BLOG 5/18/18. IS THERE SUCH A THING AS A ‘CHRISTIAN’ NOVEL?

 

BLOG 5/18/18. IS THERE SUCH A THING AS A ‘CHRISTIAN’ NOVEL?

In a recent dinner-table conversation, I was asked whether I had read somebody’s ‘Christian novel.’ I had never even heard of the author, or of any of the others subsequently mentioned in the conversation (in which I soon became a passive listener, or an outsider). But it reminded me of something I was taught a long time ago: there is no such thing as Christian literature and non-Christian literature. There is only good literature and literature that is something less than good (bad?), just as there is not ‘Christian’ music and ‘non-Christian’ music, only good music and not-good music. That may sound a bit simplistic and judgmental, but it bears pursuing.

Good, or great, literature engages life and the culture realistically, profoundly, deeply, and honestly. Great literature is never ‘safe’ literature. Rather it engages life and reality in all its beauty, sordidness and tragedy. What passes for ‘Christian’ novels seeks for something ‘safe’, and so there are ‘Christian’ bookstores in which one does not have to engage the tragic and complicated and dangerous areas of our human existence.

To be sure, there are gifted Christian authors, but they become recognized because of their craft and the literary excellence of their plots, and the honesty and profundity with which they engage life. One thinks of Flannery O’Conner, Madeline L’Engle, Walker Percy, C. S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, … yes, and John Grisham. I mention Grisham because I am a fan of his mysteries. He is, in fact, a professing Christian, but he is also trained lawyer, and it is with that legal background that makes each one of his novels an engagement with some complex area of injustice, whether political, environmental, or personal. They are not sanitized. Walker Percy’s Lost In the Cosmos will leave one exhausted, but is incredibly insightful of the intellectual struggles of an honest and troubled  soul.

It is quite too convenient to seek reading that doesn’t challenge the evidences of the dominion of darkness in which all of us live. John Updike was a practicing Lutheran, but his novels deal with sexual permissiveness and adultery in (primarily) suburbia. He was condemned by many conservative Christian folk as pornographic, while he was being creatively gifted (and award-winning) in crafting novels that engaged reality.

I am an incorrigible C. S. Lewis fan, but I have found very few (outside of the C. S. Lewis Foundation folk) who have ever read his science-fiction trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, and That Hideous Strength), which I consider one of the most formative engagements I have ever had. In them he, with his brilliant imagination, tackles the whole issue of evil in the cosmos. It is exhausting, but enlightening at the same time, … but it is not safe. The good guys don’t always win.

Madeline L’Engle was once asked if she ever shared her Christian faith with the other authors in the guild when she was in New York. Her response was that she did not simply because the Christian faith was “too wild and free for the timid.” I often am provoked to conclude that it is “too wild and free” for many who profess to believe it, and so seek escape into safe Christian stuff in which one does not have to engage the tragic results of our human rebellion.

Go on Amazon or Google and find a list of the greatest novels in modern history, and few of them would be considered ‘Christian’ novels by the timid, … and yet they were remarkably insightful and creative. Safe ‘Christian’ fiction is seldom transformational, and hardly ever great literature. Have I said too much? So be it.

[I always appreciate your comment, and your recommending these blogs to your friends.]

About rthenderson

Sixty years a pastor-teacher within the Presbyterian Church. Author of several books, the latest of which are a trilogy on missional ecclesiology: ENCHANTED COMMUNITY: JOURNEY INTO THE MYSTERY OF THE CHURCH, then, REFOUNDING THE CHURCH FROM THE UNDERSIDE, then THE CHURCH AND THE RELENTLESS DARKNESS. Previous to this trilogy was A DOOR OF HOPE: SPIRITUAL CONFLICT IN PASTORAL MINISTRY, and SUBVERSIVE JESUS, RADICAL FAITH. I am a native of West Palm Beach, Florida, a graduate of Davidson College, then of Columbia and Westminster Theological Seminaries.
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4 Responses to BLOG 5/18/18. IS THERE SUCH A THING AS A ‘CHRISTIAN’ NOVEL?

  1. Frank A. says:

    OK Bob, I know what you are driving at and agree with your basic point. However I do think there can be a genre of literature that can be called Christian. What about Pilgrim’s Progress…? I am one who has read and loves Lewis’s Trilogy, I must consider them Christian novels. They are fiction and novelish but written from an unabashedly Christian point of view. Like Christian education does not have to be teaching Christian doctrine but learning math, history and science from the point of view that there is a sovereign, creator God….

  2. margaret harris says:

    Thank you for the reading suggestions.

  3. Sarah E says:

    Thank you! I think I agree with Frank, there is such as thing as a genre of literature called Christian fiction. Sadly much of it is cheesy and not very good, but the same can be said about every genre of literature. I would love to read novel where the characters are portrayed more holistically, that is, including their spiritual lives. Usually authors leave out anything about spiritual matters. No prayers, no worship, no discussions of God, no friendships among believers. There is a whole dimension of life that is completely ignored in most books. So if someone out there writes about such things well, that is pretty remarkable.

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