Speaking from experience: You can drive yourself mad trying to be perfect, and that goes for theologically speaking but also writing fiction without taking those components into account. However, first addressing theology:
Ultimately, God made us in His image and some of us are called to be creative; all Christians can learn to have a great relationship with God and to use their non-fictional lives to serve Him in a variety of ways but when a writer places too many limitations on his or herself they can end up quite literally killing their writing and wasting an amazing gift that God has blessed them with.
Yes, we could worry about the future—“If I write this down, will it cause someone out there to sin?” Or we can write as we feel led when we know that we have a firm foundation in Jesus Messiah and TRUST that it will hold and cause us to bear good fruit, when praying before and after that Holy Spirit would convict us to stop if we are committing some evil.
God knew we would struggle. He knows that people will sin. And while we are advised to *do our best* to help our brethren and not cause them to stumble, we also know that HE ultimately holds each one of us accountable for our own actions. We can’t live our lives in fear that whatever we do might cause someone to fall—that is no kind of life, and unBelievers will recognize when we are having our peace and joy sapped and attribute it to a ‘problem with the Church’ and they will then be more likely repelled than convicted to open their hearts to Jesus.
We have to allow that our passions for a hobby and/or Calling may well be God’s gift to us; at least as much as we allow that it might be a temptation! Weigh them both and ask Holy Spirit to examine and convict us in our hearts, especially when consulting the Word (which we should do concerning ALL things, not just life callings and the question of what ‘entertainment’ is the most ‘holy’). There is never an easy answer for something like “Does my art inspire sin?”
For someone, somewhere, Yes. Because we are all different, we all face different temptations and it’s not our place to try to anticipate and prepare for every possible scenario that everyone might ever face—God only charges us to do our best with what He’s given us.
Endless verses... “Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect”, “Bear and share one another’s burdens...” These are things to aspire to but wisdom and refinement come through life’s many, many lessons.
It is also written “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” and that God “desires mercy, not sacrifice”; that we are to “be patient with a weaker brother”—Do we *always* know what that looks like?
None but Yeshua/Jesus has been able to keep the whole of the Law so why do we seek to burden the others with what those who received the Law first could not even keep themselves (situation with Peter addressing matter of circumcision when dealing with Judaizers in the early Church)... Adonai (“The Lord”) desires a circumcised HEART. Yeshua clearly said, “Understand this! It is not what goes into a person that makes them unclean but rather what comes OUT.” Only God knows the heart and we must trust Him to convict us.
Artists should not bury the talents entrusted to them but rather use them and be fruitful as best as they know how by going forth and not stressing over every little thing. The art is a fragile child that must be carefully nurtured. If we always stop to question what we do, think, feel... we end up being the wicked servant who buried the talent and didn’t even collect interest for our Master!
(And we starve our art-babies and can die as artists and go on to live miserable lives where we try to conform for the sake of pleasing people, not God, and by that He is certainly not glorified.)
*Every* decision made in life affects many but can we let that halt progress? That is giving place to fear and allowing the enemy to hinder us, which is OPPOSITE of what Jesus wants!
To be frank, Yes the artists—and all people—will at some point screw up! But we can also do good, and that requires that we must first accept Yeshua’s yoke which is “Light and easy.” Only God is good!
The Bible says more about mercy, grace, forgiveness, and repentance (than testing *ourselves* We are not the ones to design our own tests and trials; not our job!)—we can’t be forgiven and experience repentance for anything if we are too afraid to DO anything—except, of course, for the fact that we did nothing when we were called to do something!
The Word is the Sword that is *Double*-edged; it cuts us all! The World and the Spiritual beings we wrestle against persecute us, and they are not always easily recognized. For that reason we can’t allow ourselves to *self*-flagellate. A writer must write what is on the heart and continue in fellowship and study of the Word throughout the journey of his writing—that is the only ‘safe’ way. I really felt it on my heart to say that, not with the intention of binding or causing a brother to stumble, but rather to edify and build up and I hope that is how it is received.
Nick, to answer your question simply: Have Jesus be the foundation in your fantasy realm just as He is in this world; those who commit idolatry will be punished at the Day of Judgment, just as on this earth, but unless your campaign is a story dealing with Apocalyptic themes then that is mostly a non-issue, unless a player voices their spiritual struggle and wants to explore a plot point involving possible conversion.
Yes, the goblins and all other beings have free will because when we create characters, including fictional races, they are extensions of ourselves—humanity; you might choose to make some characters or even entire races (Tolkien’s Orcs?) serve evil or even function as the fictional equivalent of angels or demons to make your campaign richer and more fulfilling for yourself and the players.
You can establish ‘deities’ to tempt the characters and reflect the fallen state of your world and their need for redemption. To make the adventure both challenging and exciting, people of all types must be at odds and suffer persecution—especially Christians, whatever you choose to call them/us in your world.
Everything you need to tell a Biblical story is in the Bible and you have creative freedom to paint it all as you choose. It’s only a story and if it becomes something more than that, then that is when the door is open to problems but also potential for ministry. You CHOOSE what to make of open and closed doors:
We are engaged in spiritual warfare and that follows us *everywhere*, every day of our lives. But, I say this seriously, this IS mortal combat, after all. Mortal, not ‘Jesus does it all for us all over again’, making all of the hard choices. So, Mortal being, YOU choose. (Totally ‘channeling’—-metaphorically! Mortal Kombat 1st movie right now. Another taboo subject, I know. Lol!)
I know these paragraphs are ridiculously long and I’m sorry for that; I’m on my phone and I don’t have as much room to navigate the website from it. I hope this helps you creatively though, and spiritually if need be.
It’s all only advice and matters to consider, not me making an attempt at control over your world or campaign. Sometimes we need a blunt perspective and to have a fellow creative point out something they see about the process that they feel obvious only when consulting with like minds; I have learned a lot about the process from just telling you ‘yes’ and ‘no’ about YOUR world, ha ha! Maybe I can stop agonizing over my own so much now, so thank you for asking your questions! I was blessed. Shalom, brother. I keep you and Christian artists in my prayers more, now. Until today, I thought I was alone!
-Sarah