Into the Fire

Osmosis: any gradual, often unconscious, process of assimilation or absorption that resembles [the previously stated defining of] this diffusion

Some writers think if you even so much as mention the Name of Jesus in a story, you are preaching. Some writers think if you refer specifically to Jesus rather than just God, you are being preachy. Some writers think if you mention God, you are selling a message over story.

Good grief. Like we can hide Him and expect a reader to find Him through our beautiful prose? Just write a story, don’t mention God, but tell it with such amazing language, a remarkable plot, characters who expound such depth, such beauty—or are so sinister—who seem real, and, of course, cannot be classified as a Christian if they are “good”. And from this telling of a truly notable and extraordinary (because of the writing, of course) tale, the reader(s) will recognize God in the pages and . . . what? Turn to Jesus? Osmosis.

God informed us in the first chapter of Romans how He displayed his “invisible qualities—His eternal power and divine nature” through “what has been made”. Why? “So that men are without excuse.” (Romans 1:18-20 NIV). Fair enough? A person looks around this world, sees a perfectly ordered universe operating day in and day out. The sun comes up and the sun goes down. If visible through the clouds, the moon, stars and planets are seen in the night sky in the same formations that have existed for eons. As telescopic abilities increase and space travel expands, inconceivable sizes of previously unknown stars and galaxies become visible to astound their viewers. And it’s all functioning as if it always has.

And you know what? From these few but impressive examples of God’s handiwork, what do many people conclude? It all happened from some big banging of cataclysmic proportions which in turn produced some kind of primal ooze which in turn produced people, transforming over a zillion years of time, of course. Uh huh. Brilliant. And since these individuals who have decided to regard this preposterous theory as truth and perpetuate it by teaching it to children as if it’s fact, to assume that these individuals who will choose to read novels with the aforementioned artfully written stories will then be so astounded by the grace and beauty of words on a page that they will drop to their knees and recognize God as Creator is . . . um, farfetched.

Write Christian novels or don’t. It’s your call. Write what you believe God is telling you to write, and if you need to justify your choices with “God can use a donkey to speak to people”, keep in mind, He only chose the donkey when the prophet refused to listen to His voice. The point here is it’s twisted to assume that just because you write a great story people will “notice” God because of your incredible ability to put words on a page. If you don’t have a message about the Lord to tell, that’s your prerogative, but please don’t try to convince me that because of the greatness of the story, people will turn to or appreciate God. I won’t buy it—the premise or the book.

“. . . faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.” (Romans 10:17 NIV) Somehow it has been decided by some writers that to have a Christian message in a story is preaching. In reality when the message of Jesus Christ is an integral part of a meaningful story, nothing could be more “real”. Real life is in Jesus Christ. The journey to discover truth is incomplete if it stops or is detoured before finding Him. There are not many truths. There is one, One. And only One.

Christian writers often forget that their perspective as they evaluate everything from novels to movies to political opinions is viewed through that perspective. Without it the perspective is skewed and likely to see nothing in forms of beauty. Nothing but evolution and all of its fallout. The rights of animals become more valuable than those of infants in the womb. Death becomes a mere formality that precedes rotting in the ground or making one’s way around the regurgitation of life forms. There is no supreme value to good, and evil becomes a preference based on acquired belief systems.

The emptiness of life is portrayed in the pages of secular fiction no matter how glossy the language and how deep the metaphor. A Christian will latch onto any message of hope offered and decide it points to God, which of course it does because without Him there is no hope, but another secular reader will simply see it as a hope in some person, charm, mantra, luck, shaman, or philosophy which can include any and all measures of “religion”.

Yes, God can use whatever He chooses to point people to Himself. When the heart is primed by His Spirit to receive His message, He decides what will best reach an individual. I think it’s presumptuous to assume when we avoid putting Him in our novels so as not to offend the lost by sounding “preachy”, we miss the point—and the opportunity.

Father, let me never fail to include Jesus in my work. Plainly. Openly. Real-ly. You are the Giver of Life. Without Jesus there can be no real life. May it be done according to your will and in the creative ways you have designed. I ask it in the Name of Jesus, the Name above all names, the only Name whereby man can be saved.