On Christian fiction

Whew. I just finished judging 22 Christian novels for an Evangelical publishers association. Lots of reading. Lots of reading baaad writing, but with a few pleasant surprises. Here's my take. Keep in mind I respect anyone who actually completes a novel. So whether it's actually pulitzer prize material or not, they're way ahead of me in the writing department.

First, I never read Christian fiction. And to be honest, I don't know anyone who does. But someone must be reading it -- because Christian publishers keep cranking them out and so there's a market out there somewhere. I just don't know where. If anyone knows someone who reads this stuff, let me know. I'm just curious.

Second, when I was at Moody magazine, I served as the book review editor. This was way back in the early 90s, when "Christian fiction" was new. It was bad. Really, really bad. And I'm encouraged that there has been some progress made on the quality of Christian novels. Characters that are more than 2-dimensional. Nice descriptive details, etc.

Third, most of it is "genre" fiction -- mystery, romance, science fiction, historical, etc. which I typically don't read. So it was difficult for me to get excited about any of it. But after I got over my initial prejudices, there were a few novels which stood out and I could appreciate them for what they were. My question is, though, will any Christian publisher produce literary fiction (with the exception of Paraclete Press, I don't know of any that come close).

Fourth, most of the books had either 1) a conversion story. 2) a nice, tidy ending, 3) stereotypes of genders (i.e. there were some strong career women, but in the end they saw the error of their ways and returned to hearth and home). 4) if it didn't have a conversion story, there was some other "evanglistic" message....solving the mystery of an empty toomb, or an apologetics conversation on an airplane. I was pleasantly surprised at a few that touched on themes like doubt, forgiveness, etc. But I wish I had seen more of real life, the nitty gritty wrestling with one's faith, and less propaganda.

Okay, about the evangelistic messages / conversion stories. Once again, who are the readers? My guess is that the majority of readers are evangelical Christians, who are already converted. So why do they need to read a conversion story? To affirm their decision? I can't quit figure it out. Or maybe Christians are buying them and handing them out to their non-Christian neighbors? Is this effective evangelism? Again, I'm not trying to criticize, I'm just confused.

Well, at any rate I just spent two months reading these books and it has inspired me to get back into the game. Not to write "Christian" novels, necessarily, but to write about things that aren't neat and tidy, that deal with doubt and real life. More on my journey into the Christian publishing world in my next post.....