Dragons, Fairies, and... Freedom?

What Fictitious FMC's in Fantasy Worlds are teaching Christian Women about Real Life Agency

It’s no secret that purity culture robbed many women of goodness and autonomy, leaving sharp shards of shame we’ve been piecing back together ever since. I don’t know about y’all, but lately I’ve been finding healing in all sorts of strange places. For example, my silly little book club (shout out Iron Squad) has kept me sane this year. One thing that we talk about a lot is the way various female main characters interact with different themes, and a prominent one is this idea of agency. In our crew, we talk about these various themes theologically, and biblically (and crack a bazillion jokes too). And it seems simple right? When we talk about agency, we mean the basic ability to act and make decisions. Agency relies on the related concept of autonomy, which is the freedom to make those decisions without coercion or outside pressure. And this matters because both are essential for an individual’s empowerment and sense of purpose.

And I think one reason that evangelical women in particular relate to these characters is that we’re on a little quest of our own. In a recent episode of the Faith Adjacent podcast the hosts interacted with a bunch of fascinating data regarding the literary tendencies of Christian women. Spoiler alert, women in evangelical churches are reading fiction books in record numbers. We need to talk about the content of the stories, interact with them theologically, and discuss the ways in which women see themselves in these characters. And whether you’re reading about Violet Sorrengail, one of the badass Archeron sisters, Poppy, Seraphena, and the list goes on, a prominent theme in many of our booktok romantasy picks involves noticing the ways in which these women discover and reclaim their agency.

Because the reality is that for many of us who grew up evangelical, we haven’t had much agency at all. For some of us, the concept of agency is foreign, or fairly new. Our families raised us in patriarchal systems. As girls we were taught to respect and obey (quietly). And as our churches repeated Romans 12:1 and 1 Corinthians 6:19 out of context over and over and over, we began to believe that not only did our bodies not belong to us in the most literal sense, but also that it was better to be miserable and holy, than it was to be whole. And then as women, we were told that our submission was a sacrifice. But in the framework of purity culture, because we “belonged to God,” we were told that we didn’t really have a choice in the matter. But if our submission is the expectation, is it really a sacrifice?

I heard the church tell me that my value was in my virginity and when that was no longer the case, my worth was then to be found in motherhood. And in this system, I only existed in relationship to either my parents, my husband, or my children. The church I grew up in taught me to be suspicious of myself, “lean not on my own understanding.” Fundamentalism and purity culture used religious language to teach us that wanting more was selfish, and anything but silent surrender was scandalous. That means many of us were sentenced to a life of comfortable stagnation. This stagnant life lacks the power, action, or ability to flourish without the explicit blessing of our spouses or the men we’re proximate to, and that’s not living at all. Life with God is supposed to have direction and purpose. For we women who were raised to silence our own voices, reclaiming agency can feel unfamiliar, even daunting. But rediscovering agency is an act of healing and reclamation, even when we begin the process by reading popular fantasy books.

So, what does a reclamation of agency look like for women who have never really been given language for it? What about those of us who are already married? Raising daughters?

This can look like:

·       Practicing decision making

·       Setting boundaries

·       And advocating for yourself.

Practice decision making because your voice matters. Your choices matter. You are allowed to have desires, dreams, and goals. Channel your inner Violet Sorrengail, but start small until you feel like a Deborah. If you find yourself consistently punting the decision making, ask yourself why? Is it really because you don’t care, or is it because you’ve never been allowed to? Is it because you’re afraid to take a risk?

Setting boundaries is essential to agency because it affirms the truth that the body God gave you, is you. Ontologically you cannot separate yourself from yourself. Theologies that thrive on submission resist boundaries because then they have to be truthful about their inherently exploitative nature. But boundaries are blessings, and we honor one another when we respect one another’s physical and emotional limits. They remind us that what happened to us was real, and our responses to our realities can help us heal from hard things. Seraphena knows this all too well, but Vashti was the trailblazer here. But boundaries help us cultivate respect and trust. They’re also how we affirm the dignity in one another and help one another heal well.

And self-advocacy is an important facet of agency because again, speaking up for yourself is not selfish, even if it takes time to find the right words. It is not disrespectful. It’s not a threat. Self-advocacy is the starting point for voicing an unmet need. Even for the Nestas out there. Even for the Syrophoenician woman who dared to petition Jesus himself. Again, this idea of advocacy isn’t in opposition to the gospel because the holy spirit advocates for us. Advocacy is in the DNA of the God who’s image we bear.

And for evangelical women who are turning to scripture and fiction to observe how these women are making decisions, setting boundaries, and advocating for themselves in positions of power, in their relationships, and even in the bedroom— it matters that we’re interested in equipping women with theology that empowers them to function in healthy relationships with their spouse, their families, and the rest of the church.

Because God loves women and wants us to flourish, agency is something we steward not for ourselves, but for the flourishing of all creation. But that doesn’t mean we have zero agency to simply enjoy our own interests, admire beauty, and try new things. This is one of the reasons why even sitting down to read a silly little book feels strangely empowering to so many of us. Patriarchal systems want women to sacrifice our agency to men, no questions asked. But Jesus wants all of us to steward our agency for one another, while remembering our humanity. And as we circle back to this phrase “living sacrifice” in Romans 12:1, it bears mentioning that this was a completely new concept that Phoebe introduced to the Roman church while delivering Paul’s words for which there was no prior framework for.

Up until this point, sacrifices were dead things, because blood needed to be shed.

But Paul instead suggests that because Jesus’ blood was shed and because of the resurrection, “BROTHERS AND SISTERS present our bodies as a sacrifice,” but instead of death, we are to be “alive, holy, and pleasing to God.” Sacrifice as a form of worship was communal and relational, and worship wasn’t about the ritual, but the remembering. It’s as if Paul was imploring his audience to completely reimagine what it looks like to worship God through our relationships in the family of God. “Living sacrifice” didn’t have anything to do with rigid purity culture or theologies of control. The word sacrifice implies agency at its core. Giving ourselves to one another freely in a way that pleases God means that brother and sisters, men and women honor one another by allowing choice, respecting boundaries, advocating for one another.

So hey, if you’re a thoughtful/ curious evangelical, exvangelical, postevangelical woman that’s wrestling, I’ve got you. If you love books with a powerful FMC, fairies, and dragons, even better (but if not, you can totally still hang with us). And if you’re just beginning to daydream about your own agency, I just want to encourage you. God loves you. God is for you. God is interested in what you have to say and how you’re feeling at a soul-deep level. God desires for you to experience delight. Wonder. Peace. You are worthy of goodness. To be a living sacrifice doesn’t mean you walk around half-dead, separating your heart from your head or the rest of your body. It means you are fully alive by the grace of God—agency and all. In reclaiming agency, we embrace the wholeness that God designed for all of us, men and women, together.

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