Hello, Seekerville! It's good to be here today!
I don't know if this subject is one you've thought about at all, but it's been on my mind for the past several months/years.
The question, short and simple is: As a Christian author, should I write Christian fiction for Christian readers? Or is my call broader than that? Should I be trying to reach non-Christian readers with my stories?
Before we dive into this subject, let’s define a couple terms:
Christian fiction: Fiction that is written from a Christian worldview, includes a Christian spiritual thread, and leaves the reader with a sense of hope rather than doom.
Secular fiction: Fiction that is written from a non-Christian worldview, does not include a Christian spiritual thread (although it may include a spiritual thread from another religion,) and can leave the reader with either a sense of hope or a sense of doom and hopelessness.
Christian author: An author of any genre who is a Christian.
A bit of history
Back in the olden days (like fifty or sixty years ago) readers and authors didn't think too much about worldview. When I was growing up in the 1960's, almost every book that was available through our libraries and bookstores were written from a Christian worldview, whether the author was a Christian or not. Christianity was part of the culture of the United States, Canada, and Europe.
When I went to the library as a child and teen, I could comfortably read any book on the shelves (and I did!) But our culture has changed. By the 1980's we were beginning to move into the post-Christian era that we're in now.
One thing that happened during that shift is that Christian fiction books became a thing.
Do you understand how huge this was? Rather than Christian books being part of the mainstream fiction section in the library (Grace Livingston Hill was shelved with Joanna Lindsey, Kathleen E. Woodiwiss and Rosemary Rogers,) they were relegated to their own shelves.
For most readers, this was a good thing. A reader looking for Janette Oke or Beverly Lewis didn't have to sort through the hundreds of non-Christian titles to find them.
But I was, and continue to be bothered by it. Did we create a literary Christian ghetto for ourselves? Did we put up a fence that few non-Christians desired to cross?
Why would a Christian author write for non-Christian readers?
I have two thoughts about this question - -
1) A Christian writes Christian books.
Before I became a Christian, my thinking was upside down. I was an enemy of God and avoided anything that "reeked" of Christianity. Now, keep in mind that back then I thought I was a Christian, just not one of those Christians.
In college and for several years beyond school, I read some pretty awful secular trash - books that were considered to be the classics of the time. Authors you would probably recognize, but they were not Christians, and they didn't write from a Christian worldview.
When God started calling me to Himself, I searched for better books. Hawthorne, Dickens, Stevenson, Christie...I discovered a home in their stories. I reread the books of my childhood: Laura Ingalls Wilder, LM Montgomery, and Maud Hart Lovelace. I started developing a new worldview as I read these authors - a Christian worldview.
When God called me to be a writer, I knew that someday I wanted to write books that wouldn't be found in the Christian fiction section of the library - but that would resound with a Christian worldview.
2) The story needs to be told.
The gospel isn't only for Christians - it's for the world. The dirty, messy, sinful, cruel, lost world.
And the gospel needs to be told in bold ways (I'm thankful for strong preachers!) and in winsome ways - through stories. Romance, mystery, science fiction and fantasy - through all genres.
Conclusion
Some Christian authors are called to write for the Church - to encourage believers and help to strengthen their faith. Other Christian authors are called to write for the World - to introduce them to a Christian worldview in a non-threatening manner, through stories.
Anything a Christian writes will have a Christian worldview – it can’t be any other way.
This is what I'm attempting in my cozy mystery series, The Sweetbrier Inn mysteries. My characters are Christians, they go to church, and they live normal lives (well, as normal as you can get in a cozy mystery.) Somewhere in each book I bring up a moral question and give the Christian answer to it - murder is wrong; vengeance belongs to God; etc. But I try to weave those moral lessons seamlessly into the story. Never preachy. Never obvious.
Books for Christian as well as secular readers.
What do you think?
As a Christian writer, what stories has God called you to write? Is your audience Christian or secular?
And what do you think about my ideas? Agree? Disagree?
Leave a comment to be entered in a drawing for an e-copy of my latest release, The Case of the Artist's Mistake. US addresses only, please.
The new art gallery in town is causing quite a stir, and Emma is in the middle of it!
The Sweetbrier Inn is filled with guests, and the town is teeming with tourists who have come to celebrate Paragon Days, the official kickoff to the summer tourist season. But even before the festivities start, amateur sleuth Emma Blackwood stumbles upon a dead body. With no visible signs of violence, Deputy Cal determines the death is from natural causes, but Emma isn’t so sure. Why would a seemingly healthy woman drop dead? And what does the picture she was holding have to do with it? If Emma doesn’t solve this puzzle soon, a killer may get away with committing the perfect crime.
And coming soon: the third installment in the Sweetbrier Inn Mysteries...