A new genre for me
OCTOBER 24, 2007 (WEDNESDAY) – I discovered something yesterday, and it’s embarrassing. Obviously it’s something I should have known about many years ago. My discovery proves to me that, “We’re all ignorant, just ignorant about different things.” So, what am I talking about? “Fan fiction.” If I ever heard that phrase before yesterday, I don’t remember it. I ran a web search on it, and the more I found, the more stupid I felt. It’s a very big thing in the literary world. Where have I been?
For fifty-eight years I’ve been letting down my bucket into the well of history and literature, drawing it up with care so that I could douse my pulpit with its refreshing waters, and not once have I ever seen a drop of fan fiction in the bucket. So, color me naïve, stick a dunce cap on my head and stand me in the corner. Even though I have diplomas and degrees, I obviously must have missed some of the classes. Maybe the class discussed it on one of my “daydreaming” days.
Basically, fan fiction seems to be what happens when a reader, viewer or audience member rewrites a story to his own satisfaction. It’s not plagiarism, because he freely acknowledges what he’s doing, and is actually creating something new based on something old. His work is mostly personal for his own purposes, but it passes into another realm when it is published. Then it becomes “fan fiction.”
It seems to me that’s what a lot of people have done for many years with the Bible. In the wake of serious scholarship, a new breed of interpreters has waded in, who not only want to know the truth but also want to create new “truth” to replace what they don’t particularly like. These people are writers, but not scholars. An example is a certain writer I will not name who blurted out in one of his books, “I don’t believe that Jesus ever said, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father but by me (John 14:6).’” This author wrote many wonderful books. On this point, however, he is seriously mistaken. If we handle the Bible in such cavalier fashion, making it say what we want it to say, rewriting it as we go, we may as well announce that the Bible has no authority and cannot be trusted. This man essentially rewrote some Bible verses and turned them into fiction. In a way you might call it, “Fan fiction.”
Some writings are best left alone. You cannot improve on perfection.