Speculative Fiction Centre
"The soul sets its own horizon..." --Alexander Dumas
The Dark Ages ended when the Renaissance period of history began. Renaissance means rebirth or revival. The Light returned to a world sunk in ignorance and barbarism. It was both an age of reason and of faith. A complete man was one who fused eclectic elements into his character, a student of all disciplines. He especially reconciled science and faith, finding that they coexisted well in balance, when not abused.
The universe of human experience is a room. How the room works: the mysteries of the air conditioner, the heater, the TV in the corner, the microwave in the kitchen--is science's job to explain. But there is more outside the front door than science can measure. This is the role of faith. The man of faith stands on the threshold. He speaks to one who built the room (God) and gains understanding that science has no way to validate. So, when science tries to go beyond it's scope of competency to talk about what lies beyond the room, faith steps in to set the record straight. There is conflict. This also occurs when faith tries to go beyond its function, trying to prove things needed to be accepted without evidence. (Faith is trust, in the absence of evidence.) When faith and science each do their job, there is no conflict. The room is a happy place.
Unfortunately, this lesson has been lost to the modern world. In our society, faith and science are at war. The hypothesis of evolution is taught as a theory even though it never got past the laws of thermo dynamics to reach validity. The law of entropy directly contradicts evolution, but science refused to admit its error. Desperate to hang on to a prime tenant of the humanist religion, science just made up a new hypothesis to stay blinded, saying natural law no longer had to be universal, it could apply differently to the micro state than the macro state. Darwin recanted Evolution on his death bed, embarrassed to have ever conceived it. The long line of pre-human ancestors have all proven to be hoaxes. So-called Peking Man turned out to be a human skull mixed with pig knuckles. Humanism is so destructive in our society, that basic freedom of religious expression is condemned. Merry Christmas is becoming forbidden. Now you can only say Happy Holidays. Schools can't include Christmas carols in their programs without being sued by some nut job with a lawyer.
Speculative fiction shares this bias. There's more evidence supporting creationism than evolution, however, the writing isn't allowed to reflect this. You're allowed to write a time travel story to go back through time and see evolution at work, but not allowed to go back and show God shaping man from clay and breathing life into him. In the realm of the Gothic, holy water and crucifixes can be used to perform what I call "Christian witchcraft", fighting the devil with his own tools. Ritual has no power. Objects of faith have no power. Only faith itself. But if you try to write a story where a vampire backs away from a child with a guardian angel, or where a man without a cross is protected because of a "born again" relationship to Christ...forget it! In the Gothic story, there is so much obsession with shadow, that the light casting shadows is ignored.
This site is dedicated to quality writing. Stories aren't required to be "religious". But we believe that, the realm of the spirit, is as much part of the speculative process as any other element. We don't believe in ignoring that element. This e-zine wants to be part of the cultural "rebirth" of light, restoring balance. We challenge our contributors to write outside the box, to redefine genres as necessary. In his novel "The Count of Monte Christo", Alexander Dumas has a powerful line..."The soul sets its own horizon." Speculative Fiction should be about creating new horizons and taking readers there.
Lee Garrett
Associate Editor
Speculative Fiction Centre
