Into the Fire

If you could change five things (or less) in CBA publishing, what would they (it) be? (Unabridged and unedited.)

From Author (Anonymous):

Here's what I think, fairly uncensored. I know a lot of people would not agree with me on this (and I frankly don't like controversy which is why I feel better if you include this anonymously), but if I'm completely honest, these are my thoughts:

First of all, Christian fiction is a scary place for many people. To have a story, you have to have conflict. We are not geared to want conflict. Love your neighbor. Forgive. These all do away with conflict. So we have to fabricate distinctly unChristian scenarios in order to even pull a story off. The fact that any of it is fabricated is also difficult for some people. Some people of faith cannot reconcile reading fiction accounts/lies–even if they eventually tell the truth. Even Biblical stories are not ok with some people–because they tread on sacred ground and fill in with human putty the chinks in the inspired account. Touching that inspired account is very shaky ground for some people. So the CBA–in the fiction sense–is already a place of some controversy and a lot of sensitivities.

To your question: I would change the safety of the CBA. If anything, our fiction should be more radical than mainstream fiction. Our God is.

I understand that readers come to CBA books looking for a safe haven from certain things–sex, violence, language. The thing is, there is a fine line between safety and choosing to live a sheltered, insular existence and denying the truth of life. Not just of fallen life or of sin–but of life in general. In our modern, convenient and in many ways sterile sheltered lives (particularly here in the West), we have forgotten the gory details of so much that constituted life in ancient times and the times of Jesus–even up until the recent past. We have even removed ourselves, many of us, even from the bloody process of procuring the meat we eat! We worship a god who was violently crucified, but many of us are not even willing to consider the horrible violence of that death. If it were laid out in a CBA book in detail, and we didn't know who or what it was, it might very well be banned from some stores as too violent. The sex in the Bible is truly disturbing by CBA standards. (I have never been convinced that Song of Songs is a parallel between Christ and the Church–most possibly because Christ hadn't come yet. I've always considered it Hebrew erotic poetry, no matter how much more acceptable and proper it might seem as a church parallel. But there is nothing proper about God, who is wild. We are the ones with the hangups.) And if people think there aren't violent words and even epithets in the scriptures, then they haven't read their Bible. 😉

In my mind, it's less about fear of glorifying sin and more about the fact that we live sheltered from the gory details of how life really transpires. Part of it is living in a modern society. Part of it is living in the states where I assert that we are, in fact, sheltered from many harsh realities of our day. Jesus didn't come to give us a white, middle class, safe brand of religious lifestyle. He didn't come to bring us religion. He came to save us. That is grossly different from what I see being lived out in the church–and demanded in Christian products that support that religious lifestyle–today.

I believe we are missing the mark, so terribly, as Christians. I believe our energies are so misguided and lacking in priority. Jesus today would never fit in with polite church society. So why are we trying to build and support and bolster even in our art such a safe, polite–and frankly, culturally ethnocentric–society? Because safety is easier and acceptance is more important to us than it ever was to Jesus. And yet, how many Christians will not utter the f-word, but murder people with their words even daily? We are hypocrites, and myopic. We are human. I'm amazed at the love of God for us.

Christian fiction should be radical. Yes, it can explore redemptive themes. But it should not be something that covers our eyes or further digs us in to our safe place. In my mind, Christian fiction can be even just the God-given legacy of creativity in general. But in my mind, so can any writing. Or art. Or cooking. Or dance. Or song. I don't believe it has to tell the redemptive story over and over and over. God created myriad plants, myriad fishes, myriad insects. Out of power, and out of joy and because he could! How are we not to exercise and create–even fearsome creations–out of that legacy? We were created in the image of the most creative being in the universe. It is in our blood. It is not safe.

Summation tomorrow . . .