The Myth of Christian Fiction

I'm writing a book!

This actually isn't huge news as some of you know I've been writing said-book for about four years now. And now that I'm starting a physics college course AND an anatomy and physiology college course next week I'm sure I'll have tons of time to devote to writing. Yeah, the book's really coming along. Stay tuned...for another four years, perhaps.

Anyway, a while back, someone asked me what I was up to and I mentioned the whole snail-paced book thing, unsure I wanted to share about it since it's so slow going. Excitedly, she asked me, "So it's Christian fiction?"

Well...no...

You see, I think that phrases like "Christian fiction", "Christian movie" and "Christian music" are misnomers at best and marketing ploys at worst (not always, mind you, but sometimes).

People are Christian, not things. A book has no soul that it can hand over to God when it realizes it doesn't want to do life on its own. A movie can not realize its need for Christ's grace. A song might be filled with Jesus-praising lyrics, but the song itself is not "Christian".

I'm not so uptight about these distinctions that I won't (out of laziness) refer to them by their common societal names, so don't drop your coffee if you ever hear me say something about a "Christian bookstore". (Just know that as I'm saying it, there are quotation marks around it in my mind.)

So, the real question is: Am I writing this book with hopes of honoring and glorifying God throughout the process and result? The answer to that is a resounding YES. I hope to do that in all I do.

However, I want to clarify (just in case my work is eventually available on Amazon and other fine retail sites) that my attempts to honor and glorify God through literature may look a bit different than some of you might expect, and I want you to be ready for that.

I have a major gripe with the vast majority of "Christian fiction" that I've read: The authors seem to have sterilized their characters so thoroughly in order to appeal to a Christian audience that their heroes and heroines hardly resemble real people. That's one of the things I love about the Bible itself: It's full of genuine, messed up people just like me! People that God pursued, loved and helped.

If I read a book and can't relate to the protagonists then I don't care how beautiful the descriptive language is nor how accurate the historical research was. I'm left feeling like I've just wasted my time, like a farce was just laid before me as an example of how to live life. A good fictitious story reaches out to its readers and helps them feel known and understood, helps point them in a realistic and helpful direction. For me, that connection is missing in most "Christian" stories I've read or watched. (Songs are different; a lot of content resonates with me in those.)

Now if you love certain "Christian books" I have no desire to ruin that for you. Read them. Enjoy them. My opinion's really not too important and I don't want to mar a good thing for you.

However, I take stories very seriously and if they don't seem genuine to me then I don't care for them. 

Life is dirty and ugly. I am not afraid to include dirt and ugliness in my book because I want it to be realistic, authentic.

I know Christians who won't watch some productions that I consider very powerful. I have no desire to convince them otherwise. If they have a conviction about something then it's not my place to pull them over to share my convictions. "Let everyone be convinced in their own mind." Still, I will say that a TV series like Band of Brothers was life-changing for me, not in a hugely reverberating way, but it opened my eyes to war, courage, evil, love and a host of other real-life things. Yet, it contained profanity, sexuality, gore.

"Geez, Aimee, what's in this book you're writing?" you may be wondering. Well, it's certainly not on the Band of Brothers level of profanity, sexuality or gore (or on BoB's level of quality for that matter!), but there are a few words in my book that aren't part of my every day vocabulary, not gratuitously so, but realistically so.

In fact, there isn't anything gratuitous in my work. Everything I include is meant to develop characters, propel the story forward, make readers think. You know...good stuff.

There is no casual, tasteless titillation whatsoever.

Maybe soon you'll be able to see for yourself.

"Soon" is a relative term. :)