Finding Stillness: Intimacy and Conversion with God

Hello, it's me, Ben Ben Avery. This is Strangers and Aliens, a podcast and video series about the intersection of faith and fantasy, sci-fi, and Christianity.

I've been doing some videos I've been calling "Is It Worth Reading?" where I ask the question, "Is it worth reading?" The first three I did were the Space Trilogy, and then I threw in The Dark Tower as part of C.S. Lewis's Ransom series. I wanted to explore Christian science fiction and ask that question because I know there's not a lot out there, and I know a lot of people complain about how bad Christian literature, science fiction, movies, and comic books are. While there is some truth to some of that, I know there's also some good stuff out there. Usually, if I do this video and ask the question, "Is it worth reading?" more than likely I won't do a video about a book that's not worth reading.

This episode, however, will be a little bit longer than normal because it will also double as an audio podcast episode. It will be released on the Strangers and Aliens podcast feed and also on the YouTube channel and Facebook video. You can go to StrangersAliens.com to find hundreds of episodes about science fiction, pop culture, and Christianity-related topics.

The backstory of this episode is that I wanted to find more Christian science fiction. I was driving to camp, a long road trip by myself. I stopped at a used bookstore and found some neat sci-fi books. That got me thinking, "Where is the other Christian science fiction?" I know there's a lot of newer Christian science fiction, especially as you get into T'eo and some of the other stuff that's out there, but I wanted to find some of the older stuff. I found a couple of books that I thought were interesting and decided to do a video about it.

I've been curious about Christian science fiction from back in the time of C.S. Lewis and J.R. Tolkien. I know there's some stuff, especially like G.K. Chesterton, Charles Williams, and people who flirt with the style of science fantasy or H.P. Lovecraft science horror, but there's not a lot. I haven't done too many deep dives on the internet yet, but the shallow knives I've done, I haven't found much.

This got me thinking about it. I was listening to Out of the Silent Planet, and my mind turned in that direction again. Two days later, I was at camp teaching teens and young adults about Peter and Jesus. While I was there, I was in the room where I was teaching, and there was a bookshelf with a sign that said "Free Books." I looked through the books the previous week and the year before, and I found a devotional book about Christmas and a book about the Ark of the Covenant.

On this bookshelf, I found a book called No Man in Eden. I thought it was either a Christian romance book or some sort of theological book about the Genesis account, the fall of man, and the creation. There was no dust jacket. I picked up a hardcover book and opened it to the copyright page. It was from 1969, and all races were observed. The first thing I noticed was that the scripture quotations were from the Living Psalms and Proverbs, which is one of the early editions of the Living Bible Paraphrase.

At the bottom of the page, it said the author acknowledges his debt to many writers and speakers, including C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Ray Bradbury, Malcolm Cronk, and Jay Kessler. This made me think that the book was not a Christian romance, but rather something about the creation account, which still interested me. C.S. Lewis being an inspiration was not a surprise, as many Christian writers have read him and are indebted to him in some way. J.R.R. Tolkien was the same. Ray Bradbury's name was unexpected, and I had no idea who Malcolm Cronk was. Jay Kessler, however, I believe is involved in higher education in Indiana and was at Taylor University.

The verse page before the title page was from Isaiah 40:26, which reads, "Look up into the heavens. Who created all these stars? As a shepherd leads his sheep, calling each by its pet name and counting them to see that none are lost or strayed, so God does with stars and planets." This made me curious about the scope of the Living Psalms and Proverbs book, as there were other verses in the book that weren't from Psalms and Proverbs. I loved the visual language being used and the idea of God as a shepherd even to the planets and stars. This book had my attention.

The introduction is beyond space opera. I'm just thinking, wait a minute, okay there's something going on here. Now I'm wondering, am I looking at a book that may be about pop culture? I don't know. His introduction says, "If frivolous Buck Rogers space operas kill your desire to read novels of life beyond our world, open your mind for re-evaluation. Although some such writing represents the very drags of verbiage, there are many serious and fascinating works to stretch the mind."

Professor Fred Hoyle, in his introduction to Time Magazine's edition of The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury, says, "The potentiality for the highest form of writing lies in science fiction." Our writer Mira says, "Unfortunately, with a few exceptions such as C.S. Lewis's work, modern science fiction writers both good and bad pick the universe in which God is irrelevant if existent." The science fiction buff generally reads of a mechanistic, many people universe devoid of any relevance whatever to Christ.

Yet of all people who should exalt most beyond the speck of cosmos called Earth, should it not be those who place credence in Daniel's and Ezekiel's, in Isaiah's visions and in Christ's many comments about other worlds?

Then begins a novel, a novel about music journalist David Kohler. I start reading, and as I start reading, I find that—and this is where I'm going to kind of get into the review. That's the background to how I discovered this book and that's the background to why I'm so interested in this book. But I start reading this book, and I read the whole thing because it was—well, is it worth reading? Yes, we'll get to how I qualify that yes later, but I really enjoyed myself reading this book.

I will say this: his debt to Lewis, Tolkien, and Bradbury were very evident. I don't know about this Cronk guy; I don't know his debt to him, and I don't know his debt to Jay Kessler, but his debt to those three writers was very evident. I mean, the Tolkien side of things is not as evident, but there are a couple of moments where the main character is mentioned to be reading J.R. Tolkien. There's a moment where he just needed a rest because of some things that were going on between him and his wife, and he sits down and just reads the Lord of the Rings trilogy. That he just sits down to read it.

The debt to Ray Bradbury I might not have noticed if it hadn't been mentioned, but since it was mentioned, it meant that I was looking for it. So the thing that I did notice was just the interaction between the aliens in this book and the humans. That's right, this is a book about alien visitation; this is a book about alien abduction. This is about a man who is taken to another world. This is a book about a man who is taken to another world that is not affected by sin. This is a book about a man who, when he travels back, passes through a region that is basically hell.

No Man in Eden starts out with a mundane situation, the home life of a newlywed couple. The husband is doing his writing, and the wife is visiting her mother. This is reminiscent of C.S. Lewis' That Hideous Strength, which starts with a fairytale beginning. The protagonist is then taken to another world against his will, similar to Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra. In this unfallen world, he gets to explore what a utopia looks like. When he gets back to earth, he is part of a conflict, which is earthy but not quite mundane. This conflict is between aliens and humans, and it reminds the reader of Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles.

The debt to C.S. Lewis is more obvious, especially if the reader has the Space Trilogy fresh in their mind. In No Man in Eden, the corruption comes from rock and roll. The author does not portray rock and roll as solely evil, but rather that music has power, and the bad guys are using it to present a message to the world. Mira was taking the Space Trilogy and The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis and squishing them together to create his own book, No Man in Eden.

This book is an homage to C.S. Lewis, but it is also of its time, with references to UFOs, UFO abductions, and Look Magazine. It also has a lot of commentary on race relations, with the idea that all men are human, all men are brothers, and all men are equal. Unfortunately, the language used to make this point is outdated and would be avoided by modern readers. When the book was reprinted in the 80s, the title was changed to Escape from the Twisted Planet, which could easily be a part of the series with Out of the Silent Planet and The Tortured Planet.

I can't believe I just read that! There's a couple of times in this book when that happened. He's talking about the sinful nature of current events, the wars that were happening at the time, and making mention of a black and white television. He uses the difference between a black and white television and a color television to illustrate the difference of the clarity of something else. This is not contemporary with C.S. Lewis, but it's definitely doing the thing that C.S. Lewis was doing—science fiction social commentary with a science fiction theological commentary.

The main character, David, is talking with some friends about how he's changed and had these experiences. Carlisle probed, "Did the flying saucers tell you that?" David replied, "No, as a matter of fact, he said it last: 'We're all doomed.'" The girl with Carlisle asked, "Doomed to be blown to bits?" David replied, "Something like that, but we have a chance if we accept all this man tells us and obey him, we won't be destroyed." The girl asked, "What does he tell us to do?" David replied, "Get to know him, open our wills to him." Carlisle then said, "If he controls our wills, he could make us do anything." David rejoined, "Precisely. He'd enable us to live without fear or prejudice if we gave our wills to his power. We discipline ourselves, use sex the way it was intended, treat our bodies." A voice from the side floated in sharply, "Sounds t' me like a lot of hippie ideas."

David Wilson cut in with the introductions and explained, "Kohler here is taunting us with a riddle. The opposite, I assure you," he added, grinning and looking down at the petite blonde snuggled up beside him. The singer commented, "The relics, so to speak," he added, glancing at Clint Edwards who had just joined him. Carlisle stared at them all, moving toward the ballroom where most of the other guests had already assembled, but he never took his gaze from David's eyes.

"Tell me," he asked, "who was the spaceman's reception committee? Were you there?"

David returned his gaze, "No, not too long after his arrival he was murdered."

The girl smiled in mock relief, "If he's dead, we're not doomed after all."

"Oh, I didn't say he was dead, just that he was murdered," David said, "and earthlings are certainly doomed if they're without him."

Clint was growing impatient, "Come on, who are you talking about?" he demanded.

"I refer to the man who made your body and mine, the man who formed the entire earth and every molecule. His name is Jesus Christ," David replied.

So you have the hippie spaceman description of Jesus. Is it an accurate one? Yes, but it definitely feels like something of its time. It definitely feels like one of those things where it's a sermon illustration that's going out, you know, to hippies or whatever.

One of the things, though, is he is doing some things with science fiction ideas that turn into theological ideas as well. And that is that everything that is matter is actually unfallen, and everything that is anti-matter is our universe, so we are anti-matter. We would look at things and say no, we are matter and everything outside of here is anti-matter. But I do like this kind of science fiction description of heaven and of like these different kinds of realms that exist. Is it literal? Is it actual? No, I don't think so, but it does work metaphorically.

And that's why this book kind of works on a level of like the different pilgrimage that you see in different allegorical literature like The Pilgrim's Progress or The Great Divorce. There's a lot more going on here. There's descriptions of unfallen worlds where he is kind of taking this idea. You have the unfallen aliens who can't understand earth. The unfallen worlds seem a little bit boring at first, but then he can't imagine living anywhere else.

This book has as many big ideas as there are. Like That Hideous Strength is ultimately about conversion and about a marriage and about two people who really have to come to terms with who God is and come to terms with who they are in their relationship with each other and in their relationship with God. It spends more time with David than it does with his wife. In fact, his wife has very little to do, unlike That Hideous Strength where Jane has a lot to do and Mark has a lot to do, and they're both.

It is worth reading this book from 1969, which takes a look at aliens. As homework, it is interesting and something you could get a lot out of. As Christian sci-fi homework, it is interesting, but not nearly as strong as the homework answer. As a sci-fi novel, it is kind of worth reading, but there are better things to spend your time with.

This book is similar to the agreement between J.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, where they wrote the books they wanted to read. When the author wrote his own sci-fi novel, he wrote the book he wanted to read.

If you liked this video, please like, subscribe, and join us over at the podcast, Strangers and Aliens. You can find us anywhere, just search for Strangers and Aliens in any of your podcast catchers. Thank you for spending time with me, and I wish you Godspeed in all your travels and whatever you do.