Genres: Theology in Historical Fiction
Definition of the Genre
Another one of the most popular and prolific genres in Realistic Christian Fiction is Historical Fiction. A relatively self-explanatory genre, Historical Fiction is defined by long-gone eras, major events from the past, and the cultures of yesteryear. This genre ranges in both audience, historical accuracy, subgenre (Romance, Comedy, and Drama are the leading subgenres), and purpose. Much like Contemporary Fiction, Historical Fiction can be either as true to the source material as possible or it can play fast and loose with reality, adding details, events, and people that never existed. Historical Fiction can also run the gamut between high-stakes adventures or slice-of-life romances, depending on the writer and audience. While it may not be quite as flexible as some of the other Realistic genres, there is still more than enough room for adaptation and creativity.
In some ways, Historical Fiction can be described as “Fantasy for the person who does not like Speculative Fiction”, i.e. Historical Fiction is a less imaginative alternative to Fantasy. There is an innate cultural and situational difference between the reader and the story — especially with Historical Fiction that takes place more than a hundred years in the past (or even fifty years before the audience was born, given the swift technological and cultural changes that have continued to roll across the globe since the Industrial Age). It puts a comfortable distance between the reader and the story without adding complex worldbuilding elements such as magic systems or high technology; it remains grounded, but not fully the reader’s lived reality, which makes it highly appealing to audiences looking for an escape.
The Theology
The biggest benefit of Historical Fiction to the Christian creative is that temporal distance from the audience. Speculative Fiction works in much of the same way, with its more imaginative set-dressing; creating a gulf between the story and the audience. This distance can be one of the most invaluable tools for the Christian creative because of how it works on a psychological level. More detail will be gone into this in an article on Speculative Fiction in a few weeks, but for now think of this distance like a disguise the story is wearing. This disguise allows the story — and its message and morality — to slip into the audience’s minds with less resistance than stories that are more culturally-relevant. This means that a clever creative can include topics that might be convicting or counter-worldly-culture in a way that is less likely to alienate the audience immediately.
The beauty of Historical Fiction is that it can breathe new, storytelling life into Christian heroes, martyrs, and figures from long ago; telling their stories in new ways that reveal additional facets to their testimonies. It can take these Christians from long ago and turn them from two-dimensional figures in a history book to living, breathing, and relatable human beings. While some historical accuracy may go out the window, these kinds of fictional depictions have the potential to carry the original’s testimony and the message of their lives with wonderful accuracy.
Now, even if a piece of Historical Fiction does not include a real figure from history (Christian or otherwise), the cultural context of the story can be used to explore Christianity or Christian themes through different perspectives and lenses. For example, a discussion about idolatry and how that sin is found in every human heart might be easiest to describe in a story about the Roman Empire with it’s pantheon of false gods. Exploring themes of Biblical versus cultural modesty might be easier to explore in the context of post-World War II fashion, where women scandalously started to wear pants to work in the factories; something that gets the reader thinking as almost every woman in Western society today wears pants or even shorts of some kind.
The Pitfalls
The biggest theological pitfall to Historical Fiction is idolizing the past; similar to how Romance often treats the love interest. It paints a picture of bygone days as “good and perfect” which can — and often does — encourage the audience towards discontentment with the time and place that God has put them in. There were obviously periods of peace and rest as well as dark times throughout the past, however, the bulk of human history is filled with relatively normal people living normal lives. They may have worn different clothes or eaten strange foods, but they had hopes, dreams, goods days, bad days, and so on and so forth just like modern humanity. History was not all innocent and pure, and neither was it evil and wicked. The best Historical Fiction strikes a balance of both.
One of the less theological “pitfalls” — but the one most often talked about — is that of historical accuracy. Some claim that historical accuracy is king when it comes to Historical Fiction, others claim that it doesn’t matter as long as the story is good. Some don’t care about historical accuracy for fiction depicting one era of human history, but have a laundry list of objections for media from a different era. It can feel overwhelming to the Christian creative trying to tell a historical story, especially one where research is limited to difficult to get to. However, there is hope for two reasons: the first is that being historically inaccurate is not a sin — unless it’s being done intentionally to undermine the Gospel in some way. Purposefully depicting Jesus, the disciples, the Ancient Israelites, or other Biblical figures in such a way that the good truth of the Gospel is tarnished is wrong; but aside from that there is room for artistic interpretation and personal nuance in Bible-based Historical Fiction. There is even room for incorrect interpretation, so long as it is accidental or comes from misunderstanding.
The other hope is that how historically accurate a story needs to be depends largely on its purpose and audience. If the story is supposed to be a serious, gritty comic book about Napoleon during Waterloo, then historical accuracy is going to weigh more than if the story is supposed to be a light, fluffy rom-com set in Victorian England. The weight is also going to change if the audience is people who live and breathe that era of history or if they are the laymen who enjoy that era, but aren’t necessarily the experts on what kinds of buttons were used for ladies’ boots. Audience age and gender also dictate how important historical accuracy is. The best piece of advice any storyteller looking to work in Historical Fiction is to do thorough research on the intended audience and their preference in historical accuracy.
In the Current Realm
The reasons Historical Fiction is one of the genre powerhouses of the Christian media sphere are similar reasons why Contemporary Fiction is also popular. First of all, the genre is more or less easily digestible by the modern audience. While the cultural context of the characters can be foreign to the audience, the crises, mental and emotional states, and overall struggles faced by the characters are typically more familiar and easy to grasp. Add to this a unique technological stage, costuming aesthetic, and landscape and historical fiction provides an excellent balance between the relatability of modern fiction and the unfamiliarity of speculative fiction. There is also, often, the appeal of “this is our history” where the audience can feel a sense of connection to these figures and people from the past.
Next, Historical Fiction can be somewhat easier to develop visually. Unless it takes place when dinosaurs roamed the earth or there needs to be a CGI recreation of a long-dead city or building, historical fiction can be produced by putting actors in a few costumes and some — comparatively — simple set-dressing. This makes it appealing to modern producers who have more of a budget than necessarily for Contemporary Fiction, but can’t afford something as special or digital effects heavy as most speculative fiction is. This makes it appealing for studios with, perhaps, slightly bigger budgets than they had previously.