Two-for-One—Christian Art/The “Must” of Fiction

Special thanks to those of you who participated in the discussion over at Write About Now. As you might suppose, the topic of Christian fiction is close to my heart.

One comment I didn’t address was from Jason Joyner, who left a link to a particularly pertinent article by Dick Staub entitled “Create Culture.” Much of what Staub says, I agree with, but his second point I think is at the crux of my disagreement with many who advocate improved art (in the broad sense of the word) created by Christians. Here’s what he said:

2. Produce good art, not just religious art. Christian artists are not limited to creating “religious art, our exploration of everyday human occurrences can be gilded by our faith walk.

If he had said “our exploration of everyday human occurrences can be gilded by our religious traditions,” I’d agree. But he said “faith walk.” Taking the phrase in context, I understand it to mean the faith of a genuine Christian, one who believes what the Bible says about the triune God. How then could our faith gild our exploration of everyday human occurrences? One thing my “faith walk” teaches me is, Mankind is sinful, depraved. Left to ourselves we reject God. We act in selfish, greedy, sanctimonious ways.

On the other hand, those outside my “faith walk” more often than not, say things like, Man is good; it’s society that is the problem. More particularly it’s white, male, protestants who are the problem. Or organized religion that makes us feel guilty. After all, we aren’t really guilty. I mean, nobody’s perfect, therefore everybody’s OK. Now that, I believe, is true gilding!

The Bible tells the truth about God but it also tells the truth about Man. And the World. And the enemy of our souls. Can art that ignores the truth about God or about Satan truly give a true picture of Man or the world? To believe so is also gilding.

Well, I have more to talk about today than this subject, but I’m tempted to put it on hold because I’d love to continue this discussion.

The thing is, Brandilyn Collins asked a question on the ACFW (writer’s group) email loop, and I thought I’d like to ask the same question here. She’s going to report her findings at some point on her blog, Forensics and Faith. I tend to think those who stop by A Christian Worldview of Fiction are a bit more of an eclectic group than the one she surveyed, so I thought it would be interesting to compare what responses you all would give with the ones she received.

I’d love it if even the lurkers would come out of the safe folds of anonymity to leave a comment on this one.

The question: what ONE thing must a novel have for you to enjoy it?
Make your answer somewhat specific. For instance, don’t say “a great plot.” Rather, tell us what about the plot makes it great. Make sense?

I’ll tell you what I sent to Brandilyn: “The most important thing for me is an engaging character—someone I can root for. Which means, I have to connect with the protagonist and he/she must want something that I hope he/she gets. If the character is REALLY engaging, I’ve found myself rooting for him to get something he wants even though I know it is wrong. I’ve experienced this most in movies.”

Looking forward to learning what it is you consider a MUST in fiction.