By Hannah Tu

Fiction equals false. That’s the memory aid I learned to distinguish the categories of fiction and non-fiction. That way, whenever I hit the non-fiction shelves in our local library, I knew I was looking in the wrong place. As with many things, life ends up more nuanced than a simple memory aid. We tend to think of truth as being, well… true; juxtaposed with fiction, which is false. But what if fiction is not the opposite of truth, but rather its supplement? What if fiction points us to truth in a way facts can’t?

Fiction is a broad term referring to ideas and concepts based on imagination. In this article, I’ll be using fiction to refer to stories and literature of attested value. I acknowledge that not every book deserves to be read, and that some stories do more harm than good. Nevertheless, there is power in a well-written story: the irresistible pull from our dimension to another. Lands filled with characters we recognize and relate to, but will sadly never pass on the freeway or invite over for dinner. While non-fiction is bound to observable reality, imagination is free to soar beyond the realm of observation to enter a world of its own. From the pages of a fairytale spring new universes, undying lands, magical forests, talking creatures, glorious conquests, shameful defeats, and triumphs against all odds. Fiction speaks to the mind while wooing the heart.

And yet, Christian readers of fairytales are not free to jettison this world. Leland Ryken, professor of English at Wheaton College, articulates this well. “Reading fiction thus presents us with an unexpected paradox. It begins by removing us from actual reality. For people who do not value the reading of fiction, this escape quickly telescopes into a charge of escapism. Rightly considered, though, reading fiction is not a flight from reality but a flight to it. It is a truism that everyday life tends to obscure what is really before us. Even truth becomes a cliché to which we pay scant attention.”

Worthwhile fiction calls us out of our world and then back in — not in the sense of escapism, but as a way of drawing us back to this world through another portal. Just as good art shows us life through the creative interpretation of the eyes, so also good storytelling helps us see the real world through the lens of imagination. Right and wrong are crystallized; actions committed in chapter two receive rewards or punishment by chapter 23. The human arc is played out before us in a few sittings instead of a lifetime. Storytelling restores the wonder back into the mundaneness of life, enlarging our world to perspectives we might never consider or situations we would never experience. Readers of fiction will agree with C.S. Lewis: “He does not despise real woods because he has read of enchanted woods; the reading makes all real woods a little enchanted.”

So how does reading fiction help Christians better participate in this world? First, it helps us see truth more clearly. Through stories, abstract concepts are whittled down to their essence. Jesus himself utilized the power of fiction to illustrate his points. Through his parables, we learn what “loving our neighbor” really means (Luke 10:29-30), or the results of burying talents instead of developing them (Matthew 25:14-30). As Ryken so aptly summarized, “…[R]eading fiction clarifies rather than obscures reality. … Fiction tells the truth in ways nonfiction never could, even as it delights our aesthetic sensibilities in the process.” 

Consider the story undergirding the gospel. Award-winning writer and theologian Frederick Buechner describes it this way: “But the whole point of the fairytale of the Gospel is, of course, that [Jesus] is the king in spite of everything. The frog turns out to be the prince, the ugly duckling the swan, the little gray man who asks for bread the great magician with power of life and death in his hands, and though the steadfast tin soldier falls into the flames, his love turns out to be fireproof. There is no less danger and darkness in the Gospel than there is in the Brothers Grimm, but beyond and above all, there is the joy of it, this tale of light breaking into the world that not even the darkness can overcome.” To be clear, the Bible is not another myth; precisely because it is true, all good works of fiction echo its tune.

Second, fiction revitalizes the wonder, beauty, and mystery of the ordinary. J.R.R. Tolkien, author of “Lord of the Rings,” recalls, “And actually fairy-stories deal largely, or (the better ones) mainly, with simple things … made all the more luminous by their setting. … It was in fairy-stories that I first divined the potency of the words, and the wonder of the things, such as stone, and wood, and iron; tree and grass; house and fire; bread and wine.” When our everyday routines start to flatline, reading fairytales, legends, and even historical dramas restores the sense of wonder back to this mortal earth. Fiction asks us to reconsider the things we take for granted. It gives us a stronger grasp of the realness of this world, training our mind to see beyond the physical world with its minutes and seconds to the larger narrative brimming with angels and demons. It “re-enchants” the ordinary things.

Fiction isn’t the opposite of truth. Rather, it reforges truth into a penetrating blade and suffuses the common with significance. Facts have their roles to play, but so does imagination. Fiction equips the imagination to “see beyond” the here and now. It spurs Christians to more fully participate in the grand story of the cosmos. It challenges us to examine the ordinary through the magic of wonder. Lastly, fiction encourages our hearts to yearn for the conclusion of God’s redemptive arc and the “happily ever after.”

This article originally appeared here.