August 2024

We are now closed to fiction submissions until January 1st. Thank you to all who sent us stories; we expect to make our selections before the end of November. 

This time around, we received 298 stories, from which we intend to choose seven. However, if our monthly Patreon funding reaches (and remains at) $275/month before we finish selecting stories, we'll be able to publish eight stories instead (and sixteen per year going forward instead of fourteen).

Right now, we're not so far short of this next funding goal. Our current Patreon funding is at $249/month, so a couple of new subscribers at $25/month, or three at $10/month, or six at $5/month, could get us there.

All Patreon subscribers have access to our Discord, where we host monthly chats for authors and supporters, plus "Insider" posts where we update members on the latest Mysterion news. And subscribers at $3+/month get all our stories at the beginning of the month in which they'll appear here on our website.

Please consider signing up if you aren't already a subscriber, and help us publish more stories!

A Less-Than-Expansive Picture of Christianity

Kristin and Donald are currently watching Season 3 of The Expanse, with two episodes left to go. Although we agree with reviewer Stephen Case that its overall portrayal of religious faith has much to recommend it, we were disappointed with the decision in Season 3 to fridge a poorly-developed Christian minor character in the interests of a more significant character's story arc.

It's not that they killed off a Christian. The character shown wrestling with the minor character's suicide and agonizing over to what extent her own insensitivity toward him contributed to his desperation is also a Christian. What irritated us was the apparent reason for his suicide. At one point, he asks the more important character, Methodist minister Anna, if she thinks God wants them to be out there (i.e., past Saturn's orbit, trying to study a vast and powerful alien artifact the likes of which humanity has never encountered before). He seems to be having a faith crisis because the universe is more mysterious than he had heretofore realized. And maybe because he's in outer space or something? 

We usually don't care for stories in which Christians have faith crises because something inexplicable happened. Just like everyone else, Christians are very good at rationalizing how new evidence can fit seamlessly into what we already believe. A Christian is more likely to have a faith crisis over other Christians being hypocrites than over discovering that aliens are real.

(On a related note, did you know that two of the astronauts currently on the International Space Station attend the same Houston-area Baptist Church, and that a nearby Catholic church has had 36 astronauts as parishioners over the years? It's not clear what actual evidence would lead people to think that devout Christians might have trouble reconciling their religious beliefs with becoming astronauts, now or in the future.)

Stories, Featured and Forthcoming

Our current featured story is "Irrationality", by the aforementioned Stephen Case. We appreciated how the Christian protagonist's reaction to the strange thing that happens isn't easily categorized in simplistic ways. Is he irritated with God for giving humanity a sign of his existence? Has his faith in math been challenged?

In our August story, appearing here on the 26th, Constantine Singer's young Christian protagonist Jordan encounters a man who's spent his life interrupting attempted suicides in response to supernatural messages alerting him to who needs intervention, in "The Interrupt". The problem is that the man no longer believes that whoever or whatever has been sending the messages is a benevolent force.

Although we suppose that this story could be described as a Christian having a faith crisis because of something inexplicable happening, it's such a strong character portrait of both men that it still worked for us. You can get away with a lot if your story is good enough, and we make no promises to be consistent in what themes we like or dislike! But perhaps we should elaborate on what we wrote above, and explain that what we really dislike are superficial and dismissive portrayals of Christian faith, where it's taken for granted that no believer has thought things through to the extent that the author has.

In Other News

Kristin's garden is at peak productivity, with lettuce and other salad greens, kohlrabi, cantaloupes, cucumbers, herbs, peppers, and too many tomatoes.

There's also a watermelon that should be ripe any day now.

Marie recently had an adverse reaction to a vaccine, but seems to have recovered. Here's a picture of her and Maxwell snuggled up together:

Remember, our next story will be available here on August 26th, and we have some great stories lined up for the fall! New fiction always comes out on the 4th Monday of each month, if you're keeping track, and we are more on top of our fiction publication schedule, here and on Patreon, than we are about getting these From the Editors columns out on time.

And please do check out our Patreon and think about signing up. Every contribution helps, and gets us a little closer to our goal of publishing a magazine entirely funded by readers.

Thanks for reading!

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