Ah... The glories of Tor's free e-book offer! Barring works by Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman and George R.R. Marting that I'm re-collecting*, Tor has made so that I will not have to purchase any fiction books for the next several months.~ If you haven't done it already, I encourage you to go to Tor.com and sign up!
Now, the first book in this series of free e-books is Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn. His style has matured since Elantris, and grown much leaner. His imagination, fortunately, seems as alive as ever. Mistborn sets forth a world with the aesthetics of a steampunk novel, the intrigue of a court drama, and the action of a pulp serial. The "magic" of Mistborn's world is unique, and the characters are well-drawn and enticing. It reads like how a good animé should look. In short, I'm enjoying it.
I'm enjoying it despite some odious adherences to Reason #15. But here, I must digress, because while reading Mistborn, and thinking about some of this, I felt it would be a good place to demystify some assumptions that Sanderson has attempted to put forth.
Mistborn's plot centres around the typical "charismatic wunderkind figures out how to overthrow horrible oppressive regime, gets ragtag group of expert criminals together, overthrows regime like he said he would" kind of story. The main protagonist is an unlikely whelp with a mysterious parentage and untapped, tremendous power. (Sounding familiar yet?) Then, within the framework of this conflict, Sanderson makes a parallel to something in this world. It has inquisitors carrying out its work. It's led by a god-man type of figure. It's omnipresent, supports the class-system, destroys other faiths and seeks to squelch even the memories of said faiths...
Yes, you got it – Sanderson not only follows Fantasy clichés I:1 and I:2, but he goes into Sci-Fi cliché II:65a. It's pretty panifully obvious, in everything from how the "Lord Ruler" claims to be the One-True God™ to how there are "inquisitors" who really don't do so much inquisiting as they do tearing people to shreds and being spooky. Sanderson has entered the ranks of virtually every fantasy writer since the genre's inception, and used his work to take broad, violent, pretentious swipes at an effigy of the Christian religion.
The novel's protagonists also provide insight into Sanderson's theological axe. Perhaps most indicative of the heroes' religious suppositions is the class of sages known as the "Keepers". In Mistborn, Keepers are charged with remembering all of the religions and sects that the Lord Ruler wiped out. Why, praytel?
Because the Final Empire [think the Papal states with a more organised police force] can't last forever...that end will come. And when it does...men will wish to return to the beliefs of their fathers. On that day they will look to the Keepers, and on that day we shall return mankind to forgotten truths. (179)
The Keeper here, Sazed, has an interesting notion that didn't really gain much credence (in the West, at least) until the latter end of the twentieth century, but it sets off a few questions in my mind. Has Christianity really been that oppressive? Will letting men go back into a hodgepodge of different tribal beliefs really be all that liberating and good for them? Did Christianity really cause people to forget these beliefs in the first place?
Contrary to what Sanderson puts forth, Christianity hasn't ever really been that good at snuffing out belief systems through use of force. The Keepers reject the Lord Ruler's dogma, defy his Final Empire, and have nearly been hunted to extinction as a consequence. Yet, here in reality, after the Catholic Church having nearly 1000 years of cultural and religious dominance in Western Europe, one has to wonder how we know anything at all about ancient religions.
If one takes a look at Western European mythology, it makes it seem "Steel Ministry" was busy at work doing the Keepers' job.
For instance, how do we know about Norse religion? Sagas and Eddas, right? Well, who wrote those? It turns out that it was a combination of wandering Irish monks and tome-collecting bishops. So much for our violent repression of those beliefs' memory.
And what about Irish mythology? I remember reading in a book over someone's shoulder about how Christianity sapped Irish and Celtic mythology of its strength and destroyed it. There's some truth to this – as Christianity grew more popular in Ireland, Irish mythology incorporated Christian ideals and ideas. People converted their myths to make room for the new faith. Nonetheless, it was still Christian ministers who recorded Irish mythology, and if it were not for Christians writing down those oral traditions as they were in flux, they would have been lost completely. It wasn't the pagans, certainly, who preserved tales of Tuatha de Danaan and the adventures of Cuchulain.
Christians not only preserved Roman and Greek mythology, they celebrated it as a part of their cultural and institutional heritage, even to the harm of their own theology in many cases.
Even other monotheistic religions owe Christian scribes a debt of gratitude; we would not have the ancient Jewish works of the Septuagint, Flavius Josephus or Philo Judaeus if not for Christianity.
And what about early Christian sects, like the Arians, the Gnostics, and others who are so regaled as martyrs for supposedly purer forms of Christianity? Well, we know about Gnostics, Arians and other heretics from the large collections of Christian works that while refuting them, also record them well, thereby preserving their memory and history.
Say what one will about book burnings and witch hunts, but Christianity has never been so destructive, close-minded and insecure as to prompt the formation of Keepers to preserve the memory of lost religions. In fact, Christians did just that, even with the very real threat of pagan revivals right under their noses. Further study into many of these religions also shows that Christianity's repression may have actually been a really good thing!
The parallels Sanderson implies fail on other levels, too. Everything from the marriage of church and state, to a nod towards the authenticity of the Gospel of Thomas, to the overemphasis of the Inquisition shows great ignorance concerning Christian history, theology and biblical scholarship. It's pop-theology at best. Sanderson's casual dismissal of how important the difference between five-hundred and sixty two religions might be shows something else: the truth doesn't seem to matter to him much. This could also explain the backhanded symbolism of the Steel Ministry and the Final Empire.
The truth is that the Christian church has never been as all-powerful or nefarious as its critics would like people to think. Nationalism and economic necessity have done far more to destroy people and religious beliefs alike (Christianity among them!) than the church ever has. Strangely, the New Testament offers hope for transcending nationalist barriers ("There is neither Jew nor Greek...") and provides a moral imperative in loving neighbours and providing charity that, if exercised, would go a long way in eliminating most economic necessity. On the other hand, pagan religion of the ancient world was nothing if not nationalistic, and the emphasis on charity in many (perhaps most) ancient religions was put aside often in favour of a transcendent emphasis^ or in the glorification of martial prowess and physical strength. The weak who could not provide for themselves earned contempt in many of these systems, while the strong and the brutal were considered demigods!
The Christian church has one heck of a spotty history, but propagandistic low blows along the lines of Sanderson's treatment make light of these ills by their exaggeration. They also do little to address the serious insufficiencies of the relativistic worldview, insufficiencies that threaten the nature of truth and belief. Mistborn's depiction of a Christian-like religion is distant enough (and ridiculous enough) to not make me edgy or worried. My respect for Sanderson as a thinker, however, has plummeted. I will finish Mistborn because, like I said, it is a good story. But further than the adventure-fluff that makes my subway ride go by faster, there really isn't much there, though I'm sure Sanderson would like his readers to think there is.
* - I.e. adding them to my own private collection after years of sponging their works from friends' bookshelves.
~ - Granted, I'll probably wind up grabbing a few anyway – that Here There Be Dragons series seems quite promising, and Tosca Lee and John Olson have some titilating releases forthcoming (thank you Brandilyn Collins for the tip on that last one...) And Christian Book Distributors have a few copies left of Van de Saant and David Flusser's work on the Didache, and Saffrai's compendium on Second Temple Literature, but those will be major purchases directed towards furthering my study, and not exactly works to fill my fiction quota.
^ - Gnosticism is doubly guilty of this.
Great essay, Austin. In the beginning, I was a little lost with all the references to things I don't know about. But when you really got going on countering the whole "Christianity is evil" thought, you did about as perfect as perfect can get. The amount of info you bring up on the different priests and monks recording pagan traditions will put anyone to shame in their lack of knowledge. I am very glad I read this post and I'll keep it in my mind whenever I hear about Christianity destroying tribal religions.
Posted by: Fab | 13 March 2008 at 02:44 AM