As a writer of middle-grade fantasy as well as a life-long reader, I have long been conflicted over the use of magic in Christian stories.

As believers and writers, we have no need to employ an external force in order to create the supernatural. We need only use our God-given imaginations. We can create worlds inspired by and ruled by God. He endows His creation with unique characteristics, abilities, powers and culture. If, therefore, we create a story where He has gifted a particular group of people with a supernatural power then the story will naturally point to Him. If we use magic, the story points away from Him.

We can easily do away with the need for magic in our stories by attributing everything our characters possess, including any extraordinary talents or abilities, to gifts of God.

Our worlds need not be any less amazing. On the contrary, since our God created the universe and everything in it, He is capable of blessing our imaginations with the most amazing stories anyone has ever written.

God is capable of rendering anything in our imaginations or outside of them. Cities, worlds, peoples, animals, systems, governments, species, anything we can think of only exists in our minds through the gift of God.

Why then would we take what God has so generously given and attribute it to some nebulous entity who has no concern for us, whose image we do not bear, whose name we do not know?

We are the image bearers of God. Let us reflect Him both in and through our writing.