Adam Graham's Blog: Christians and Superheroes - Posts Tagged "christian-fiction"

Is Christian Fiction harmful? Selfish? There are a growing number of Christians who are writers who will advise it. Consider, Simon Morden who claims that Christian Fiction needs to be torn down, arguing that Christian fiction is basically bad fiction..

Publisher Chila Woychik argues that writing mainstream or crossover fiction is the key to respectability and success.

Finally, Mike Duran argues that "Christian Art" is costing Christians and Conservatives the culture.

All three are suggesting in one way or another that Christian writers need to change the way they approach their work, to write books that will appeal to a more mainstream audience.

My position on the question at the heart of this raging Internet debate is a bit nuanced.

For the record, none of the fiction I write is ever going to be published by a mainstream Christian publisher such as Zondervan, Thomas Nelson, or Bethany House. It is weird in every way, difficult to market in every way, and sometimes I believe that God inspires me with all the story ideas that are difficult to publish. (I have Dystopian Fiction, Man Lit, Christian Superhero Fiction, etc.) and some of my writing-particularly non-fiction is for secular markets.

I say all that, to lay out my personal stake. My stance is a little different. I believe that each writer should write the story they have in the style they are comfortable with.

I would be the last person to suggest that Simon Morden needs to work the Four Spiritual Laws into their crossover novel. There are many times that such an ending would not feel right to a writer. All stories should be written by Christian writers for the Glory of God, but they don't need to be explicit on the Christian point and many authors make their living that way.

On the same token, there are some writers whose purpose and style is much more direct in its Christian content and there is no reason that they should be forced to censor the Christian content of their stories like its something shameful. Obviously, there are ways to go over the top or to write badly when doing Christian fiction, just like there are ways with any other type of fiction. I believe in authors writing what they are called to write.

The suggestion is often that writing Christian Fiction or any sort of Christian sub-cultural items is selfish and neglectful of the wider world around us.

This misses a couple of points. Perhaps, the biggest is that fiction is entertainment and entertainment is hardly an altruistic enterprise. The second point is that Christian Fiction can often be a form of ministry as well as instruction to Christians.

The argument that Christian Fiction is narrowcast to Evangelical Christians assumes that because one is an Evangelical Christian, you have a solid biblical worldview and second, you have no needs that cannot be met by secular fiction.

I'd suggest that both are wrong. In fact, research by Barna has found that Christians lacks a biblical worldview and this is as big a problem as the issues in the wider culture. To that end, writers and entertainers who write works that strengthen and foster that biblical worldview are making a serious contribution to culture.

Secondly, I think that story can be healing. There are many great works of Christian fiction that speak to people's heartaches and pain and can bring healing through the uniquely Christian way they address issues that many people face.

Certainly, good crossover fiction or even clean mainstream fiction can have positive effects that Mike Duran says and I will not argue against writers who choose this route. Indeed, some of my own fiction could go into the crossover category becuase I write what I have and don't try to bend stories either. However, I think the acknowledgment of cross-over fiction does not require the denigration of Christian Fiction and those who labor hard to minister and entertain their readers.

Of course, there's that whole issue of fame and fortune which Ms. Woychik raises and I will address that in my next post.

I want to pick up on a post where I discussed a while back about Christians writing fiction.

As I stated previously, I wrote that Christians should write the stories they are called to write whichever category they might be called to write.

Others who want to dissuade writers from writing explicitly Christian Fiction have made other arguments. Chia Woychik of Port Yonder Press argues that Christians should write crossover fiction or secular fiction to be taken seriously. You can write Christian if you want but she has a warning:

4) if you’re still insistent on writing Christian Fiction, then do realize that not only is the market glutted with such, but once the excitement wanes, your book may well fade into oblivion as so many others have done. Make a plan for excellence and longevity before you conceive another book.

She makes a good play to authors' sense of vanity. Anyone who has ever written who is worth their salt has a fantasy where their works are remembered in the epochs of fiction and they live on forever.

Reality is that 98% of all novels published last year are unknown to 98% of the population. Writing fiction is tough to make a living in. It's even tougher to get recognition as she seems to suggest that the road to literary success and prestige lies through abandoning explicitly Christian themes. However, there are millions of secular books that have never won a Hugo, National Book Awards, or a Pulitzer prize. And the reason Christian fiction books haven't won this has quite a bit less to do with quality than with other factors.

She then raises this point:

if you’re intent on including faith-shadowing, do as C. S. Lewis, Tolkien, L’Engle and others did: consider using allegory.

Lewis and Tolkien have been mentioned frequently in these discussions. They're kind of like those siblings who seem to be doing better to you that your parents constantly compare you to.

L'Engle does not get mentioned much because of her heterodox views on universalism. However, even with that Unilateralism, however the London Guardian noted, "She was attacked for being too religious by the most secular of critics." So much for Ms. Woychik's wrote to secular respectability.

What of Lewis? I suppose, if one limits their understanding to The Chronicles of Narnia, you can point to him as a master of allegory. However, his allegories were often quite thin even if you read a story like The Magician's Nephew. If you read his other works like Pilgrim's Regress or the Science Fiction trilogy, particularly That Hideous Strength, you see a very overt Christian theme running through that story.

In addition to this, one of Lewis' greatest characters is that master demon Screwtape in essays that are both well-remembered and very explicit in their Christian theme. Lewis' subtlety varied from work to work. What ultimately made Lewis successful is that he wrote well, he wrote the stories that were on his heart and mind and was led by his imagination. I wonder how well he would have done if he were to listen to critics who advised him on to appeal to secular markets and how to not to make his works too religious.

The other key point to remember about Lewis was that he was from another time. He came to national prominence during World War II proclaiming the basic truths of Christianity over the BBC.

Great Britain at the time, if not the sentinel of Christian thought it once was, understood basic Christian truths. Famously at the Battle of Dunkirk sent a message, "but if not." The simple phrase was linked in people's minds immediately to the Daniel 3:18 in which Daniel's three friends declared their faith in God's ability to deliver them from the hands of an idolatrous king, " But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.” It communicated resolve and determination to fight the last and refuse to submit to the Nazis.

Imagine today, besieged soldiers sending a message, "But if not." Soldiers on the receiving end of the message would say, "What the heck?" Indeed, many Christians would as well.

Western Civilization has become much more secularized since Lewis' day. When c.S. Lewis wrote in allegory and symbolism, he called to mind with unfamiliar things, familiar lessons that people had learned in Sunday school or from a maiden Aunt. Using this tactic becomes much harder when a growing part of your audience has no frame to even interpret the underlying message.

This is particularly true in the higher levels of publishing and academia with which Ms. Woychik seems to think Christian writers ought to focus on currying favor.

This is particularly true of the Hugo Award. One finds in the secular science fiction establishment, a large number of atheists, pagans, and practitioners of the occult. And committees for the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize are only slightly less overt in their contempt.

The only type of Christianity in fiction that they accept would be works that challenge Orthodox Christianity or are very good with a form of Christianity that is neutered down to nice feelings. The idea of trying to win the world's approval as a key to success seems folly for the Christian writer, particularly as Christ said it wouldn't happen. (John 15:19)

In the end, we cannot be like C.S. Lewis because we are not him and we don't live in his time. The one way we are like Lewis is that we can write according to the vision and talents we have been given. Then that's a better course than being distracted by promises of fame, fortune, and respectability.