The Issue of Issues

I’ve been chatting with some folks in the past week about Christian fiction and some of the limitations we’re seeing in what CBA (that’s Christian Booksellers Association, if you’re not aware) publishers will and won’t allow within manuscripts they’ll consider. So I was amused at the timing when the ACFW blog published this post addressing the issue of people with real issues in Christian fiction. What Dani Pettrey says in that article is not completely devoid of merit – the books she lists (and I’ve read all those she mentions) do deal with characters who have a flawed past. But it’s that detail that really makes the difference. Their past is flawed. Christian fiction just doesn’t seem to want to deal with people whose faith is current and real and who still sin willingly. And really, isn’t that 90% (or more) of the Church?

CBA loves for their books to have characters who have sin in their back story – they can even still be reaping the consequences of that sin (to a degree) in the first half of the book. But, by the end of the story, if Christ hasn’t given the character a shiny, happy life? It’s not something you’re going to find. What you will find are people who have great youth group gathering testimonies (meaning they had a depraved life, they met Christ, they were immediately and miraculously transformed). Generally those speakers (and characters) do not know Christ during the depraved life portion of the story. And if they do, it’s in the “I was raised in the church, so I knew better, but I never really had made my faith my own.” But I think we need to consider facing the truth: there are people in our pews who absolutely have made their faith their own who still choose to sin in big ways. And those people need to realize that there are others of us, sitting right next to them, who still choose to sin in little and medium ways (i.e. we’re no better than they are.) And, at the end of the day, Christ still loves and forgives us all.

So while Christian fiction will deal with non-Christians who sin hugely and then come to Christ, and they’ll deal with church-goers who sin hugely and then come to Christ. Christian fiction isn’t going to publish a story about someone who falls away from their faith (a real, true faith), keeps up appearances as best as she or he can, but is sinning hugely Saturday night before making it to church the next day. And I think we do a huge demographic of believers (let alone non-believers) a disservice by trying to keep the lives of our Christian characters glossy like that.

Real Christians struggle. Real Christians sin – willfully. Real Christians hurt. Shouldn’t our fictional characters do that as well?