped his staff against it (against God’s will even, which I find very very fascinating). I’m sure you can think of many other examples of “good magic” in the Bible.
The hang-up many Christians have though, is with the word “magic” itself, because of the Bible’s clear instruction that witchcraft is sin. They don’t want to call the power of God “magic” even though it is perfect appropriate given our modern definition of the word. It is supernatural and mysterious power that influences events. Instead of “magic” we Christians generally prefer the word “Providence” which I agree is a better word, but we shouldn’t get tangled up in semantics either. It’s important to realize there is a distinction between the “magic” we find in many fantasy novels, and the witchcraft of the Bible.
The dictionary definition of magic is simply, ” the power of apparently influencing the course of events by using mysterious or supernatural forces.” By this definition, Moses was a magician. He had the power of influencing the course of events by using mysterious and supernatural forces. Of course, it wasn’t actually Moses doing these works, but God. But we can’t ignore that Moses was the instrument God used. And then, also described in the Bible is witchcraft. What is the difference? Whereas the good “magic” comes from God, witchcraft is the sin of attempting to gain supernatural power apart from God (1 Samuel 15:23).
So if the “good magic” your good characters are using stems from God, like in Narnia and Lord of The Rings, then it is certainly honorable to God. However, one is trying to paint witchcraft in a good light, supernatural power apart from God, or involving demons or other dark forces, then that of course would be wrong, just as it would be wrong to glorify murder or any other sin.
As far as using both, I used to think it was wrong to have even the appearance of witchcraft in your story. Of course, I ran into problems with this stance, because the Bible depicts witchcraft. So if it is always wrong to depict witchcraft in a story, then the Bible must be wrong for depicting it. Haha! The Bible only says that witchcraft is sin, just like with murder, or lying, and most Christians would agree that depicting these sins can be appropriate in novels (although they must be handled carefully). So I think there can be situations where you can both show good and bad “magic” in a story and have it be honoring to God. I am of course just speaking in general. As with most things, the details matter, and you often can’t say something is always wrong, or always right.
This is also just my opinion. If you haven’t already, study for yourself and see what the Bible really says on the subject of witchcraft and magic. 🙂
I hope this helps!
– Reagan Ramm
[…] https://kingdompen.org/magic-fantasy-and-the-christian-writer/ (On magic, feel free to read this article! […]
Hey, there! This is a great article that you’ve written and it seems to be a way to help Christian writers get into the fantasy genre. Now here’s something that I’d like your take on. I’m a big Star Wars fan and I’ve been reading a lot of Star Wars fanfiction over the past 2 and a half years and I’ve been thinking of doing some of my own Star Wars fanfiction. But of course, as you’ve stated in your article, dealing with mystical power from a pantheistic entity such as the Force can be problematic for a Christian writer. But what if the Force isn’t pantheistic? What if it’s different from how the Jedi and the Sith (both of whom have problematic philosophies anyway) have presented it? What if it’s just a network of mystical energy that God has created to connect the physical part of His creation to the spiritual part, with Force sensitives being able to tap into this energy? What if the Dark Side and the Light Side and whatever gray area exists in between are simply parts of the Force that have been affected by the spiritual energies of God, Satan, their respective spirit armies, and the souls of physical living beings (all organic sentients being descended from Noah and his family), with the darkness being sin that has tainted the Dark Side and the gray area? What if there is a Jedi Order out there that acknowledges and worships the True God and is willing to use the Light Side of the Force (which God dominates the most) to advance His Kingdom, in contrast to the mainstream Jedi Order that uses what they think is the Light Side, but is actually a lighter part of the gray area, to advance their own agenda? What if Anakin Skywalker, who was believed by the mainstream Jedi to be conceived by the Force and the Chosen One of their prophecy, was instead actually the son of the crown prince of a humanoid alien race of powerful, god-like, but God-worshiping Force sensitives, from whom he and his mother were stolen by their enemies while he was still in the womb, his mother’s memories being altered to think that there was no father involved in his conception? How would all that do for a Star Wars fanfiction from a Christian perspective? Please let me know whenever you reply to this comment.
Wow! That actually sounds really cool! I never thought of that. I have always been thinking of stories like this, where a deity (whether specifically God or not necessarily mentioned) created the Force and whatever else. I had a similar philosophy regarding the Animus Dragons in Wings of Fire.
It would be a little hard to get the aliens to be descended from Noah’s family, however. Since this is fiction, they could’ve been created separately, or they could’ve been on the “ark” or whatever it’d be in the Star Wars universe.
I’m late to the party, but still wanted to thank you for writing this article.
I have dwelled on these matters quite a bit and have come up with a few conclusions of my own.
First and foremost I am an avid fantasy reader, but a very discerning one. I agree that a mature Christian should possess the fortitude to read a wide variety of genres situations and be able to critically assess fictional content, within reason. Personally, I draw the line at gratuitous smut and pervasive vulgarity. I am also increasingly sensitive to blasphemous remarks or oaths directed at fictional deities. They may be fictional, but are, in a way, stand-ins for God in an imaginary universe, and as such seeing their name taken in vain bothers me.
I have also come to immediately drop any novel where God’s or Christ’s name is taken in vain through the juxtaposition of curse words and God’s or Christ’s names. You know what I am talking about. It goes beyond calling on God to bring ruing on someone or something, which, while still sinful, does not compare to purposefully besmirching and insulting His name.
Finally, I avoid novels featuring demon summoning and communing, especially when that is the source of a particular character’s powers and the story is set in our world. It seems to me like it’s a common trope in urban fantasy these days, and I find it repulsive. I understand most of these writers are not religious, but to have your hero gain his or her powers that way is inconceivable. I can maybe understand a villain resorting to that kind of practice, but not your hero.
When magic is concerned, I take magic in most fictional worlds to be intrinsic to that world’s natural order, an expansion of that world’s physical makeup, if you will. We have quantum mechanics and gravitational forces, they have fireballs.
You make an EXCELLENT point when you say that as reader we can parse through compromising material and recognize it as such while taking what’s valuable, but that as writers we have a higher responsibility. Well said.
What if the magic in your book was stated to be evil? Do you think that’d be okay?
The “magic” in my stories seems to be science-like. The dragons who’ve inherited this power–such as my character Kestrel in a fanfic I wrote–don’t use spells or communication with any supernatural powers in their “magic;” they just have power over material objects. Any mention of anything similar to witchcraft in my stories–even that of the Harry Potter series, since those use spells–is shunned and condemned by all the “good guy” characters.
I thank you so much for this article. I’ve been wrestling with this topic for a while and I think your article brought me to a conclusion. It isn’t the magic itself, it’s where it comes from and what it is used for. I love to read fantasy novels, but I have come to realize how important it is to have a fine line on what I allow into my mind, and what I strictly stay away from. I want to make sure that I make anything I write following the same standards.
I think I have come to a conclusion. Originally I wanted my story to be based on supernatural rock type gems that are both used by the protagonist and antagonist, only the protagonist uses it for good. I now see that it’s still magic, even then, there were a lot of blank holes in this part of the story about how it works and what it exactly is.
Though I think that it would be alright to have a similar aspect, but have the magic be gifted to the protagonist by “God” (a higher power) and have the antagonist forcefully take control of the power that was not intended for her. I guess I keep thinking back to Lucifer, about how he had what he needed, and was gifted by God. He was FAVORED by God, yet he still wanted more. I can’t help but think that way of my antagonist. I’m still working it out but maybe the antagonist has a very good amount of power and wealth, but because of her greed she wants more.
I was also thinking that this substance could be almost like an outlet of the higher power to connect to his creation (the people). Almost kind of like the word of God. This would mean that the substance can communicate with the holder, giving comfort, guidance, and warning. Though the substance (when your not going against it) will allow you to have free will and listen to it or not. The protagonist would use this to her advantage. This means that she is stronger, wiser, and safer with the help of the substance.
Bringing this into account the antagonist would be the opposite. She would not listen to the power of the substance, only using the power for her own cause. Only problem with her tactic is that the power is not only draining her, but it also is taking control of her. This kind of hints at the fact that Satan want to control you with his dark version of magic. She is also simply less powerful without the help of the substance. She is not powerful enough on her own. (without God)
I know that this is kind of just a brain dump for me right now. XD Tell me what you think I guess.
I’ve a question. I’m going to make story in a different world from ours, and I’m going to make magic based on morality. White magic is basically using powers based on heavenly powers, where black magic is using powers based on evil powers. Is it okay to do that, since I’m a bit concerned. Thank you, and God bless you.