Great news everyone. On Saturday I managed to tell my brother and a few friends I was converting to Catholicism. They were accepting of it. My one friend was rather surprised though because he remembers how nasty I use to be towards Catholics. When I was younger I use to call Catholics every name in the book. I use to say that they sucked. I use to say that they were all greedy. I always use to say that every single Catholic priest was a child molester. Geez...now you know how evil I use to be don't you? Thing is, that's only the beginning. Needless to say, my friends were surprised. One of my other friends also said, "Dang, that's a significant change!" I got to say, I agree with him.
With my progress out of the way, I'm going to discuss something regarding my stories. I'm not sure if this has ever crossed any of your minds, but I thought, "I wonder what my readers think will happen to my stories now that I am a Catholic?" Some of you may expect that there wouldn't be a significant change. That is quite contrary. There's such a significant change that I can barely describe it. But I'll try anyway.
Two of my major fics I deleted as a result of my conversion to Catholicism. They are:
The Star Is Falling- a Star Wars fanfiction that was based in the Force Unleashed universe. It was my idea of what the third story would be like. I decided to delete it because of the mentioning of Galen and Juno having sex before marriage being portrayed in a positive light. (Which I didn't agree with deep down anyway but I was going through a stage of rebellion during the time I was writing it.) While I do plan on putting this story back up, I'm not sure when.
The Lion's Materials- A Narnia/His Dark Materials (a.k.a Golden Compass) crossover. Now that I'm a Catholic, whenever I read through that I can't help but feel sick. Especially because of my derailing of the Catholic faith and making it sound like a repressive association seeking to control the entire world. I no longer believe this. Thus, this is the reason why I deleted it. Besides, I found it was horribly written anyway.
These stories won't be effected as much by my conversion:
The Fall of Narnia- I thank God that I didn't a specific denomination in mind when I was plotting this story. While Henry's conversion to Christianity wasn't intended to be the main focus of the story at first, it became such as soon as I started writing. I'm glad that I didn't keep a specific denomination in mind. This way, I can have Henry start his road down to Catholicism.
That Was Romance, This Is True Love- A telling of how Caspian and Liliandil fell in love after the movie-verse VDT and how Caspian abandoned his love for Susan. This wasn't really suppose to be a major Christian piece either, but you can definitely see the Christian elements behind it.
Narnia Characters Speak Out- There shouldn't be much of an effect on this story either. Though I'm going to figure out a reason why there are some Protestants in Aslan's Country. (As a member of the Catholic Church, I do not deny we believe that it is our faith and our good deeds that get us to Heaven. We do not claim that Protestants, Orthodox, and non-denominationals won't make it to Heaven. But we don't claim that they do either.) Along with a few people who were Pagans. Though I don't think this should be too hard.
Other:
The Final Showdown- Another Narnia/His Dark Material crossover that I'm co-writing with BookObsesserNumberOne and Anya. To be honest, I'm not too sure where this is going to go now that I am a Catholic. I'm hoping that we can at least make it to where we can finish it. After that, I don't plan on doing any Narnia/His Dark Material crossovers. In fact, I'm not even certain if I'll have anything to do with His Dark Materials anymore beens because that story is relatively anti-Catholic (though it targets all religion in general, it focuses on Catholicism).
Just thought I let you know on the status of my stories.
God bless,
WriterFreak
Hey Writerbro! I'm glad you've been praying about things, and seeking answers from God. :) I have never had anything against Catholics, and I actually have lots of friends who are Catholics. Although I don't fully understand why being non-denominational was a problem for you, I'm 100% supportive of your decision. I agree that the element in the Star Wars fic wasn't quite right. And I'm glad that you've found wisdom about the other things as well. I hope you've been doing well, and I'm keeping you in my prayers. :D Hope to catch you around TLC soon!
ReplyDelete~Autumn a.k.a. Jill Veila
I wouldn't write the star wars fan-fic anyway.
ReplyDeleteI'm not Catholic, but I think if you have faith without actions, or actions without faith, you wont get to heaven. Unless of course, you convert on your deathbed or you die before you could understand Christianity.
I agree with Autumn, I am non-denominational. It isn't for everyone, but it is for me. I used to be Anabaptist (yeah...I'd rather not talk about that..), and when I was, I was strictly against any other denomination. Which is NOT a Christ-like spirit. Now, as a non-denomination, I don't have any baggage to any other christain.
Be you Catholic, Baptist, Anabaptist, you name it, I consider you my brother in Christ.
☺ Best Wishes and prayers.
Hey Wilf. I think your faith should always influence your stories, not necessarily in an overt way, but at least in spirit. That is what Tolkien and Lewis did.
ReplyDeleteI know it is important to you at this point in your life, but making the Fall of Narnia focus explicitly on Henry's conversion to Catholicism might detract from it. It will make it a very clearly autobiographical story for everyone who knows you, and though it's hard to explain exactly why I say this, I think that could make it seem less authentic. You might find yourself wanting to "force" the story to match your experience instead of letting it follow a more natural original direction.
Since it's set in Narnia, a fantasy world; bringing in an "our world"-specific denomination might detract from its fantasy setting. You mentioned that you didn't specify his denomination, and I would suggest you keep it like that. Have it about his conversion to Christianity in general. If he will be finding God through Aslan, make it about his coming to believe in in Christian God in general - the denomination choice (as was the case in your life) will probably only come much later. That's not to say that you shouldn't bring in elements that relate to Catholicism's beliefs about how we come to God, but I don't think you should overtly label him a "Catholic". This is, of course, just my opinion (and badly expressed), so you are welcome to ignore it completely.
I'm glad you mentioned your His Dark Materials fics, I was actually going to ask you about that but hadn't gotten around to it. I was wondering how you could reconcile their blatant negative representation of the Catholic Church with your decision to join. (The little I knew about the books made me feel sick and it wasn't specifically aimed at my denomination - though still at my God).
Anyway, those are my thoughts on the matter. As I said, the truth underlying your faith should always be there and by all means delete the ones that contradict what you believe, but I will also caution you against overtly making it all about your faith - you need to strike a balance.
I leave you with a quote from Tolkien (speaking of problems he had with the King Arthur Legends)
"For another thing: it is involved in, and explicitly contains the Christian religion. For reasons which I will not elaborate, that seems to me fatal. Myth and fairy-story must, as all art, contain in solution elements of moral and religious truths (or error), but not explicit, not in the known form of the primary "real" world.
Wilf, I had no idea of your conversion to Catholicism, (Just missing a few months of Lions Call will cut me off from any happenings.)
ReplyDeleteI although a non-denominational Christian, respect your choice of denomination. I have nothing against Catholics, many people I know are Catholics. My parents do not approve of many things the Catholic Church does, but they are very Protestant in their way of thinking. Catholicism is after all the original denomination, Protestantism coming hundreds of years later.
I agree with the changing of some of your written (or typed) work as it contradicts what you believe.
I hope that in every way you are blessed and that no matter what people may say,to make you decision sound bad, you take it as nothing, and keep believing what you believe.
I will never think of you any way different then I have always have. A nice, and very inspirational person, I don't think I would even have begun my Fanfic without your help or find The Lions Call for that matter.
Know that you are in my prayers and your decision doesn't change who I think of you in any way.
Your friend and sister in Jesus Christ,
TytoNyctea
Well I admit I've been a bit of a procrastinator about replying to your last few posts. Not because of you, I just needed to pray about some of the things you said. You see I may not agree with your choice of decision, but that doesn't mean I'm going to totally dump you as my friend. In fact, that is one thing I refuse to do. I've had so many "friends" disappear right when I needed them, and I promise you I will not do that.
ReplyDeleteEver since I met you I believed that Jesus was going to do something great through you, and that belief is still very strong. I'm just extremely impatient to see what! Your decision surprised me, but something I find amazing is that when I didn't know what to do with the information, I prayed. Through all this I've learned to lean on Jesus when I'm unsure, and that is a huge accomplishment for me! I'm still praying for you and your family. I hope you received a lot of page views for your birthday.
I linked your blog to mine... Here's a link...
http://imaginationalwonders.blogspot.com/