Do Justice, Love Mercy

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In the last few days before my classes start, my family and I have been 'catching up' on some movie-viewing time courtesy of Netflix.  (During the school year we get a disc in the mail and then it sits on our counter, unwatched, for the next four weeks or so until we either have an evening to spare or simply say "eh" and mail it back for the next impatient viewer.  We're feckless subscribers.)  Last night we finally settled down for the last installment of the Hobbit trilogy, after having seen the first two in theaters and been too severely underwhelmed by both to go watch "The Battle of the Five Armies" when it came out.  It was, I felt, somewhat better; they made a hash of Bard, but Martin Freeman and Richard Armitage were excellent as Bilbo and Thorin, and that covers some sins at least.  After having watched a few others movies in the past few weeks, though, notably Von Ryan's Express, I tended to fixate on the very minor, added, unnecessary plot point of the coward Alfrid.

Or, rather, the fact that none of the main characters seemed willing to give Alfrid the fate he deserved.

Alfrid doesn't have a whole lot of purpose in the story, except as an object for the viewer's disgust.  He isn't the horrible, 'fantastic' evil of the orcs and goblins and so forth; he is the normal, everyday evil of greed and selfishness taken to a ludicrous degree.  In the early scenes, after Alfrid (who, I might add, is basically the same character as Wormtongue with a little more screen time) has attempted to escape with the Master of Laketown and been abandoned, the townsfolk quite reasonably attempt to lynch him.  However, Bard - like Aragorn with Wormtongue in the film version of The Two Towers - stops them, insisting that enough people have died already.  Thereafter, the good characters show a curious insistence on entrusting Alfrid with important responsibilities (which, of course, he fails to perform) and refuse to make him answer for his misdeeds; Bard even allows him to go on his merry, gold-laden way when Alfrid deserts the makeshift army of Laketown.

Much the same scenario plays out in the 1965 Von Ryan's Express, in which the two protagonists, one British and one American officer, take very different views on mercy and the demands of war.  When the soldiers get out of the POW camp, the Brit, Major Fincham, insists they kill the officer in command of the camp; Von Ryan overrules him, arguing that the officer cannot simply be killed in cold blood.  The decision comes back to bite him, costing quite a few of the soldiers their lives, and yet when the protagonists encounter a similar situation later on Von Ryan again errs on the side of mercy (and it once again backfires).

Why the emphasis - perhaps the over-emphasis - on mercy?  Why can't we just hang Alfrid or shoot the evil Italian or German?  From the writer's perspective, the choice seems to have far less to do with the antagonist (we don't really care what happens to Alfrid: he's a despicable character anyway) than it does with the protagonist: viewers are uncomfortable with a 'good' character taking a life into his hands, particularly in the role of executioner, and writers don't want to wrestle with the moral ambiguities through their protagonist.  The evils the antagonist has committed aren't worth the protagonist getting his hands dirty.  Hence this pattern of having a Bard or a Von Ryan choose not to kill a (human) antagonist - or, better yet, having the protagonist stop other characters from killing the antagonist - is such a recurring element that it now seems taken for granted. "Mercy isn't a weakness" is a mantra in fiction.

common explanations

• "too many people have died already"
• "he's not worth the powder"
• "he's suffered enough"
• "if I kill him I'll be just as bad as he is"

Don't get me wrong: mercy is huge and powerful and absolutely crucial.  I think the contemporary focus on it - in literature, but also in such debates as whether or not the death penalty is acceptable - is an outgrowth of Christianity; I'm glad we have such things as the Geneva Conventions that recognize the worth of human life in a manner unheard of centuries ago.  On the other hand, I think we need to wrestle with the dynamics of "doing justice and loving mercy."  What does it mean to "do justice," anyway?  Are there times when mercy isn't ours to give?  What do we do when our protagonist is in a position of authority, holding the fates of others in his or her hands, and has to decide how to act?  Of course the answer differs from character to character, but it seems to me that we shouldn't be too flippant in having the character withhold judgment for the sake of illustrating their goodness through their clemency.  Maybe sometimes we need to let the characters (and the readers or viewers) deal with the consequences of moral decisions and the weight of responsibility, as Von Ryan eventually does. 

Mercy is huge, and because it is huge it should be illustrated thoughtfully, intentionally - not brought in carelessly because that is what the consumer 'expects,' or because justice is too messy to handle.

You tell me!  Do you think Bard should have killed Alfrid?  How have your characters wrestled with these issues?

"make it strong."

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rising up, straight to the top 

had the guts, got the glory 

went the distance, now I'm not gonna stop 

just a man and his will to survive

- survivor, eye of the tiger

Maybe it's just me, but when I look back over the five novels I've written, I can trace a mental progression without a whole lot of effort.  Every writer takes a certain amount of time to get his literary feet under him, to grasp his style, to begin to understand the huge responsibility inherent in creating something with the intention of sharing it with the world.  This is particularly true of Christians who write, and who struggle with incorporating - or not incorporating - the gritty realities of life into their books without compromising their own beliefs.  No matter what you write, at some point in time questions - I suppose you could call them questions of ethics - will arise.  Do you write that sexually tense scene?  Do you show that that guy is in love, not just with the girl's "wonderful soul," but with her looks as well?  Do you write the word that comes into your mind in the middle of your characters' heated argument?  Are you (here's the clincher) making people stumble if you do any of the above?  And if you don't...are you just lame?

If you have been around Scribbles & Ink Stains for any length of time you already know how I feel about Christian fiction and the baggage that goes along with the label - but that is not at all to dismiss the struggles faced by individual Christians who also happen to be writers as they attempt to create a story that accurately addresses the world in all its fallen mayhem.  I see the above-mentioned questions frequently around Facebook and the blogosphere and I generally feel less than competent to respond to them, but I'm going to take a stab at a huge issue.

First off, I'll be honest: I am not an adventurous person.  There are certain things that I do not like reading; there are certain things that did not and still do not come easily to me in my writing.  But as I continue to write, and as my stories expand from the relative simplicity of The Soldier's Cross to the time-traveling tangle that is Tempus Regina, I grow more comfortable with incorporating elements that, frankly, some people may find offensive.  I've wrestled with it extensively, especially with the question of swearing.  When a word comes to mind as admirably suited to a piece of dialogue, do you go ahead and write it, or do you hurriedly shoo it out and substitute something that, let's be honest, is always rather stale by comparison?  I used to do that.  I have since come to the conclusion that that is not the best tack to take, that it in fact weakens the impact and believability of both character and story.

it is the mark of an educated mind to entertain a thought without accepting it.

We all know four-letter words.  Really.  We do.  When you write, "Go to...!" no one is going to wonder what the person was about to say before they were so fortunately interrupted.  We all insert the missing word, and we're not sinning by so doing.  God is not going to condemn us because we know a word, nor even, I do not believe, because we (or our characters) use a word.  Attitude is far more important, and when it comes to it, slamming a door can be far more sinful than saying "damn."  We can - should! - incorporate into our stories things of which we do not approve; we should not pretend that the world and its language do not exist.

your story will thank you.

There is a constant debate about whether characters control the author or the author controls the characters.  I don't think "control" is the right word.  We know our characters, and as we continue to write them we get to know them better.  We write them as they are, and the story flows from that.  So it seems to me that when you think a character would say this or do that, he should probably say this and do that.  Hastily diverting the stream of his or her personality will only create awkwardness.  The story works better when you allow them to be true to their characters.  Seriously.  It does.

honey, sometimes "fiddlesticks" just doesn't cut it.

There is a very ludicrous idea that a sanctified man is cut of monkish cloth: celibate, with a halo, speaking in King James English.  I challenge you to find a godly man in the Bible who fits that description.  David?  Imprecatory psalms, people!  Paul?  He was not very fond of the Judaizers.  Jesus?  He washed the feet of the disciples and called the Pharisees a lot of whitewashed tombs. 

Bad words are for bad things.  When your wife is murdered, when you come up against a blackmailer, when your rival's about to win the man you love, when you've just been played for a fool, "oh bother" is not the first thing that springs to your mind.  Maybe we as the authors don't condone it, but we don't have to sermonize about it (that's even worse than not using the word in the first place).  We ought to write with understanding and compassion for the nature of man in all his God-made glory - fallen glory, yes, but glory all the same.  That includes the imperfections and the red-blooded passion of the real world.  It includes those cutting words, that total love, the acts they regret when all's said and done.  If we don't write like this, who will?

The Glorification of Death

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With the first round of edits complete and the novel sent out to readers, I've moved on to the process of query-writing.  Not that any queries will actually be going out for some time yet, but it seemed like a good idea to buckle down and begin the work.  I think the current version is #3.  Getting there, getting there...

The process of researching and noting agencies is, as always, enjoyably frustrating: enjoyable because hey, books! and people to query! and frustrating because there are just so many pages to trawl through.  I am, however, beginning to memorize the agents of such bestselling novelists as Suzanne Collins, Cassandra Clare, Scott Westerfeld, and Stephenie Meyer.  And then there are the ones whose works are represented by more than one agency, and that just gets confusing.

Poking through lists of recent fantasy novels, I've also begun to notice trends.  One is that most of these books get some pretty awesome covers, and could I have a cover like that?  Why, yes, thank you, I will take the cover of Wither!  The second, though, is that dark seems to be incredibly in at the moment.  Everywhere I turn I see yet another book about the undead; about vampire-slaying; about the end of the world; about romance between a human and a devil or an angel and a devil or a SOMETHING and a devil.  Vampires are going out of vogue (Twilight is so 2005) and dystopian is in, but even in young adult novels technically labelled "fantasy," horror seems to be the overriding element. 

This is not to say that all of these are badly written.  I'm sure some of them are; I suppose some of them may very well not be.  Nor do I have what you would call an iron stomach, so perhaps I'm not qualified to judge the creepiness level of any book.  However, seeing all these books lined up in virtual rows and reading all these queries of books that sold has made me wonder where exactly the obsession with death came from.  Death is something alien to the way things ought to be and there is, or used to be, a healthy dread of it.  Now it seems to be embraced. 

I don't believe Christians ought to shy away from addressing the hard, dirty problems of the world: on the contrary, I think the attitude of treading on eggshells that believing writers adopt is part of the reason our literature is so terribly insipid.  Death is a hard, dirty problem that must be faced.  What I wonder in looking over recent publications is whether they are no longer treating it as a problem, or whether the authors are attempting to confront the problem and failing.  And I wonder, too, whether readers are not being inoculated to the issue by the prevalence of horror and skewed spiritual ideas.  If the trend continues, will it not become harder and harder to battle a problem that readers no longer imagine to be a problem?

What think you?

Who Will Deliver Me?

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Updates!  First of all, if you haven't scooted over to the Notebook Sisters and joined in the festivities, I think you'd better had.  They've interviewed a number of authors and are giving away bucket-loads of literary Stuff, including two physical copies each of The Soldier's Cross and The Shadow Things.  And if you already have them, there are plenty of other novels you can enter to win!

Looking over the August to-do list (we're nearly halfway through the month!), I believe I've made significant progress on almost all the items.  Anything dealing with college is on hold until the week of Fall Orientation, and since the weather remains obstinately hot and muggy, long-sleeves are not possible.  But driving continues; one pair of shoes has been bought; Plenilune moves on apace; the brain is suitably stormy; and the first round of Tempus Regina edits is complete.  At the moment I am sending this second draft to only two beta readers, but perhaps at the next turnpike I'll expand the readership.  I can't send it to everyone but don't wish to disappoint anyone, which puts me in a very sticky situation.  We'll see how things pan out.

In the meantime, I will try to get on with the questions asked two months ago.  There was one from Joy and one from Sarah Ellen that unintentionally dovetailed, and I think it would be helpful if I tackled them in one post instead of taking them on separately.  Both are intimately bound up in the life of Tempus Regina and thus are difficult to spell out in so many words: as with all these questions, only the novel itself can provide anything like adequate answers.  However, I hope this post will provide a little clarification, especially to Sarah Ellen's question - which is one I'm sure others have been mentally asking as well and which may make some readers uneasy.

I am curious to know if...Christianity is an obvious and uncloaked element in your characters' faith. What is the religious-system of Tempus Regina's world?

[joy]

This is a huge question to approach, which is part of the reason why I've taken so long about getting to it.  It's dashed difficult!  First off, the phrasing presupposes that Tempus Regina is set in some fantasy world, which was hopefully cleared up in my post As Dreams Are Made On.  As an historical fantasy, it takes place firmly between the bookends of the real world, and that includes the faith of the characters.


Regina's faith is the product of a Victorian upbringing, a little battered and corroded by the constant necessity of fighting to maintain herself: when you are forced to rub shoulders and knock elbows with the world, a good deal of the prettiness gets chipped off.  In the ages to which she travels, however, there is much more of a religious mix.  These are the times of early Christianity, when biblical doctrines were often combined with paganism to create a drink more palatable to the heathens.  Some continued to hold to the array of Norse or Roman or even Persian gods; others accepted a version of Christianity; others, like the Assassin, took a little of everything but were really agnostics at heart.

This variety obviously jars someone like Regina, and since she finds herself thrown into a bargain with the Assassin, her faith - weak as it is - does collide with his worldview.  The antagonism, in fact, does much to reawaken the rudiments of Regina's faith.  It brings her face to face with what I mentioned concerning the story's theme: "the law at work in her members" and the war between Spirit and flesh.  However, this is much, much less central to the plot than it was to The Soldier's Cross.  Or at least, I will say that it is neither so obvious nor resolved so neatly. 

On a scale of clear spiritual overtones, my novels would probably be listed as The Soldier's Cross ("What must I do to be saved?"), then Tempus Regina ("Who will deliver me from this body of death?"), then Wordcrafter ("Greater love hath no man than this..."), and then The White Sail's Shaking & The Running Tide ("Am I my brother's keeper?").  

I've seen pins on your board about elements and wardings and such. Do you include some sort of magic in this book? 

[sarah ellen]

The simple answer is yes, this book does include a much greater magical aspect than any previous work of mine.  Tempus Regina is, again, a somewhat dualistic novel and I am constantly working to balance the elements of history and the elements of fantasy.  It is not historical fantasy in the way a book like Black Horses for the King is historical fantasy, simply by virtue of its placement in a time period about which we know next to nothing: there are definite fantastical components.  This does include some ambiguous sorcery on the part of certain characters. 

Magic as "magic" is not a great part of the story.  On the other hand, alchemy is, and it branches into intuitive alchemy versus the hard-learned, scientific alchemy of the ancient Greek philosophers.  The elemental power that some characters possess, and the burden of mastering something as immense as time itself, introduces a tension that I hope to explore in the future.  Suffice it to say for the moment that for the most part, the pins from the Tempus Regina board fit into the realm of scientific alchemy, which forms most of Regina's experience in this novel.  It's the Assassin's specialty.

Ventriloquy and Belief

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I finished a book the other day.  (Surprise!)  The Daughter of Time was one of those books that crept up on my consciousness for several months before I got around to actually buying it, and from buying it to reading it.  I don't think I had heard about it before this year, but I understand it is a pretty popular and famous work: a landmark book in the mystery genre, in fact. It is, I think, either the last or the second-to-last book in her Inspector Alan Grant series, the most celebrated, and takes place entirely within the walls of a hospital room.  (Which, by the by, gets quite old.)

The main character is a Scotland Yard Inspector, laid up for several weeks after an injury incurred on the job.  To keep him engaged while he's lying on his back staring at the ceiling, a friend brings him a collection of portraits from historical cold cases - everyone from Mary, Queen of Scots to Louis XVII, the boy-king.  Only one of them, however, catches Grant's eye: a painting of Richard III.  Intrigued by the story of how the wicked uncle murdered his innocent nephews, Grant begins to conduct a police investigation from his hospital bed.  An acquaintance assists by conducting all the research, and the story progresses methodically through back-and-forth conversation between the two men.

Unsurprisingly, this also gets old.  It would be bound to get old in any story that takes place within the same four walls with - let me think - one main character and only about five other people who regularly drift through to talk.  But I realized not far into the book that part of the oldness had to do less with those factors and more with the story not actually being a story.  It is a vindication of Richard III, plain and very simple.  Now, I happen to take an interest in Richard and could follow Tey's arguments with relative equanimity; but even agreeing, I was extraordinarily peeved by the authoress' tactic.  Because it becomes apparent as soon as Richard III's portrait shows up that what you, reader, are getting is Tey's opinion en toto, as articulated by Character 1 and Character 2 with occasional prompting from Random Other Peoples.  It isn't a novel, it's just, well, historical preachiness.

The Daughter of Time is an extreme case, and I would go so far as to wager that Tey intended for it to be.  The trouble, however - the trouble of an invasive author, if I could put it that way - is one that crops up and should crop up before every writer.  We've all heard books described as "too preachy."  It's usually applied to Christian fiction, and it is all too easy to stick our noses in the air and determine that people only say that because there is no longer a belief in objective truth.  Which is very probably the case, but does nothing to alleviate the issue as far as good writing is concerned.

We all have, or ought to have, core beliefs.  If we think we don't, it is only that we don't know what those core beliefs are; and at that point we had either better not write, or better keep our writing private, for the world doesn't need anymore hem-hah-ing and prevaricating.  So I'll start with the statement that we all have beliefs, and that on some level, we desire our writing to reflect that.  We hardly want readers thinking we condone abortion, or adultery, or marriage between believers and unbelievers, when we think just the opposite.  And oftentimes we not only don't want readers getting the wrong impression, but we also have an overdeveloped desire for them to get the right one.  As in, I-must-cram-the-Gospel-Jesus-and-the-Bible-in-if-I-want-to-honor-God-SOHELPME.

It is not a wholly unreasonable wish, and I am not here to tell writers exactly what balance to strike.  But if we desire to write a good story (which, I believe, is just as God-honoring and perhaps even more so than working in the Gospel inappropriately), we must be more attune to the characters themselves and not so quick to override their individual personalities.  We must let them be who they are.  Sayers mentioned this several times in regard to her famous character Lord Peter Wimsey, whom her Christian readers badgered her to "save" - and she ignored them, because it was not part of the character.  In a lesser sense, this is also true whenever a character of ours begins talking, especially about anything theological or philosophical.  Obviously we don't want to be seen as wrong ourselves, or propagate wrong-thinking, so we are more likely to switch into the mode of writing exactly what we believe to be truth in as clear a way as possible.  We do a little ventriloquy act through our characters, and an astute reader can tell.

Too often we think that in our writing we've got to try to evangelize not just the characters, but the readers - even though it is biblically clear that God ordained that work to be done through His Word preached, not through fiction.  Our business is to craft a good story, to let the characters think and say what they would think and say "if free-moving and placed within the literary field."  If that means that they think and say something wrong, well, then they shall.  It is my opinion that our core beliefs will show through the story in some manner; it just shouldn't be through ventriloquy.

“A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; but a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.”

g. k. chesterton

In the World? Really?

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Last Tuesday, I began a two-part series in which I attempt to communicate something of my philosophy concerning what it means to be a Christian who writes.  The first half, "Changing the World? Really?", primarily focused on the individualistic approach we take to our art, and the misguided notion that we are called upon to change the world.  I wrapped it up with this essential belief: the Church is a people, not just a society of individual persons.  Then I left off with a question:

"Is the pressure on us, then, to change the world as a whole people?  For the Church to rise up and take on the world?  For all believing writers to band together so their books are more like a rock in the ocean of literature than like a drop?"

And I told you my answer was no, which is something of a spoiler.

This mindset is nearly as prevalent as the individualistic approach I discussed before, and would seem to be more biblical (and more in line with my own remarks).  I said that the language used in Scripture is that of a kingdom, nation, priesthood - large words, significant words, and words that have been used to justify the Church shouldering her way into all aspects of the world's business.  "The Church is a powerful force," they say.  "We just need to realize our power, stand up and combat the world."  Political activism is a major avenue for this kind of militarism.

But since I am a writer, I prefer to question something closer to home and more innocuous, and that is the presence of a Christian label in the arts.  I've talked about it before, but the subject flows quite nicely from the first part of this series, and I could not leave off "Changing the World?" without adding this caveat.  It would be too easy to finish reading that post and infer that I find the introduction of the Christian book industry the answer to our individualistic problem.  In fact, my feelings are, to quote Lizzy Bennet, quite the opposite.  I believe the philosophy behind this labeling to be an error on the other side of the spectrum.

It is difficult to tread this minefield without stepping on one objection or another, for the phenomenon of Christian fiction has been around for several decades now and is pretty well engrained in many minds.  If you are a Christian, and your work has scriptural themes, you publish within the Christian book label.  By and large, it is now taken for granted that the industry gives Christians a voice (by bringing many pebbles together to make a rock, and then dropping it in the sea of literature) and allows us to stand out.  It marks our books as different - as soon as you see the publishing house, and sometimes as soon as you see the cover itself, you know the book is Christian fiction.  And there are a lot of such books out there.

It would seem that this is what I was advocating in "Changing the World?".  It isn't individualistic; Christians are uniting, bringing their works together under an obvious heading, not "putting their lights under bushels" and all that.  By banding together, we're seeking to impact the world.  Two fists are better than one, after all.  It's true that we can't hope to make any difference on our own, but once we get together...!

But this is not what I believe is advocated in the Bible.  We are not told to go into all the world, making our own genres and labels and whatnot; that is not being in the world at all, but is in fact a form of monasticism.  We pull back, wanting to be different not by what we think and say and do and live, but by the heading we live under.  We write our novels and tag them as Christian fiction, reasoning (when we do reason about it; I don't believe I did) that it makes sense because we are Christians and our message is Christian.  But our lives are not meant to be pigeon-holed in such a way.  Yes, indeed, the Church is meant to be united - but the Christian book industry is not the Church.

In creating this label, I believe we have lost a great deal of understanding when it comes to the Church's role, and individuals' roles, in the world.  If we are salt, we cannot keep ourselves in the container; we are sprinkled across a decaying world.  If we are leaven, we spread out to "leaven the whole lump."  If we are a mustard seed, we grow so that our branches cover the whole earth.  This is the work of the Kingdom of Heaven, and there is no room for monasticism in it.

The Christian's life is meant to be lived in the world, within sight of unbelievers.  Not after the same fashion as the world, certainly, but also not off in a cloister - or under a different label.  What impact does that have?  I think if we would be honest, we would realize that few unbelievers are likely to pick up a novel with a Christian label, unless it be by mistake.  (And then they seem frequently to be disgusted.)  Much as the genre as a whole may express a desire to stand out, have an impact, etc., the result is a far cry from the vision expressed by Jesus and the apostolic writers.

None of this is particularly easy to say or accept, because the Christian label is so prevalent; there is little we can do about it, even if we wanted to.  My own novel is technically a Christian novel.  If Christianity plays a major role in your story, it may be difficult to be accepted by a "secular" publisher: that is one reason for going the other route, and I freely confess that there are others as well.  This is by no means a condemnation of all Christian books.  It is merely my look at the idea of a Christian publishing industry, and a challenge to the philosophy that underlies it.

Changing the World? Really?

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When a person finds out you're a writer, and they feel any interest at all in the fact, generally the first question they ask is, "What do you write?"  It's less frequent that you get asked why you write, although it does happen occasionally.

The latter question has in fact cropped up a few times in the interviews people have been submitting for this blog party, and it's not an easy one to answer in just a paragraph or two.  So to give it the attention it deserves, I'm devoting a two-part series to pulling together an answer and presenting something of my own philosophy of life and writing.  Of course it hasn't wholly solidified yet; I'm much too young to have a concrete and immutable philosophy of anything.  But for the moment, this is my outlook on what it is that I do and am - as a writer, and as a Christian.  (A silly turn of phrase, that "as a whatever," but we'll leave it for Dorothy Sayers to debate.)

In the circles I run in, including those in the blogisphere, there is a great deal of pressure being put on believers in general and young believers, I think, in specific.  It doesn't really matter what field or vocation you call your own, because the pressure is the same whether you aspire to be a writer or a musician, a laborer or a manager or a whatever.  The pressure is nothing less than to change the world.  Sometimes it is couched in different terms; always it entails a kind of militancy, a combating of the world, an aggressive sharing of the Gospel to anyone who crosses our path.

In writing, which is obviously what I'm most familiar with, this most often takes the form of incorporating the Good News into every story we produce.  Isn't that we're called to do?  Aren't we supposed to go into all the world and make disciples?  And even if we can't, we can hope our books will - and we want to be sure that anyone who picks up our works will find the Gospel in them.  We want to rest assured that our "Christian fiction" - neatly packaged, all loose ends neatly tied off - stands in contrast and opposition to the mass of worldly stuff hitting the shelves right beside it.  We want our writing to change the world, because we think that's our purpose as writing Christians.

But we don't change the world.

Of course there are probably a few works of Christian fiction that have been used by the Holy Spirit to regenerate hearts; I can't imagine there are very many, but God does work in some pretty mysterious ways.  However, His common - but not common; His chosen method of saving men and women is through "the foolishness of the Word preached" (I Cor. 1:21).  We can't expect that through our novels people will be saved in droves and gaggles.  And yet we still have this idea given to us that somehow our writing, almost by the very nature of its being produced by a Christian, will change our society.

That's a pretty tall order, and a great responsibility if it is indeed true.  Consider for a moment how vast is the culture we live in.  Think of the heaps of books - Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey and all other more or less innocuous works - filling and shaping that culture.  And now picture yourself putting in your two cents, your drop into that ocean.  What difference does it make?  In the scheme of things - and remember here the scheme is that of changing the world - does your contribution matter?  Or does the world sit and laugh (if it even notices you) at your attempt to change it?

"Holy cow," you say now, "aren't you bleak today?  I think I'll just go read Dostoyevsky now to CHEER MYSELF UP."  But my point isn't bleak, once I actually get to it.  I'm pretty cheerful when it comes to my writing.  Because my philosophy of what it means to be a Christian who writes is not one of world alteration.  I don't expect The Soldier's Cross to be out there "winning souls," or even just stemming the tide of bad literature.  That's far too much weight placed on one little 92,000-word novel - far too much weight placed on one little just-barely-five-foot girl.  I can't change the world, and I don't expect to.  I don't think God expects me to.  If we could change the world, I expect He would just leave us here until we had finally converted everyone and the world was a happy place.

What it comes down to in my mind, as far as this part of the matter is concerned, is that God has not placed me as a sole individual with the purpose in His thoughts of me accomplishing all these great things.  He has brought out for Himself a people.  He stuck Israel smack dab in the middle of everything - in the sight of all the nations, in fact.  He has stuck His Church smack dab in the middle of everything, too, so that she should be a city set on a hill.  It is hard to grasp or even to say because of our mindset, but He has not called out for Himself individual persons; He has bought a people (made up of individuals, yes, but greater than the sum of its parts!) to be a witness, to be salt and light and leaven and a mustard seed that grows to fill the whole earth.

We lose sight of this; I lose sight of this.  But I think we must stop thinking about ourselves in such a personal and individualistic manner, stop thinking that we're set out alone with our own candles with the weight of the world - literally - resting on our shoulders.  The language of Scripture is that of a nation, a priesthood, a kingdom, a spiritual house.  The pressure is not, and should not, be on us as individuals to change the world.

Is the pressure on us, then, to change the world as a whole people?  For the Church to rise up and take on the world?  For all believing writers to band together so their books are more like a rock in the ocean of literature than like a drop?  Well, I'll sum up my answer as "no," but the rest will come in a later post.

There's a comic that features Moses holding the tablets of stone and telling the people of Israel, "Please hold your applause until I've read all ten."  Please hold your applause (or rotten tomatoes) until I've finish up the next installment, and then see what you think.  And, while you're waiting, don't forget to enter the novel giveaway.  Because you've only got ten days left, and Christmas is coming...!

Going on for Years

Back in January (which seems ages ago) I wrote a post on romance - its prevalence in modern fiction, and how it can be, but does not necessarily have to be, incorporated into a story.  It was necessarily a cursory post and I didn't go down all the rabbit trails I would have liked to explore.  But among the comments, this one by Rachel captured a theme I had wanted but had not had time to look at.  Hitting the proverbial nail on its proverbial head, as usual, she wrote:

...Love is a different matter. Love has so many faces one can never get tired of it--simply peep in 1 Cor. 13 and you'll have enough to go on for years! I do like stories with a bit of that kind of romance in it...come to think of it, aren't all stories built off of relationships?

Aren't they?  The question is rhetorical and the answer seems obvious, and yet as I read Rachel's comment I wondered if many authors have not failed to realize it. Amid the overabundance of romance novels - some of which come out and say right up that they're romances, others of which masquerade as historical fiction, suspense, contemporary, you name it - it seems that there are fewer and fewer books looking at other kinds or avenues of love.  Relationships with parents, siblings, friends, and, oftentimes, God Himself are all trundled into the backseat so that the lovers can sit up front.  And I don't know about you, but it seems to me that this is a patently false interpretation of life.

Naturally, at this point I am forced to offer a caveat.  After all, the Bible does say that "for this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife"; the one spouse does hold a place of supremacy in the life of the other.  And, too, marriage and the marriage relationship is a picture of that great Love that God bears for His people.  But so are other "forms" of love - else why would we be told that He is our heavenly Father, Christ our Brother, the Church made up of our kindred?  Christ is indeed the Bridegroom, the Church the Bride; but He is also that Friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Analogies, if they can be called analogies (for we can hardly say that God is the one imitating us), between our relationships day to day and God's powerful relationship with His own people abound.  We love, as John states, because He first loved us.  And we love many different people in many different ways.  Romance is not the only form that provides something of a mirror of God's love, but its glorification in Christian fiction seems to say that many authors think it is.  I have many reviews or descriptions of novels that at some point state that the romance "is an allegory of God's pursuit of man."  This is all well and good, but in making such a parallel too distinct, do we not run the risk of obscuring other equally-valid parallels?  And not only do we run the risk, but the damage may already be done.

I've been toying with these thoughts for some time now - at least over the course of writing White Sail's, but also, I believe, while I was working on Wordcrafter.  I hope and trust that each story I write is a little more complex, mines a few more gems, brings up a little more truth than the preceding book.  The Soldier's Cross was a fairly straight-forward tale of a girl coming to grips with God, sin, and salvation.  Wordcrafter is a story of friendship, a novel (unconsciously) built around the narrative of David and Jonathan and that snatch of a quote from Jesus that so characterized His sacrifice: "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."  The White Sail's Shaking goes, I hope, a little beyond even that.  It does have romance - heavens, don't think I'm denigrating romance!  It has friendship, and loyalty, and plain, unadorned respect.  Really, in the year and a half I have spent thus far in writing White Sail's, I think this captures, if not the whole story, one major theme:

"A good man can love in many different areas...and love well."

- the white sail's shaking, tip brighton

And it is in my mind that this should be our goal, not only or even primarily in our writing, but in our lives as well.

Not a Tame Lion

Within the genre of Christian fantasy, as it is known in that vague place called "the market," perhaps the most used tool in making the fantasy world "Christian" in some way is allegory. This can be as slight as having a different word for God, or it can be as broad as having a Christ-figure, angelic beings, demons, and a Satan-figure. Writers want their stories, whatever genre they fall into, to reflect God's truth and to have Gospel elements, and in the difficult genre of fantasy, the simplest way of doing this is to employ allegory.

Sadly, the rise of allegory can probably be traced to C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, some of the best-loved children's books since their publication in the 1950s. Most fantasy authors will admit that their primary inspiration came from such works as Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and Lewis' most famous The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, even though neither man wrote his book intending for it to be taken as an allegory. The Chronicles of Narnia are "what if" tales, as Lewis specifically stated: "...[Aslan] is an invention giving an answer to the question, 'What might Christ become like if there really were a world like Narnia and He chose to be incarnate and die and rise again in that world as He actually has done in ours?' This is not allegory at all." This is made clear at the end of The Voyage of the 'Dawn Treader' when Aslan tells Lucy, Edmund, and Eustace that in their world he has another Name, and that they must learn to know him by that Name.

But even this is a dangerous position for an author to take, for when he writes a being like Aslan, he is making a statement about Christ. In fact, he is essentially writing Christ. This is taking on one's self a massive amount of responsibility, but because Lewis got away with it (and in doing so created a classic), many writers now operate under the assumption that they can do the same. The shelves are filling with allegorical fantasies that feature Christ or a Christ-like figure as a dragon, as a canine, as a feline - and authors have lost sight of the magnitude of what they are attempting to do. The process of writing an allegory has become as simple as picking some creature that seems in the author's mind to represent some attribute of God, and then enhancing that attribute to make the creature into something which (again, in the author's mind) is "like God."

"The essence of idolatry is the entertainment of thoughts about God
that are unworthy of Him."

This quote by A.W. Tozer sums up the state of affairs in modern American Christianity. God has been put in a box. His perfections have been diluted and cheapened into "what God is for me," and this personalized, subjective, and unbiblical way of looking at Him cannot help but overflow into the writing of professing believers. Thus, Christians have no problem with portraying Christ as a dragon or of comparing God to their dog. In fact, it seems perfectly natural to them. They never stop to think of the horror the early Christians would have felt at the thought of applying such base images to a holy God.

One argument that might be raised in defense of such allegories is that it helps readers to understand God better, or at least to understand certain of His attributes better. But unworthy thoughts do not lift the mind to see God more clearly; they lower God to the level of the human mind and thus degrade Him. In the pages of Scripture, God does not express much enthusiasm for man's self-made ways of worshiping Him. He has given us His Word in order to reveal Himself to us, but too often we forget that in the Bible we have God Himself speaking to us; if we recalled that to mind more often, why would we think we need weak word-pictures to reveal Him to us? God does not need help in revealing Himself to us.

Is all allegory evil? I would not go so far as to say that. I do think that Lewis, in portraying Aslan as a lion (a scriptural term for Christ - the Lion of Judah), in pointing always to Christ, and in grounding the representation in Scripture, did an excellent job with his Chronicles of Narnia and created a deep, thoughtful story worth reading over and over. But writers ought to be careful with this method of Christianizing their stories - and, indeed, with any method of Christianizing anything - and should stop marching on as though they had every right to portray God however they want. Although they may think they are sharing the Gospel and proclaiming Christ, it is quite likely that they are doing more harm than good. The nature of God is not a thing to be taken lightly.

Basking in Ink

Summer is usually the time when people first eye the tremendous stacks of books they have been meaning to read, then eye the calendar and the somewhat-less-hectic months, and set themselves reading goals. I don't have a set reading list, but I do hope to be able to bathe in ink this summer as much as possible - reading books, writing letters, and writing White Sail's. There will probably not be half as much ink this summer as I should like, but oh well! At least there will be some.

In honour of the ink-theme of summer, and because I don't have a list of all the books I hope to read in three months, I thought I would do a writeup of books I have already read - my top ten. It was a bit difficult limiting it to ten, but I managed it, and so here they are (in no particular order).

1. The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper. This is a rather surprising choice for a favourite, since it was a book assigned to me in American Literature and I have little to no love for the classic literature on this side of the Pond. I slogged through the first chapters, grumbling about it as I went, until I discovered a little ways in that the storyline and the characters are made of pure Awesome. Not, I admit, a highly sophisticated analysis, but true nonetheless.

This book has two people in it that made it onto my list of top twenty fictional characters - not Hawkeye, although I liked him, but Uncas and Cora. Uncas I adore, and if he is not my absolute favourite character, he at least makes it into the top five. I also love Cora's strength and faith (although I would not go so far as to call it a Christian novel).

2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Who could not like Jane Austen's classic novel? I have read all of her works, but this one still takes the cake with its delicious wit and array of characters. It needs no explanation.

3. The Gammage Cup by Carol Kendall. A children's book, to be sure, but one that can be enjoyed at any age. I love everything about it: the whimsical writing, the characters (particularly Muggles), the land of the Minnipins - oh, everything! It is just the thing to curl up with on a blue day when you want to read something cheery. The Gammage Cup is a classic, and ought to be better known than it is.

4. The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff. I'm not as big a fan of Rosemary Sutcliff as some people. Because of the emotion she elicits in her writing, I have to be in the right mood for Sutcliff's books; they aren't ones that I can pick up any rainy day. But I do enjoy many facets of her writing and am steadily pulling together a larger collection of her works, and this first book of her Dolphin Ring Cycle is absolutely fantastic. The setting, the quest, the "this is just the beginning" atmosphere all combine to give me a tight-throat feeling while I read it. But the characters are what I especially love. Marcus, Esca, Cub, Cottia, Uncle Aquila - they are all unique and wonderful.

5. The Knowledge of the Holy by A.W. Tozer. I seem to be especially fond of books with "of the" in the title. This work on the attributes, or perfections, of God has more meat between its covers than you would expect from so thin a book, but it is also written in a style easy to follow and understand (as easy to understand as such a subject can be) and should be a part of any Christian's library. A simply splendid book.

6. Ben-Hur by Lew Wallace. Positively the best book set in the time of Christ's life on earth. I cannot express adequately how wonderful this novel is - strong, profound, rich, thrilling, satisfying... This book is all of the above and more. It has a fantastic hero, a fantastic villain, and a fantastic heroine, too, and treats with reverence the true Hero of the story: Christ.

7. The Space Trilogy by C.S. Lewis. Yes, yes, I do realize this is three books and that I'm cheating, but how am I expected to choose a favourite? Many people have only read Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, but while that is an excellent series, stopping there will leave you with the mere milk of his writing. Though he was by his own admission no theologian, his fiction and nonfiction are brilliant with truth. Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength are his contributions to the realm of science fiction, but as with most of Lewis' writing, he delves into the glory of Light and Goodness and the truth of fairytales.

8. The Iliad by Homer. Crazy choice, I know. But I happen to have a soft spot for Achilles (not shared by many) and I always experience a thrill when I read about him. And the opening line is one of my favourites: "Sing, O goddess, the wrath of Achilles, son of Peleus..." I have no other excuse to offer.

9. Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis. Because, in case I haven't mentioned it before, Lewis is awesome. This novel was his last and his favourite, and though many people struggle with it, it has just as many riches to be mined as any of his other works. He takes the Greek myth of Psyche and Cupid and retells it in a vastly different light; it is an allegory, but not after the style of Bunyan. It is so deep and so thought-provoking and so evocative that, as with Rosemary Sutcliff's novels (and more so), I can't just pick it up any old day and read it. But that doesn't make it any less fantastic.

10. The Life of God in the Soul of Man by Henry Scougal. I have only read this little book once so far, but it is so rich with truths that I expect to return to it many times. Written in the 1600s, it was originally a letter of encouragement and edification to a friend; that friend was so blessed by it that he subsequently published it. Like The Knowledge of the Holy, it is a must-read. This is perhaps my favourite quote from it: "They know by experience that true religion is a union of the soul with God, a real participation of the Divine nature, the very image of God drawn upon the soul, or, in the apostle's phrase, 'it is Christ formed within us.'"

I have many other books that I love, but these, despite being a motley collection, are the cream of the crop. These are the ones at the mention of which I either go shaky with happiness or become warm and content. These are my favourite sources of Inklight to bask in.

We Have the Mind of Christ

This school year I have been taking a course on Philosophy, and my term paper happens to be on the question What is Truth? I started out with much fear and trembling and intense feelings of the paltriness of my mind, wondering how on earth I could produce a worthwhile ten- to thirteen-page essay on such a difficult topic. I've actually found, however, that writing this report is easier than my other essay for History, primarily because of the large amount of literature on the topic. The issue of objective versus subjective Truth has been around for ages, expressed by Pilate so famously in his brief, skeptical question to Jesus: "What is Truth?" Nowadays, with destructive postmodernist philosophy strong in the world and in the Church, the common answer is that there is no truth. Or, at least, there is no objective Truth. Truth is what you make it to be; it's all a matter of perspective.

This view has worked itself into the modern Church with alarming success, resulting in the widespread belief among professing believers that the Bible is not God's objective Word and does not need to be obeyed. Phrases like "Well, that's true for you..." and "That's just your opinion" tumble easily out of the mouths of the majority of professing Christians. This disbelief (usually subconscious) in the existence of objective Truth in the moral realm then also manifests itself in the types of entertainment that are accepted - in music, literature, art, what-have-you - because if there is no objective Truth, there is no standard and everything is simply a matter of personal opinion.

It's understandable that because of this ecclesiastically-accepted postmodernism, more reformed churches react against it and begin to lay down rules as to what things Christians should listen to or compose, read or write, admire or draw. We begin to see the development of the use of "Christian" as an adjective - "Christian" novels, "Christian" music, etc. - and even if what are termed "secular" forms of entertainment are not wholly condemned, we are encouraged to stay primarily within those categories labeled "Christian." These are considered healthy and safe and God-honoring.

Unfortunately, this reaction to the looseness of modern Christian morality is just that - a reaction. It moves to the other end of the spectrum and begins to construct definitions of "good" and "bad," "healthy" and "unhealthy," "God-pleasing" and "God-dishonoring," that are not found in the Scriptures. Some body of officials is set up to say that this book is good because the author mentions God a few times, but that book is bad because the characters don't profess to be Christians. That music is bad because it uses drums, but this music is sacred because it is in the hymnbook. But do all men not have the Imago Dei? And isn't it possible that the image of God that they bear comes out in a beautiful or powerful or even truthful way in their work, whether or not they are a believer? Paul himself quoted a pagan poet in addressing the Athenians and gave the man credit for speaking truth. Is it not possible for a thinking Christian to find diamonds of truth in the works of Plato or of Marcus Aurelius; in Charles Dickens and in Shakespeare; in works of fiction and works of history?

But you might say, "Well, surely there are a great many bad books and music and art in the world." And I say yes, most certainly; and there are a great many bad books and music and art that call themselves Christian, too. The point is not to be lulled into comfort by tags and labels, not to be trusting because a CD has "CCM" on it or because a novel is in the Christian fiction part of Barnes & Noble. Believers must be thinking men and women - thinking and fearless. When you combine a sanctified mind with trust in God, there is not only no danger in "secular" works, but you will often find good challenges and truths.

In case you think I am saying that Christians can benefit by every genre of book and style of music and ought to read and listen indiscriminately, I'm not. I think that being critical of what you read is as important as being critical as you read. But this critical thinking should not be guided by what the Higher Ups have in their great and boundless wisdom termed "Christian"; it should be guided by a firm knowledge (and by that I mean a scriptural and well-considered knowledge) of objective good and bad.

Naturally, the first question is of the morality of any work. If the lyrics of the song are obscene or the content of a book is immoral, there is no reason for a believer to waste his time in listening to the music or reading the book. But something may be decent without passing the test of objective worth; it may simply not be any good. Personally, I think many "Christian" novels fall into this category. (Sadly, most of the ones I have read fail to pass the first test, either.) The plot is so old that the author is not just beating the dead horse, he is, as my sister likes to say, "beating the greasy patch where the horse used to be." Or the writing is flimsy and unpolished, with no beauty or truth or impact. In one area or another, or perhaps a whole bunch, the book isn't good. Why waste time with such a thing when there are thousands of other objectively good books to be read and enjoyed? Or perhaps a song is clean - perhaps even a rendition of a hymn - but the music is discordant, or the singer's voice is horrid. Is this beauty? Is this worth spending time listening to?

The very fact of the presence of the Imago Dei in mankind that I mentioned earlier demands better things than this. We ought to search for beauty and cherish it when we find it, and not be content to sit in the mud and make pies. It may be that subjectively you don't care for Bach or for Jane Austen, but the mind should be attuned to the objective worth of such works of art. In I Corinthians Paul talks about the wisdom of God and the unsearchable, unknowable depths of His mind, then says powerfully and succinctly: "But we have the mind of Christ." That is a deep thing, having the mind of Christ. I cannot imagine that having this mind of Christ, we are meant to let it stagnate by remaining always in our comfort zone and never exercising the power we have through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. We ought always to be searching out good things and enjoying them as gifts from God, and honoring Him in that enjoyment as the Giver of every good gift.

Interview with Tessa from Christ is Write

Today Tessa from the blog Christ is Write is hosting an interview with myself and my sister, Jennifer Freitag, about our recent publications, what it's like to be teen authors, our works in progress, and more.

Sneak Peek:

What's it like being a teenage author, which is very unlikely, but also having a teen sister doing the same thing?

Jenny: Frankly, it feels kind of surreal. I have to stop and tell myself “You are a published author,” and even then, I feel as if I am talking about someone else, not myself. Having Abigail published along with me is a comfort because it’s a whole new, strange world, and it makes it easier to learn by trial and error with someone else in the comedy of errors with me.

Abigail: My experience is much the same as Jenny’s. We’ve both been writing for so long that being published was just the next step of that—something that we are very thankful for, but that hasn’t really changed much for us. It has been a blessing that both of us were published at the same time, not just in that we’re both venturing out together, but because neither one of us was first in this. There’s no room for any rivalry.

To see the whole interview, go to Christ is Write.

Light in the Darkness

A little while back I wrote a blog post on "Christian" fiction and the often shallow messages and themes in that genre of writing, and the tendency of such literature to be pure moralizing from start to finish. Most of the Christian novels put out by presses nowadays are fairly cookie-cutter in plot and content - generally romances with preachy overtones and simplistic themes, packaged in fluff - and these were the sorts of novels I discussed. They are the kinds of books that go down like cotton candy and have no meat in them to edify the reader, believer or unbeliever.

But there is also another branch of "Christian" fiction that is almost the polar opposite of the Fluffy Romance genre, with more dramatic themes, darker twists and turns, and more challenging morality. On a shelf they can be picked out from their romantic counterparts quite easily, often having deep, dark colors in contrast to the sunny landscapes depicted on the romance novels, and in this case one can judge the book by its cover. These books often seem (and sometimes are) more powerful than the other type of "Christian" fiction because they tend to wrestle with more complicated matters, with problems that force the reader to think rather than to mindlessly absorb.

However, these books are not necessarily much healthier than the romances. They do at first seem to deserve more respect than the other type of novels I discussed; after all, even if in the end the reader disagrees with the story, at least it makes them think. But the more one does think about it, the more I think it comes to light that the worth of such novels is as questionable as in their sugary counterparts. These stories challenge, certainly, but their very challenges only serve to muddy the moral waters, to filter the light, to blur the line between good and evil. They wrestle with weighty moral problems, to be sure, but often give no firm foundation for the conclusion - if there is a conclusion at all. The result simply is, and the reader is left to think what they will.

Now, to a degree, every story will be like this: writers cannot force their readers to agree with their conclusions. But a lack of foundation will make the morality of an entire story crumble, and the result will be confusion. If Good and Evil are not starkly revealed by the end, there will be very little light in the darkness. Stories like this, while they may be engaging and interesting to read, are unhealthy, and perhaps dangerous, in large quantities. We live in an age where right and wrong are what the viewer makes them to be, where evil is not truly evil, darkness is not truly darkness. While it is true that not all things in life are obviously black and white and the starkness of good and evil may vary depending on the story, Christians should take care not to obscure the line between one and the other, or they will remove the basis for any message they wish to carry through.

"You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven." (Matthew 5:14-16)

What is "Christian" Fiction?

I don't read many contemporary novels, Christian or secular. It's difficult to find ones of any worth amid the muddle of copycat authors, immorality, and skeleton-strewn covers, so I primarily stick to those whose authors have been dead for, oh, at least forty or fifty years. But I also run a review site and I wanted to get it set up to receive free copies of books to review, and, of course, those books are contemporary - hot off the press, actually; so, since I received a copy from a publishing house, I recently read a contemporary Christian novel.

I'm not going to go into rant-mode about the atrocities of modern writing, etc. I was more shocked by the realization (I had known it before, but, sticking to the classics as I do, I had never witnessed it) of how the word "Christian" is used as a label, on books, on music, even on churches. The book I read was basically a romance, sprinkled with prayer and a few moral revelations, such as "Oh, lying isn't a good thing!" and "What do you know! God is sovereign!" This, apparently, makes a book "Christian," despite the fact there was no hint of the Gospel message in the pages.

Now, I can very easily appreciate a novel without its depicting a clearly Christian worldview. Most classic novels take a moral stance in looking at the world, like Dickens and Austen, but not one that is founded on the heart of Scripture - the complete depravity of man and the need for the gift of redemption through Christ's sacrifice; rather, they are built on the basic moral code set in every man. Not that these writers were utterly godless, for Dickens often speaks reverently of God in his works; Jane Austen wrote some very stirring prayers and defends the Church in some of her novels; Charlotte Bronte's novel Jane Eyre had many facets that seemed to be more than just moral; and Louisa May Alcott's stories are extremely moral and works-based. But are they Christian? No; they merely reflect the emerging deistic or theistic philosophies of their time.

So how do contemporary novels of the same brand gain the right to be labeled "Christian"? There are several different possible answers that spring to mind immediately. The first is what I already posited - they get called "Christian" because they're moral and they have God as a fairly central figure (even if He does seem like a bit of an afterthought crowded in there). But does that really count as Christian? If an unbeliever picked up a book after seeing that it was labeled "Christian" and read it, might he not come away with the misunderstanding that the God we claim to worship is really nothing more than a sort of appendage stuck on our lives, or a prayer machine, or perhaps that it is mere morality that we are celebrating? And even if we say that unbelievers aren't likely to be reading it anyway, and that it is for believers, I can't help thinking that the result isn't going to be much better for Christians, either. These sorts of novels with a bit of God shoved in cultivate an attitude of regarding the Sovereign, Almighty God - the One who "holds all things together by the word of His power" and "in [whom] we live and move and have our being" - of regarding Him as something less than the focus of our lives.

The second possible reason is that the books are called Christian because their authors profess to be Christian, and perhaps they feel guilty writing something that doesn't at least have some Christian teaching clearly tacked on. I don't believe that this is a valid argument, for two reasons. One is essentially what I talked about above: if you paste that label of "Christian" onto a book, you have to remember the possible readers and consider what they will take away from that novel about what Christianity is. And the second is that, generally speaking, not every story that comes to mind is going to deal with the Gospel itself, and it is not necessary to try to wedge it in where it doesn't fit. I do believe that no story a Christian writes ought to be written for shock value, defy the truths of Scripture, or go against the principles of our faith in any way, and I think that this cleanliness of our literature ought to stand as a light amid the general darkness of secular books. This is our witness: not our stuffing the Gospel where it really doesn't fit and showing ourselves awkward through the awkwardness of our writing, but keeping our works pure, letting the themes come as they will, and boldly allowing our faith to show itself in the pages when and where it fits.