Tris Prior is a Christian and Really Shouldn’t Be: An Explanation of Christian Authors' Biggest Sin

CW: a lot of discussion about religion and Christianity (obviously), brief mentions of death and suicide/self sacrifice

Recently, I’ve been rereading many old YA dystopian novels from around the 2010s in order to see what made that genre so influential. One of the series that I was more hesitant to revisit, however, was the Divergent series by Veronica Roth: a trilogy (with a fourth prequel book added later) about Tris Prior, a 16-year-old girl living in a dystopian Chicago. In this society, everyone is divided into five factions -- Dauntless the brave, Abnegation the selfless, Amity the kind, Candor the honest, and Erudite the knowledgeable -- and they chose these factions around their 16th birthday. When she does the test to see what faction she belongs to, Tris discovers that she is Divergent, which means she doesn’t fit cleanly into just one faction, and she is more resistant to the various serums that are used. At the Choosing Ceremony, Tris decides to leave her home faction (Abnegation) and join Dauntless. As she’s there, she realizes that Dauntless is a lot more risky than she was expecting. Throughout the first book in this trilogy, Tris must navigate the trials to become Dauntless without revealing her Divergent identity, at the risk of death.

From here on out, I will have spoilers for at least Divergent, if not references to the other two books. However, if you haven’t read it by now, I wouldn’t recommend it. Reading the book isn’t necessary to understand this post.

I don’t remember the Divergent series very well (it was never one of my favorites), so I went into this reread prepared to be surprised. However, the thing that shocked me the most was learning that Christianity is not only mentioned in these books, but is built into the society. This is not something I remember being in the books, but sure enough, the Prior family prays before their meal in one of the first scenes.

“My father extends his hands to my mother and my brother, and they extend their hands to him and me, and my father gives thanks to God for food and work and friends and family. Not every Abnegation family is religious, but my father says we should try not to see those differences because they will only divide us. I am not sure what to make of that.” (32)

Now, I read a lot, and this sent off alarm bells in my mind. The first thing I did was flip to the back of the book: sure enough, the first person Roth thanked in the Acknowledgements was God, which confirmed all of my worst fears.

Okay, that’s a bit dramatic, but not far off. I have nothing wrong with Christians writing books where either the character is Christian or God is mentioned. In fact, I would encourage it, because I think it adds realism and an interesting character angle. Although it’s not a book, one of my favorite stories ever is from a video game called Night in the Woods; it explores mental health and the idea of becoming an adult in a very existential way, and also shows how various characters grapple with the concept of God. It is very intricately woven into the story, and it adds a lot to the overall message. I don’t know if the creators are Christian (in fact, I kind of doubt it), but I think it’s a good example of modern Christianity being used to add depth to a story.

This, however, is not what a lot of Christian authors do. Instead, what I see authors do is just make random, offhanded mentions to God. In books taking place in normal society, this isn’t such a big deal (although I still have issues with it), but it really bothers me when this is done in dystopian books or any other genre that involves a lot of world building. To me, it’s a sign of bad writing: you didn’t think enough about your world or character building, and now I have to deal with the consequences of that.

The first and biggest issue is the instant uncertainty that random Christianity creates within your society. Let’s take a closer look at the society from Divergent. It is later revealed that this version of Chicago is being used as an experiment to fix people’s genes (or something like that, it’s been a long time since I’ve read the third book and I don’t think it makes sense anyway). Before we learn that, Tris thinks that either nothing is left outside the walls, or whatever out there is dangerous. In the first book, there are no other religions mentioned, and Christianity is directly written into the Abnegation Manifesto (only some members include that line, but my point is that it’s still recognized on a larger level). Therefore, as far as I’m concerned, it’s lazy to just throw the Christian God into your story as if that doesn’t raise a million other questions. Why did only this belief system persist after all the wars that led to this being a dystopia? Why are Christians, as of right now anyway, only mentioned to be in Abnegation? How have Christian beliefs been adjusted for this society? In one of the other two times God is mentioned in this book, Jeanine (the main “bad guy,” the leaders of Erudite who is leading the attack on Abnegation at the end) refers to Divergents as “weak-willed, God-fearing nobodies from Abnegation” (429). Is Jeanine an atheist? Is all of Erudite? It sounds like Jeanine is using “God-fearing” as an insult here, so are Christians judged or looked down on in any way in this society? Why?

Divergent isn’t the only series to have these issues. The Selection series, another dystopian series from the same era, was also written by a Christian author who randomly shoved a prayer circle into the second to last book. That series had a massive world war that completely changed geography and political systems throughout the entire world, and you expect me to just blindly believe that Christianity survived? If you want an example from a series that you might be more familiar with, the Harry Potter universe has us routinely celebrating Christmas and Easter -- if it were just Christmas, I’d be willing to accept that Rowling was just using an easily recognizable holiday. However, the inclusion of Easter implies that the wizarding world actively knows about and acknowledges Jesus, which raises a multitude of questions.

When you are creating a new society and you include a religious system in it -- a known religion or one that you make up -- you have to be smart with it. Just throwing it in adds way too many questions. Some of the questions I mentioned I actually have potential answers for, but I shouldn’t be the one doing that work. As it stands right now, you could completely remove the religious references in Divergent and nothing about the story would change. That shows me that Roth didn’t actually take the time to weave it into her worldbuilding, she just wrote it because it’s how she lives her life.

In addition to bad world building, the random inclusion of God indicates weak character building as well. Tris is apparently raised Christian, yet this only has an impact on her once, as she’s about to be drowned near the end of the book:

“I breathe in. The water will wash my wounds clean. I breathe out. My mother submerged me in water when I was a baby, to give me to God. It has been a long time since I thought about God, but I think about him now. It is only natural.” (438)

And that’s it. She doesn’t actually think about God, she just thinks about thinking of Them, and then we move on. To clarify, the three direct references to God were when they prayed at the dinner table on page 32, it’s not brought up again until Jeanine uses it as an insult on page 429, and then Tris has this “revelation” (I guess) on page 438. There are just over 400 pages between the first reference to God and the last one, and I gave you the full quotes. There’s no other frame of reference. Why did Tris not think about God much -- did she not believe, like her father did? Did that ever create some conflict between the two of them? What does she mean “it’s only natural” now? Is she considering the afterlife? I like the tie in between baptism and drowning, but what does it mean for her?

Sorry, I’m bombarding you with questions again. But I hope you’re starting to see a pattern here.

This point is especially frustrating to me because Divergent is all about Tris figuring herself out and becoming her own person. Adding religion into her character arc would make so much sense, and it wouldn’t take much adjusting either. Tris is bothered by the high expectations of selflessness expected from Abnegation, so maybe she does have a strained relationship with God. Then, when she’s in Dauntless, she starts to have conflicted feelings about which faction she actually belongs in. Maybe here is where we see her pray, something she’s never thought to do on her own before, but it always made her father feel better. About half way through the book, one of Tris’ friends commits suicide just after she herself is almost killed. Maybe these events so close together make her mad at God for not helping, so she pushes away again. Then when she comes back at the end of the book to think of her baptism in what she assumes to be her final moments, that revelation makes a bit more sense.

Additionally, the connection between being selfless and brave is a huge theme in the book. For those of us familiar with the twist ending in Allegiant, the final book, we know that Tris’ willingness to sacrifice herself for others is incredibly important to her overall story. You know who else has a massive self sacrificial arc in a well-known piece of literature? Jesus. It would have been so easy to add a religious bend to this aspect of Tris’ development -- think of books like The Chronicles of Narnia, where Christianity is not outright mentioned but plays heavily into the themes of the book.

I mentioned earlier that random references to God are a sin in dystopian or other such books, but isn’t as big of an issue in books taking place in normal modern society. I would argue that it becomes an issue when we get into this issue of character building. I don’t want a character to offhandedly mention something about going to church on Sunday unless that is intended to tell me something about that character. Does the character make a commitment to attending church weekly (as in, canceling/scheduling plans in such a way to make it happen), do they just go when they can make it, or do they only make biannual appearances on Christmas and Easter? Alternatively, if your character makes a point to acknowledge that they don’t believe in God, there needs to be a reason why. Were they raised in a nonreligious household so it just never came up, or did they have an experience that pushed them away? If it’s the latter, do they ever find themselves subconsciously praying, or using more culturally-Christian phrases? All of these things tell me something about the character I’m interacting with.

And these are just some examples of questions to ask yourself about a character; I’m not expecting them all to be directly answered in the text. However, I do need you -- the hypothetical author -- to understand what a character’s relationship to religion is. When an author doesn’t put this work in, it’s more obvious than you’d think. Stories like Divergent that use religion but don’t bother incorporating it highlight some very obvious assumptions on the part of the author: all Christians think the same and true morality comes from a belief in God. The truth is, in our society, it would be really hard to find two people with exactly the same religious beliefs. Right now, the United Methodist Church is on the verge of dividing because people can’t agree with how queer people should be represented in our Book of Discipline. Religion can be a good tool to use to build out your characters, but you have to actually use it. Otherwise, it reads to me like you’re virtue signaling rather than actual intentionality for representing God in a way that matters to you.

For the record, I’m aware that this post is very Christian-focused. I think a lot of the character-building questions I mentioned at the end can work with other religions, but this is mostly based on my observations of weak Christian characters. I would encourage authors to have more representation for a variety of religions within their works, as it makes your world more immersive. I heard a writer once say that politics is one of the most important factors to consider when you’re creating a new society, because it’s something relatable and easy for your characters to connect to. I would agree, but I would also add that the inclusion of religion can serve a similar role. Most people, especially in America, have some relationship with religion. Seeing these beliefs represented in media can add a lot of depth to stories, and it can bring readers closer to the characters. But not if it’s just lazily thrown in because the author feels like they have to.

From Yours Truly,

Kendall