Christian fiction Discussion

This is a spin-off of This Discussion on Christian Romance, so I’d like to create a new post. Saying “Christian fiction is stupid, I will never read it” was a strong perspective taken.

I wonder if everyone would agree that the solution isn’t throwing it all out, but BECOMING the kind of author that can interweave faith in Christ and a compelling story.

A lot of the authors here on AuthorMedia are believers. Maybe we can start a change.

Because I’m of the opinion that a Christian author has the duty to not waste their readers’ moments. If all I do is entertain, that means that for the 6-10 hours of reading they have spent their lives in entertainment for entertainment’s sake.

On the other hand, if that entertainment can also draw their hearts up in love of Christ and outward in concern for the world, then it has been a productive, God-honoring use of their time.

Entertainment is not excluded from the duty of man: Man’s chief end being to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. What we choose to do for entertainment is not simply a neutral. I know we often compromise, give in to the coarse language and crude actions in movies and books because it thrills us.

I particularly dislike the dispensational focus of sci-fi futuristic thrillers, which have glutted the market. I’m not going to be reading those because I’m not in alignment with that view of end times. Likewise, when it’s enough for romance fiction to speak positively of Jesus and have a prayer over a meal to qualifies as “faith-based”—that is a tragic view of faith.

That said, fiction shapes society. Fiction shapes Christian society. Meaning, Christians reading fake faith fiction and Christians reading secular fiction will shape church culture. What if—instead of allowing it to remain ugly and fake, we take it back into true faith?

Instead of running from the fight that is overwhelmed with a fake faith, we fill the shelves with what it SHOULD be. That’s my take.

It’s not easy to have a deeply spiritual story that isn’t preachy. Tolkien and Lewis are tug-of-war on how to do that. Lewis’s books were low-key allegory and Tolkien was hard-to-find allegory. But Redeeming Love by Rivers accomplished it. It is possible to do.