Can Fantasy Be Worship?

It's a question I've wrestled with for years, usually late at night when I should be sleeping but I'm instead staring at my manuscript and wondering if what I'm doing actually matters.

I write fantasy (and dabble in other genres). Dragons, magic, invented worlds with their own histories and gods and languages. And I'm a Christian. Which means I've had more than a few well-meaning people ask me why I'm "wasting my time" on make-believe instead of writing something that "actually points people to Jesus."

The implication is clear: fantasy is frivolous. It's entertainment at best, distraction at worst. Real Christian writing should be direct, practical, explicitly biblical. Allegory is acceptable if you're C.S. Lewis, but even then, some people wish he'd just written theology books instead.

But here's what I've come to believe: fantasy can be worship. Not in spite of being fantasy, but because of it.

Let me explain.

The God Who Creates

Genesis 1 opens with God creating. Not out of necessity, but out of desire. He didn't need the world—He was complete in Himself, in the perfect communion of the Trinity. But He created anyway.

He made things that didn't exist. He spoke light into darkness, land into water, life into dust. He invented giraffes and hummingbirds and seahorses and platypuses—creatures so bizarre they look like the result of a divine sense of humor. He created color and sound and taste. He made a world that didn't just function, but flourished. A world that was, in His own words, "very good."

God is, by nature, a Creator. And we are made in His image.

J.R.R. Tolkien wrote about this in his essay "On Fairy-Stories," coining the term "sub-creation." He argued that when we create stories, particularly fantasy stories, we're participating in God's creative nature. We're not creating ex nihilo—out of nothing—the way God does. But we are making new things. New worlds, new characters, new possibilities. We're echoing the creative act that defines God Himself.

That's not frivolous. That's sacred.

Fantasy as a Lens for Truth

Jesus told stories. A lot of them. And most of them weren't historical accounts or theological treatises. They were parables. Fiction.

He told stories about farmers and seeds, about lost coins and wayward sons, about bridesmaids and banquets and buried treasure. He used invented scenarios to reveal truth about the Kingdom of God in ways that direct statements couldn't.

Why? Because sometimes the best way to see truth clearly is to look at it from an angle. Sometimes we need distance, metaphor, imagination to help us grasp what's right in front of us.

Fantasy does this beautifully. It gives us just enough distance from our own world to see it more clearly. When Tolkien writes about the corrupting power of the Ring, he's writing about sin, power, and temptation in ways that feel true even though Middle-earth never existed. When Lewis writes about Aslan's sacrifice, he's telling the gospel story in a way that bypasses our defenses and hits us right in the heart.

But here's the thing: it's not just allegory. Fantasy doesn't have to be a one-to-one metaphor for Christian doctrine to be an act of worship. Sometimes fantasy worships simply by being beautiful. By being good.

The Act of Making as an Act of Worship

Romans 12:1 talks about offering our bodies as "living sacrifices" and calls this our "true and proper worship." Worship isn't just singing songs on Sunday morning. It's offering everything we are and everything we do back to God.

Colossians 3:23 says, "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters."

Whatever you do.

That includes writing fantasy novels about dragons and magic and invented kingdoms.

When I sit down to write, I'm taking the gifts God gave me—imagination, language, the ability to weave a story—and I'm using them to create something that didn't exist before. I'm pouring care and attention and craftsmanship into building a world, developing characters, exploring themes that matter.

I'm taking this wild, chaotic creativity inside me and shaping it into something ordered and intentional. I'm trying to make something good.

Isn't that an act of worship?

When a musician composes a symphony, when a painter creates a landscape, when a chef prepares a meal with artistry and care—these can all be acts of worship if they're done as offerings to God. Why would writing fantasy be any different?

Fantasy Explores the Questions That Matter

One of the criticisms I've heard about fantasy is that it's "escapism." That it helps people avoid reality instead of engaging with it.

But I think that misunderstands what good fantasy does.

Good fantasy doesn't help us escape reality—it helps us engage with the deepest parts of reality. It asks the big questions. What does it mean to be human? What is the nature of good and evil? How do we live with courage in the face of darkness? What does it cost to love? To sacrifice? To hope?

My current novel (WIP) is about a man who shuts down his creativity after losing the woman he loved. It's about grief, healing, and the courage to create again. It's about finishing what we start and honoring the gifts we've been given.

Those are deeply human, deeply spiritual themes. They matter to me because I've lived them. And I'm exploring them in a world with magic and manuscripts that come to life because fantasy gives me the freedom to look at those themes without the baggage of my own life weighing them down.

That's not escapism. That's exploration.

The God Who Delights in Beauty

Here's something we forget sometimes: God didn't create the world to be merely functional. He didn't make trees that just produce oxygen and fruit. He made them beautiful. He gave them textures and shapes and colors that have nothing to do with survival and everything to do with beauty.

He didn't make birdsong utilitarian. He made it musical.

He didn't make sunsets efficient. He made them breathtaking.

God delights in beauty. In creativity. In things that are good simply because they're good, not because they serve some practical purpose.

And I think He delights when we create beautiful things too.

Not every story has to have an explicit gospel message. Not every fantasy novel has to be allegory. Sometimes a story can worship God simply by being good—by being well-crafted, thoughtful, beautiful, true in the ways that stories are true.

Philippians 4:8 says, "Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."

Can fantasy be true? Noble? Lovely? Excellent?

If the answer is yes, then it's worth making. And making it can be an act of worship.

The Courage to Create

There's something else, too. Something I've been learning as I write.

Creating is an act of faith.

When I sit down to write a story that no one has asked for, that may never be published, that might disappear into a digital folder with all my other projects—I'm saying something. I'm saying that this work matters. That the act of making something is valuable even if no one ever sees it. That the gifts God gave me are worth stewarding.

That takes courage. It takes trust.

It means believing that God cares about the work of my hands, even when it's something as "impractical" as fantasy. It means believing that creativity itself is sacred, not just when it produces something "useful."

And honestly? I think that belief—that trust—is an act of worship too.

So, Can Fantasy Be Worship?

Yes.

Not because every fantasy novel is a Christian allegory. Not because dragons are secretly symbols for spiritual warfare (though they can be). Not because every story has to end with an altar call.

But because creating reflects the nature of our Creator. Because making something good, beautiful, and true honors the God who made us with the capacity to imagine and invent. Because exploring deep human questions in invented worlds can reveal truths we might miss in our own. Because offering our gifts back to God—whatever those gifts might be—is what worship looks like.

Fantasy can be worship when it's crafted with care, when it's made with integrity, when it explores what it means to be human in a world where good and evil matter. When it's offered as a gift—to readers, yes, but also to the God who gave us the ability to create in the first place.

I don't know if every story I write will be an act of worship. I'm sure I'll get it wrong sometimes. I'll be careless or lazy or write things that don't honor God.

But I believe it's possible. I believe that when I sit down to write characters and plots, I'm participating in something sacred. I'm echoing the creative work of the God who made me.

And I think—I hope—that makes Him smile.

What do you think? Can creativity be an act of worship even when it's "just" fantasy? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments.