War Stories

Mike’s stories have appeared in Relief Journal, Forgotten Worlds, Alienskin, and Dragons, Knights and Angels, with articles in The Matthew’s House Project, Relevant Magazine and the forthcoming 316 Journal. He is included in the upcoming Coach’s Midnight Diner anthology and was one of ten authors picked for Infuze Magazine’s Best of 2005 print anthology. Mike is an ordained minister, has led numerous small groups and developed discipleship-training curriculum for several churches. He and his wife Lisa live in Southern California, where they have raised four children. You can visit him at http://www.mikeduran.com/.

By Mike Duran


Betty Williams said she “could kill George Bush.” Sure, she later retracted her comments. But what made them so shocking in the first place was that Betty Williams has won the Nobel Peace Prize.

While killing someone you disagree with is hardly proper – especially for a Nobel laureate peace activist – in the long run, it's much more effective than, say, bludgeoning them with a chorus of “Give Peace a Chance.” In this, Ms. Williams inadvertently discloses the limitations of non-violence.

War may not be the answer, but sometimes it’s the right response. No doubt, peace is an ideal we should all pray for and pursue. Nevertheless, even Scripture says there’s “a time for war” (Eccl. 3:8). Sometimes conflict is essential.

Of course, not all would agree.

Shortly after the 2003 Academy Awards, wherein Peter Jackson's Return of the King , final installment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, garnered eleven statuettes, the peaceniks got to grumbling. Some suggested the blockbuster films send dangerous messages to the world's young people, that they glorify violence and minimize diplomacy, that they justify war – even if the opponents happened to be Orcs and Cave Trolls.

I’m guessing the critics were equally rankled by the climactic battle sequences in 2005’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Whereas Jackson aimed at adults, the Narnia movie aimed at kiddies – which made the sprawling war scenes even more egregious. Still, if Aslan began a round of peace talks with the White Witch instead of sacrificing himself, the story would have surely lost steam.

The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings – both the books and films – appear destined to be conjoined. And for good reason. Both stories are fantasies that involve conflict between good and evil, they were written by friends and contemporaries and, in their own ways, have become cultural landmarks. Of course, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien's worlds were informed by their religion. Yet another often-overlooked factor contributes to the strength of those stories.

Both Lewis and Tolkien were soldiers.

Tolkien was sent to active duty on the Western Front and served in the Lancashire Fusiliers, the most-decorated British unit in the war. After four months in and out of the trenches, he succumbed to “trench fever,” a typhus-like infection common in the insanitary conditions, and was sent back to England. Lewis chose to volunteer for active duty in World War I and served in the British Army, fighting in the muddy trenches of northern France.

It probably goes without saying, but the impact of this war – the clashing of superpowers, the loss of life, the defense of virtue – had tremendous influence upon the stories they would later tell. Of course, I’m not intending to trivialize war or diminish the sacrifices made for land and loved, but to suggest that the richness and transcendence of those stories is due, in part, to the battlefield.

If Tolkien and Lewis had never served with a band of brothers, defended something they loved, been fired upon enemy troops and watched their friends die in combat, Middle-Earth and Narnia would have never been conceived.

This idea – that war is both a reasonable response and ultimately noble – grates on postmodern man for two reasons. First, it implies that some wars are necessary (which rankles pacifists). Second, it implies real Good and Evil (which chafes relativists).

If Tolkien was a pacifist, rather than fight the Orcs, Aragorn would negotiate a land-for-peace deal, use the One Ring to barter with Saruman, and Gandhalf would become a diplomat to Mordor and the Orcian State. If Lewis was a relativist, Edmund would have broken no Moral Law and never needed rescued; Aslan could have spared Himself from dying and Narnia would begin a golden age of tolerance toward witches.

As long as there is real Good and Evil, war is necessary. As long as there is a real Devil, we must stand against him. These are the stakes of all good stories, the necessary components of all great storytelling. Even moreso, they are truisms for life.
Oswald Chambers put it this way:

The old Puritan idea that the devil tempts men had this remarkable effect, it produced the man of iron who fought; the modern idea of blaming his heredity or his circumstances produces the man who succumbs at once.

When we nix ole Scratch, we undermine our own accountability. Instead of girding for battle, modern man is busy navel-gazing and cutting checks to the therapist. Or planning troop withdrawals. Nowadays, the suicide bombers of the world are people we must “understand” not exterminate, and the only real Temptation is the temptation to see things black and white. To postmodern man, the only absolute truth is the belief that there are no absolute truths – a philosophy with its feet planted firmly in mid-air.

Tolkien and Lewis were soldiers and their stories were war stories. The war was physical, it involved armies and armaments. But behind the fray was another War – a war of ideas, a battle for Goodness, Morality and Virtue, which, in the end, was the most important of all battles.

Likewise, the Bible is a book of war and we, “people of the Book,” are engaged in its battle. Whether it’s Orcs or Nazis, Middle Earth or Europe, the armies of Mordor or the martyrs of Islam, some things are worth fighting for. And against. While war may not be the answer, if evil is real, then conflict is inevitable. Correction: It is demanded. Good Christian fiction must embody this struggle in all its facets. And, as such, all of our stories should be War Stories.