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...!