New CSFF blogroll and what it's for

Early in my blog writing life, I found out about this blogging event called the Christian Science Fiction & Fantasy blog tour. Each month the leader of the blog tour would arrange for us to get a free copy of a Christian science fiction or fantasy book and we would read it and review it on three specific days.

In those days you could go to a site called Technorati and see how our all blogging on the same day had made that book into a Trending Topic.  Doesn't work quite that way now, and the CSFF hasn't had a blog tour since last December.

I met a lot of good bloggers over the years doing that and some have become friends. So I decided to go over to the CSFF blog and start adding the blogs of participants and former participants that still have active blogs.

Joining this blogroll: If you have ever participated in the Christian Science Fiction & Fantasy blog tour, I will probably be adding you anyway. Comment on this post and tell me when you participated and what your blog link is and I will add you. If you never participated before, you can join up but the blog tour doesn't happen very often any more. (I will investigate and see if the blog tour can be revived with more help.)

Should Fiction Have Content Warnings or Worldview Warnings?

An Amusing Warning graphic from a blog

Have you ever wished that books had ratings the way movies and, these days, television programs do? I would have liked a warning that time I purchased a fantasy book that had very porny sex-scenes. I wouldn't have paid good money for it if I'd known.

But what kind of warning would we want, if there were warnings? Back when television had very explicitly spelled-out warnings of what was permitted, the rules were obeyed. But the people who put together television programs didn't believe in the rules. In fact, in their world-view it was considered daring to find ways to introduce 'forbidden' topics/content without blatantly violating the rules.

Content warnings--- counting up the swears, sex scenes and the like--- might be somewhat helpful, but it is not enough. I think it's more important to consider the worldview behind the bothersome content than to just tally up how many 'damn and hell' swears and how many effword-level swears you found.

For example--- imagine a book has the effword in it. That word may be in there once, twice, five times or twenty times. But in addition to the number question there is the question of what was meant by it. And that is likely to lead to the author's worldview.

Imagine a book with four instances of effword use. And then imagine 2 possible authors for that book.

Author A has the worldview that swearing is a bad thing, unkind to those who have to hear it, and likely to end up being 'fighting words'. He puts bad words in the mouths of bad guys, or of regular guys with a bad habit. He often depicts the likely reaction to effword use--- people taking offense at the language and therefore not listening to what the swearing speaker was trying to say.

Author B is a Stephen-King level defender of foul language in fiction. In his work, characters who don't swear and express their disapproval of those that do tend to be like Stephen King's Annie Wilkes--- evil serial killers. The only reason he managed to include only 4 effwords in the current book is because said book is people by characters who likely wouldn't swear at all--- nuns, elderly respectable ladies, preachers, and young kids from good homes.

I think most of us who don't care for swearing in fiction would accept the 4F book from author A, but not from author B. Because when someone shares our worldview on an issue we are willing to grant him a little leeway. And also because the common-worldview author is less likely to offend on other points not involving issues such as swearing.

No one proposes worldview warnings. But I have noticed that if you buy books from most large mainstream publishers, they will either fully express 'Worldview B' or express no opinion at all. Because advocates of 'Worldview B' are increasingly interpreting any sign of having 'Worldview A' as 'being a hater'.

'Worldview A' books these days mostly tend to publishers and lines that specialize in that alternate worldview, such as the Christian publishers for those 'Worldview A' books with Christian content. 'Worldview A' people may not commonly think of people as haters for expressing a 'Worldview B' opinion, but they are likely to declare them 'part of the problem'.

I've sometimes thought that some big New York City publisher might get wise to the divided times we live in and come up with worldview-marked lines of fiction, clearly color coded. Perhaps borrowing colors from the world of politics, they could have 'Worldview A' books marked in red and 'Worldview B' books marked in blue. Perhaps a neutral line marked in purple as well.

But the problem with a system of markings like that is we'd be dependent on those in charge of making the marking rules. We'd have a few years of peace while the system was established. But then the 'blue' people that dominate the publishing company might decide to make the purple line much more blue, and the red line much more purple. While the original red writers would be left without a publisher.

An entirely identical thing would happen, of course, if it were the red-opinion people who dominated the decision-making process. Because of the darker side of human nature, we all want to get things all our own way and we aren't always aware of when we are using unfair means to achieve that.

Official worldview warnings, like content warnings on TV and movies, are unlikely to have the effect many of us desire, which is to make acceptable books, TV and movies more available and easier to locate. Look at how the 'PG' movie rating has shifted from something not OK for young kids, to the common rating for kids' cartoon movies. Official warnings and ratings seem not to be all that reliable.

We will in future have to depend on the alternate methods to achieve that goal--- we will have to look for signs that authors of books we might choose share our values--- or at the least, are not outspokenly opposed to people with our values.

And, no matter what our values and worldview happen to be, it is up to us to ensure that there is a market for books from that point of view, by buying, reading and spreading the word about the best books out there for people of our worldview.



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Denominational Coyness in Evangelical Christian Fiction

 Some time ago I consulted a book about how to write (Evangelical) Christian fiction and read the following advice: the church in your fiction should not be Faith Baptist Church or Grace Pentecostal Church. Instead, just call it Faith Church, or Grace Community Church.

Now, my first impulse was to run out and claim that if you drop the 'Catholic' from Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church or Immaculate Conception Catholic Church that would make it all neutral and non-denominational.

But I see the purpose in the advice. 'Evangelical' encompasses a wide variety of denominations (and non-denominations) and by being neutral as to church names, a wider group of readers can feel like the church in the Christian novel they are reading is just like their own church.

Another aspect of denominational coyness is that the author bio on normal Evangelical Christian books almost never gives a hint as to the author's denomination. If the author's home church is mentioned, it is sure to be a non-denominational church, or at least to have a non-denominational name.

One problem with this denominational coyness approach is that most Christians today are highly ignorant about the many church denominations and their beliefs. Many Christians had the good luck to attend religious education classes of some sort during childhood, and some of these classes actually taught the basics of what that particular church believed--- perhaps even got into the history of the denomination. But even those Christians likely know less than nothing about what the church down the block of some other denomination believes and teaches.

As a result of this ignorance, there are some Christians out there who honestly believe that nearly every Christian church in the country teaches the pre-tribulation Rapture theory. That's what was taught in most of the churches they attended in their life, and so they think it's taught everywhere.

Other Christians have attended a variety of Bible-believing churches and never met with one that taught the pre-tribulation Rapture theory. These Christians might look upon the Rapture theory as something taught only in the oddest 'fundamentalist' churches where you can't play cards or drink beer but you are encouraged to handle poisonous snakes.

Another problem with denominational coyness is that it often helps a naive Christian to hang on to a belief that the Christian world is divided into 2 groups--- the churches who do everything exactly the way their church does it, and the churches who 'don't believe the Bible'. For example, if the Christian's home church rejects infant baptism and quotes proof-texts to back that up, they assume that every church that does infant baptisms is a church that rejects the Bible. They are often amazed to discover that the other side has proof texts, too.

Denominational coyness can sometimes produce (Evangelical) Christian fiction that is Christian fiction 'lite'. Vast amounts of Christian topics are scrupulously avoided since they would require the author to take a side on some issue of doctrine or church practices, and thus spoil the illusion that the church in the book is just like the reader's church. Even basic things like baptisms or church services may have to be hidden from the reader lest the reader discover the writer's preferred doctrines and practices and find them wanting.

The best Evangelical Christian fiction defies denominational coyness. Think of the Left Behind series which broke out of the Christian fiction ghetto to achieve best-seller status. (I read that series while I was a Neopagan and enjoyed it.) That whole series was based on the controversial pre-tribulation Rapture theory which is far from universally accepted even among Evangelicals. I think it was in large part the authors' boldness in standing up for what they believed, even though there were many Christians who disagree with them, that made the Left Behind series strong fiction and worthy of reading even if you don't agree with all the theology.

The reality is that Christians today live in a world of many different denominations and non-denominations. More Christians than ever switch from one denomination to another--- even between denominations that are pretty far apart like Pentecostal and Catholic. I think that the intelligent reader of Christian fiction today is aware of these differences, and doesn't demand the old illusion that all churches are like their church. Look at the popularity of Amish fiction, featuring a religious group that has significant differences with the Evangelicalism of the readers and writers.

I think most of us are ready to move on to 'meatier' Christian fiction, written by authors from throughout the Christian spectrum of denominations and theology. I myself am a Catholic (convert) and yet I read fiction by Evangelicals, Protestants and Mormons without freaking out that the characters don't go to confession or pray the rosary. I may particularly like fiction by faithfully Catholic authors, but I'll accept fiction by any follower of Jesus Christ as something I might identify with as a Christian. I mean, if I read secular books by authors that seem actively hostile to Christianity, I can surely put up with a little 'wrong' theology from my fellow Christians of different denominations.

What do you think? Do you think it pays for Christian authors to hide their exact denominational background? Or do you think most Christians are ready to accept fiction from a variety of Christian denominations?

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Where the Modern Romance Genre Goes Wrong

 

For many years now I neither read nor attempt to write romance novels. But I read quite a few as a child and teen, and was fond of the novels of Victoria Holt aka Jean Plaidy. I even thought of being a romance writer. A bit later in my life I read some lesbian fiction and wrote about 75 pages of a lesbian historical romance featuring a lady pirate who passed herself off as a man. (I was not a Christian at the time, and certainly wouldn't have written the 'naughty bits' of that novel since becoming a Christian.)

But since my NaNo novel is a gothic romance/sci-fi mashup, I've begun to read romances, and think about the differences between the old romances I loved and the new romances I can't stand.

The modern romance, with modern career-woman heroines a requirement even in historical fiction, looks at a love relationship (since marriage is no longer a goal) as a woman seeking a fulfilling, equality-oriented love relationship with Mr. Right, a man who meets her romantic and feminist requirements. (These Mr. Right characters can seem awfully wimpy and effeminate to the male reader--- a tamed man, not a realistic masculine man.)

If you look at what the modern romance heroine is seeking, it comes uncomfortably close to a woman who is saying that she wants a man she can use to fulfill her romantic, emotional and sexual needs. The romance heroine does not think of herself as a user--- she is a feminist after all, even if she lived in an age before feminism (as Ayla in Clan of the Cave Bear).

In an early age when Western Civilization still remembered being a Christian civilization, the ideals of Christian marriage had a greater influence. Christian marriage involves finding a person of the opposite sex and then sacrificing yourself for that person, even if that person is unworthy of your sacrifice. The model is Christ and the Church. The Church that Christ sacrificed His life for was at the moment of the crucifixion composed entirely of grubby, unpromising filthy sinners many of whom were shouting 'Crucify Him!'.

The Biblical text related to that is Ephesians 5:25-33, which begins 'Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it...' You will see that finding a person to use for your personal and sexual fulfillment is not part of it, and that's a good thing. But it's a tough job and not a win-win, equality situation. Christ was sinless, the Church is composed of sinners, and that's the model. So if you are a (relatively) moral person and your spouse has grave moral flaws, the Christian answer is not to find a better spouse as a replacement but to rejoice that you are being called to imitate Christ and make sacrifices.

While these ideals of marriage have never been lived out fully in the world of poor, flawed mortals, it had an influence on many of the older romance novels. Consider Jane Eyre. Jane is a poor girl, who takes a post as a governess and does her best to serve well in that position. Mr. Rochester is scary, rude, and fails to tell Jane, during his proposal of marriage, that it would be a fake marriage since he would remain legally wed to the madwoman in the attic. Only chance prevented Jane from giving herself to a man that she thought was her legal husband but was not.

But when Mr. Rochester was freed from his marriage by the death of his mad wife, Jane had not moved on to someone more worthy of her. She came back to him, not screaming anger at him, but serving him in his weakness and neediness.

Another flaw of the modern romance is that it is claustrophobically focused on the romantic/sexual relationship. In many an older romance novel--- say, Gone With the Wind--- you could pull out the romance scenes and there would be a good story left. In a modern romance, all of the other stuff--- the interesting stuff, back when I was a child and first began to read romances--- is excised.

Which explains why the romance is more limited in its appeal. The German writer Hedwig Courths-Mahler had her little 'fairy tales for grown-ups' published in special editions to be given out to the men fighting World War One. Today's romances have far less appeal to the male reader. (Unless they are the sort with explicit sex scenes. One of my favorite novels in my old romance-reading days was a bodice-ripper historical romance which a teen boy of my acquaintance was using for 'entertaining impure thoughts' material, a more-available substitute for actual porn.)

Conformity to feminist dictates also weakens the modern romance. In Jane Eyre the heroine is a poor girl who must earn a living, but who can be saved from her poverty by a good marriage though she never becomes a husband-hunter. Feminism would demand that Jane Eyre have access to a good career to which she becomes sufficiently devoted that she would accept Mr. Rochester only if her relationship with him didn't interfere with her career. And her Mr. Rochester would have been a tamed down, feminism-obedient poor thing that would be hardly worth having, anyway. So the modern writer would gift him with a bodybuilder's body without the obsessive gym work that requires, and a really impressive set of genitalia. Ugh.

To write a romance that is more endurable for the woman of taste, this is what I would do--- take the best of the older romances as a model. Ignore the modern trends. Write as if the romance side of the story were more like a slightly overdeveloped sub-plot rather than making it the whole story. And question any ideas in your head that are 'what the feminists say a relationship should be' or 'what the romance publishing industry say a relationship should be', and find your own path.

Have you ever read romance novels? Do you love them or hate them? What are their good points and what could use improvement? Could a man write a good romance novel? If you are a man, would you consider it?

Some Blog posts by Mike Duran about the Romance Genre
Author Mike Duran is not a big romance fan, nor is he thrilled by the dominance of romance novels in both the Christian and secular book marketplace. But his opinions on the genre--- and the blog comments they generate--- might be of use in forming ideas of where the modern romances have gone wrong and what can be done to set things write. Or it might just make you angry enough to have the energy to write the Great Romance Novel that will prove Mike Duran WRONG.

What Do Jane Austen and Contemporary Romance Novels Really Have in Common?
Why Men Don't Read Romance
How Paranormal Romance Killed the Undead

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DEFINITIVELY Defining Christian Fiction

From time to time Christian fiction bloggers like to tackle the question: What is Christian Fiction? The debates goes on over whether there needs to be a salvation message, whether Mormon, Catholic, Lutheran and other non-Evangelical works can ever count as Christian.... But if the goal is defining Christian fiction rather than defining the sort of Christian fiction your local Evangelical book-and-gift shop might sell, I contend that the definition is not that difficult.

If you go to college and take a class on women's literature, you will read books written by women. If you take one on African-American literature, you will read books written by African-Americans. If you take a course on Gay and Lesbian literature, the books you will read have Gay and/or Lesbian authors. Latino literature, Latino authors, Jewish literature, Jewish authors, Asian literature, Asian authors, and so on down the line.

So: Christian fiction is fiction written by Christians. That's easy enough--- and it's something those outside the Christian community can figure out without a net.

Except for the bit 'what is a Christian?' My proposed definition is that a Christian is a follower of Jesus Christ. Specifically one that is following Jesus Christ right now, not one that went to Sunday School 13 times at age seven and hasn't been near a church, Bible or rosary since.

Since there are, sadly, atheist Marxists who claim to know about some Marxist revolutionary Jesus, we need to say a bit about the Jesus we Christians follow. He is the Jesus spoken of in the proto-creed of 1 Cor. 15:3-5: "For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins, according to the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures, and that he was see of Cephas, and of the twelve." (KJV translation)

So, yes, this broadens Christian fiction to include the majority of those who call themselves followers of Jesus, including Catholics, Lutherans, Mormons, liberal Christians, and excluding only those who believe in some other Jesus, such as the Marxist atheist Jesus, and the non-resurrected mere-human Jesus who was just a good morals teacher.

This does not mean that all of this broadly-defined Christian fiction will be welcome at every Evangelical publishing house. By the same token, there are books by women which will never be found at a women's book store because of lack of feminist content. Publishers and booksellers are free to develop their own, narrower categories. Readers of Christian fiction will also have their own selection criteria.

Where the definition matters is for things like lists of Christian fiction in certain genres, or things like the Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy blog tour. When we are using the broad definition of Christian fiction, we use the word 'Christian'. If what we really mean is Evangelical fiction or Catholic fiction or LDS (Mormon) fiction, we should indicate that plainly.

So that is my definitive definition of Christian fiction. What do you think about it?

Why Christian Fiction Needs More Violence

Recently I've heard a lot of critics of 'The Hunger Games' say that both the books and the movie are 'too violent'. Sadly, even Christians have jumped on that bandwagon.

Christian fiction has a rep of being the opposite of violent. Bland romances in Amish or Prairie settings with nothing to do with the real world.

But should Christian fiction be like that? The Bible is violent--- from the murder of Abel to the wars in the book of Revelation (which is really all about the Eucharist, but still...). History is violent--- Masada, World War III, I mean II.... Mythology is violent--- remember that proto-god who ate all his children? Even peaceful anti-war protests often turn violent.

Violence is necessary to good fiction because fiction is about conflict. And it's hard to have serious conflict if there is no actual or threatened violence. Would we have been mesmerized by the Harry Potter series if Lord Voldemort had been threatening to lower Harry's grades rather than threatening to kill Harry?

The need for violence in fiction is an evidence of Man's fallen nature, as taught in the Christian apostolic tradition (which includes the Bible). Because there is so much violence around us, conflicts without a hint of violence possible strike us as bland, trivial. We don't buy mystery novels where the mystery involves finding a lost Latin missal in time for next Sunday's Latin Mass--- since the prospect of someone going to Latin Mass without their own missal and having to use the Latin Mass booklet provided doesn't thrill us the way the threat of murder does.

This does not mean that every Christian science fiction or fantasy series has to include a character-bloodbath like the ones at the end of Harry Potter or Left Behind, or the recent one in the BBC TV series Being Human. Character bloodbaths are harder for the Christian reader/author because most of us are firmly part of the culture of life and want every human life respected from conception until natural death. Which makes us worry about staging a massive character bloodbath, or even worry about reading one.

I think it's no mystery why the Left Behind apocalyptic fiction series broke out of the Christian fiction ghetto and onto secular best-seller lists. The Left Behind series is not only Christian fiction, but it's centered on a theological belief--- the Rapture theory--- that the majority of the world's Christians believe is invalid. One would think it would not only repel secular readers but most Christians. But it sold, because it was set in a world where the main characters were under threat of death all the time as the Antichrist, Nikolai Carpathia, took power. In fact, several of the important Christian characters did die before the final battle. And this is what made the conflict in the story real and compelling to the reader.

Christian science fiction and fantasy, like Pagan science fiction and fantasy, or secular science fiction and fantasy, have to reflect the real world. Perhaps our worlds will have elves with enchanted spears or semi-Roman emperors with laser swords instead of Crips and Bloods with guns. But there has to be violence--- or at least the implied threat of violence--- to show that the conflict in the story matters.

What's the purpose of Christian Fiction, Anyway? CSSFBT Day 2

Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy Blog Tour for 'North! Or Be Eaten!' by Andrew Peterson, day two.
North! Or Be Eaten! website
Andrew Peterson author/musician website,

Day two of the blog tour and this is the question for those who have read and enjoyed 'North! Or Be Eaten!', or hope to read it someday. Why?

Why read Christian fiction at all? Wouldn't it be better if there were just regular secular neutral publishers and all writers wrote for them? Isn't it kind of discriminatory--- a publisher that accepts work from Christians but not from Jews or atheists?

And what about our book of the month, 'North! Or Be Eaten!'. Wouldn't it be better if any too explicit Christian references would be removed so that people of all faiths or no faith could enjoy it equally? How much would that change the book and your liking of it?

What I am asking of you the reader is why you, personally, read Christian fiction (assuming you do), what it gives you, what you like (or don't like) to see in your Christian fiction? Please post a comment!

(I have some ideas of my own on this topic which I will reveal on day three--- but only if enough of you clap your hands and say 'I DO believe in fairies! I DO believe in fairies!')

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Register Now for Catholic Writers Conference Online

Catholic Writers Conference Online Provides Practical Help


World Wide Web--This year's Catholic Writers’ Conference Online, which will be held February 26-March 5, 2010, will focus on the practical things the writer needs to succeed.

The conference is held via chats and forums at http://www.catholicwritersconference.com/. Sponsored by the Catholic Writer’s Guild, the online conference is free of charge and open to writers of all levels who register between October 1, 2009 and February 15, 2010.

"We've always concentrated on workshops and chats that teach the writer skills or provide information in the areas of crafting, publishing and marketing their works, but this year, we're adding critique workshops and some incredible opportunities to pitch to leading publishers," said organizer Karina Fabian.

This year, publishers hearing pitches include well known Catholic publishers like Pauline, large Christian publishers like Thomas Nelson, and smaller presses like White Rose. Thus far, eleven pitch sessions are scheduled, running the gamut from Christian romance to Catholic theology.

In a new program, at least fifty attendees will have the opportunity to have pieces of their work critiqued by successful editors and writers. In addition, there will be forum-based workshops and chat room presentations covering topics from dialogue to freelancing to how Catholic fiction differs from Christian fiction.

"Even in good economic times, it's hard for writers to attend live conferences," said Fabian, "but this year, we think it's even more important to help careers by utilizing an online format. We're so grateful that our presenters are willing to share their time and talent."

Early registration is recommended. Although the conference is offered free of charge, donations are accepted; proceeds will go toward future conferences. Non-Catholics may attend, as long as they respect Catholic beliefs and the conference's Catholic focus.

To register or for more information, go to http://www.catholicwritersconference.com/.