Forever a Foreigner

We all know good stories, the ones that endure, that break your heart and change your life—that get told and re-told across centuries, ones children beg for at bedtime. Stories are powerful. No one denies this. They strike deep, and they linger; they enchant, and they slap us with reality; they teach us empathy, and they show us ourselves; they teach us to laugh, and they teach us grief; they comfort us, and they send us to war. Don’t Christian writers, children of God who dream and create fiction, have the duty to do it well?

I have always loved stories, whether they come from books, movies, the stage, or mealtime conversation. I made them up constantly as a child. Some made it to paper, others played out among my toys or in my head. As a teenager, however, when I began to write in earnest, I began to ask serious questions that had never struck me as important before.

What does God think about fiction? What does God think about my stories? What does the Bible have to say about writing and the imagination?

This 2-part essay lays out Biblical principles in answer to these questions, exploring a Christian philosophy of writing. Each Christian writer will apply the principles differently, but every Christian has a responsibility to consider how to please God with his or her talent.

Objectionable Elements

Every Christian writer must face a question: what they are willing to write about? In a world of competing genres, worldviews, and imaginations, there are objectionable elements galore. Are there taboo topics? Many Christians feel uncomfortable with subjects that deal with certain sins or vulgarities. An article from BJU Press lists profanity, scatological and erotic realism, sexual perversion, lurid violence, and occultism as examples (“A Biblical,” 2015). To what purposes do writers include such elements, and are they justifiable reasons for Christians? Three come to mind.

Realism

Fiction often receives high praise for being “realistic”. Critics praise works for being “dark,” “gritty,” and not “holding back.” One article states: “When sex is evidently a part of adolescent lives, it would be remiss not to include it in the literature written for them” (Farrow, 2015). Therefore, since real people are profane, violent, and cruel, such elements are necessary for a truly deep story. The more grey is mixed in with a character’s morals, the more complex and realistic it is.

This assumption that realism is equal to the darker, uglier side of reality rests on a skewed worldview. Postmodernism and nihilism claim that the world is uncertain, and in the end the monstrous, unveiled face of meaningless evil is all there is. Out of this pessimism, the only hope is to create meanings for ourselves.

A Christian writer should never feel compelled to write dark fiction to be “realistic”. That sort of “realism” is the farthest thing from reality. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5, ESV). War is just as real as peace, joy just as real as despair. Tolkien, the father of modern fantasy, put it this way, “the notion that motor-cars are more…“real” than, say, horses is pathetically absurd” (1939, p. 21). A Christian writer knows that there is certainty that in the end the glorious, unveiled face of the meaningful God will be revealed.

However, some Christian writers swing to the other extreme and write fiction that ignores difficult themes. It is one thing to choose to write without profanity, and another to write as if hard questions about morality do not exist. I have read too many trite books labelled “Christian fiction” that are full of sappy dialogue and sentimental happy endings. Christians are meant to “always [be] prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks” (I Peter 3:15), not be blissfully ignorant. There is a balance to be struck.   

A Christian writer should never feel compelled to write dark fiction to be “realistic”. That sort of “realism” is the farthest thing from reality.

Hedonism

Some writers write fiction that just crudely indulges fantasies. It is no secret that books full of bedroom scenes sell fast as pornography. A story that drags the reader into the head of a sadist can provide what is termed as “torture porn”. This nihilistic, hedonistic approach to fiction assumes that what a reader or writer does with their imaginations does not matter, since they are not harming anyone, a kind of vicarious sinning. Renowned author C.S. Lewis referred to this approach of wish-fulfillment as “a disease” (1982). 

This is particularly dangerous for the Christian writer on the personal level. Imagination and conscience are inseparably linked. Paul states that “to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled” (Titus 1:15). Emphasis is placed on the purity of the Christian’s mind. “[B]e transformed by the renewal of your mind, that…you may discern…what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Rom. 12:1), which includes what we write: “even if no man ever saw…he knows God looks upon them,” (Schaeffer, 1973). We are also warned not to cause others to stumble. A Christian writer should keep both his own mind and the minds of his readers pure.

Imagination and conscience are inseparably linked.

Agenda

All stories persuade on some level, but some writers are more intentional about swaying readers to their point of view than others. Some include objectionable elements to deliberately glorify something like occultism or sexual perversion, or, on the other hand, include them as part of a serious critique of those elements. Christians should never seek to glorify sin, but when it comes to constructive criticism of something like homosexuality, how much detail should a writer put in his story? Paul states, “take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them,” but in the very next breath he says “it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret” (Eph. 5:11-12). Is there no straight answer?  

Perhaps not, but there is a principle I can draw from experience and Scripture. A writer has the power to intimately give readers sights, sounds, and experiences. This power can be abused. There are books I keep locked away in some dark corner of my mind, vainly hoping that someday I will forget the words that branded themselves onto my soul. I do not wish that on anyone. Scripture tells harsh and direct narratives, but they are rarely, if ever, accompanied by the kind of detailed descriptions I find in modern novel writing. Tamar’s rape (2 Sam. 13) is told candidly, yet without vivid language. The effect of the story, however, is not lessened. Less is more. Scripture does not gloss over mankind’s depravity, but it does not wallow in it either. A Christian writer does not need to be gratuitous when discussing sin, but tactfully honest.

To be Continued…

Scripture does not gloss over mankind’s depravity, but it does not wallow in it either.

References

A Biblical Approach to Objectionable Elements in Christian Education. (2015, October 1). BJU Press. Retrieved from https://www.bjupress.com/resources/christian-school/solutions/objectionable-elements.php.

Duran, Mike. (2014, Oct. 6). Christian Worldview and Dystopia. Retrieved from http://www.mikeduran.com/2014/10/06/christian-worldview-and-dystopia/.

Farrow, Erin. (2015, September 25). Honest and subtle: writing about sex in young adult literature. The Conversation. Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/honest-and-subtle-writing-about-sex-in-young-adult-literature-48002.

Lewis, C.S. (1982). On Stories: And Other Essays. [e-text]. New York: Houghton Mifflin.

Maurois, André. (1960). The Art of Writing. Bodley Head. 

Schaeffer, Francis. (1973). Art and the Bible. [e-text]. InterVarsity Press.

Tolkien, J.R.R. (1939). OnFairyStories. Retrieved from http://brainstorm-services.com/wcu-2004/fairystories-tolkien.pdf.