So, I started thinking that a few of my posts might come across as "hating" on mythology, so I figured I will talk about mythology.
Some might argue that we as Christians shouldn't take anything "not of God" and incorporate it into our "Christian stuff". I definitely understand that train of thought, after all, we don't want to allow any spiritual attacks in our lives because of something that has been "given over to Satan", right. There are other's who don't seem to even think about the spiritual aspect of our world, and it doesn't bother them at all to use something "given over to Satan". Then there are people that fall everywhere in between these two extremes. Well, I am one of those middle ground people. I understand the spiritual attachment items and ideas may have with them, however I also believe that the Christian is infinitely more powerful than them. I don't begin to understand the spiritual warfare part of this, so I'm not even going to touch that subject in this post. What I will be talking about is my belief on pagan mythology.
So, my belief on pagan mythology (aside from the fact that I seem to bash it a lot in "Christian" novels) is that I absolutely love mythology and think it is a great thing. Mythology is the ancient version of short stories and the creativity in mythology is astounding. Someone had to come up with entire worlds, story lines, characters, and everything that we writers do. I love mythology, mainly because it falls closer to the fantasy genre, and fantasy is my favorite. Though, mythology is technically it's own genre, I would label it fantasy. From what I understand, the official definition of mythology has something to do with origin of creation, morality, and even gods and goddesses. I actually enjoy mythological stories. Though some seem silly, they all have extreme creativity in them. Think about it....writers employ the same ideas when writing novels, especially fantasy and sci-fi. We create entire worlds and universes. We create beings and men (and women) with histories of their own. We create story lines, villains, and monsters. We may incorporate the idea of gods and creation as well....even if it isn't meant to be taken as "literal" like mythology may have been.
Mythology, I think is a wonderful world of imagination, and though I have "bashed" it in previous posts, I do so enjoy all of the wonderful imagined creatures created, and the various "worlds" created where the "gods" and "goddesses" dwell: underworlds and heavenly realms. They all make for wonderful stories. And that is all they are, stories. Stories that stimulate the imagination....sure they may have originally been a "tool of Satan" to keep us from the truth, but I give them no power, and I know mythology to be a farce, so .... no big deal....and YES....it is just fine to incorporate mythological characters into "Christian" fiction.
Hope you enjoyed this read.