A Christian’s Guide to World-building: Violence, Gore, and the Squeamish Christian
A question was posed to me recently on the topic of violence in Christian fiction and I think it’s a topic that deserves digging into. Anyone who has spent any time looking at Christian reviews on both Christian and secular works of fiction will find the same thing brought up again and again. The average Christian places a lot of importance on how much violence there is and how graphicly it is portrayed. This begs the question, should we as Christian writers portray any kind of violence in our works? If this exists as a concern to our community then it must be a concern to us.
Let’s first talk about moral superiority. This is a trap that all too many Christians fall into. They see violence as inherently wrong, as even sinful. Did not Christ say to turn the other cheek? To give the spare clock when the other is taken away? But let us not be so rigorous that we create rules to make us more righteous than God himself. Jesus was so offended by sin once that he stopped to braid a whip from scratch to whip the transgressors. For the record, this can take anywhere from 4-30+ hours for an experienced braider depending on length and material. Jesus was righteously committed to this act of violence for at least a significant part of the day. When he returns to earth, his Word will be a sword and the hems of his robes will be stained with blood. For any of us to claim violence in any form is inherently evil, we must either ascribe evil to God or else ignore vast sections of scripture. Particularly in the old testament, where god both uses and calls his people to use violence.
Therefore, if we are to approach violence in our work, we must take the time to look at what is appropriate. Obviously, I’m not promoting a “Child’s guide to dealing with blasphemy”, or “Build-your-own-whip-with-Jesus” activity booklet. I would even go so far as to say that while destruction can be biblically appropriate, it is a result of sin. Not sin itself, no more than punishment for crime is unjust because it can only exist in response to transgression. Because our Father God is not vindictive or abusive. He does not seek out violence but rather doles it out as a situationally appropriate response to evil.
As writers, we need to ask ourselves why we are using violence in our fiction.
Is the gore situationally or audience-appropriate? Is it ascribing the use of force in a godly way or celebrating it in diabolic rebellion? So let’s explore some practical applications. They are by no means exhaustive, but I think enough to help you assess scene by scene your intentions, and thus the appropriateness of your delivery. For the purposes of this assessment, I will be separating violence and gore, as one is an act and the other a level of description.
Reasons to use violence
-Contesting Evil
-When accurately portraying God’s righteous wrath
-When exposing the reader to an unfortunate necessity in a fallen world
-When portraying the difference between justice and rebellion
-When a situation calls for the physical defense of life
Reasons to not use violence
-To draw in secular audiences
-To portray violence for any reason as evil (promoting blanket passivity)
-To be “Edgy” or “Envelope-pushing”
Reason to use gore
-To show the horrors of evil
-To show the stark justice deserved by stark depravity
-To show what God endured(s) for salvation
-To portray the reality of the war (both physical and spiritual) we find ourselves in
Reasons to not use gore
-Same reasons found in “To not show violence”
-Elevating the importance of “realism” over “gratuity”
-Spectacle
-To portray violence as glorious, as opposed to a tragic necessity.
As you can see, much like my discussion on intention, you need to have a reason for what you are doing. A careful and nuanced use of violence has the ability to convict the spirit, call to noble defense, and portray the depth of depravity found in a rebellious race. Violence is not something we should be simply squeamish about, or feel morally superior by blanket avoidance. It is our responsibility, yours and mine, to know why we are using it when we do, and what it communicates. As Christian writers, it is our duty to not fill our readers with a relish for violence, but rather soberly portray its situational necessity. Because if we do not acknowledge the terrible reality of a righteous fury, we rob the gospel of its depth. We cannot portray his mercy if we avoid the justice made necessary by a rebellious world.
And then, too, violence is appropriate in Christian writing because what we write should be true on some level (or different levels). And violence is a fact of life for fallen creatures.
I agree completely. Most of the pushback I have seen on the topic usually comes from an overly passive view of Jesus, which is equally unrealistic, given the OT establishment of God’s wrath. It is truly unfortunate, though true nonetheless, that violence has a place in our world. Not evil, and yet not desirable either. my study on the topic has led to some interesting conclusions about a category of activities that God allows because of sin (such as divorce because of the hardness of people’s hearts) that are contrary to God’s intention for his creation.