Book Week Makeup

Since I won't be able to attend book week, I decided to pick up a topic I'm almost positive won't be studied in class, but that I'm very interested in: Christian Fiction.

Fiction has been pretty rare in Christian writing circles over the years, and I think that's because it's very hard to write. It's hard to be real about emotions, struggles, and the saving grace of Jesus without sounding "preachy" or "pious." Non-fiction is huge because people can just tell their stories or talk about what God has done in their lives or how great a marriage based on Jesus can be, or a host of other topics, but fiction doesn't get a lot of play.

The best Christian fiction books seem to be those that don't directly call themselves Christian books. Things like Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov" (my favorite book ever) or Lewis's "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" are amazing books with Christian themes or just outright allegories of Jesus, but they don't make a point of telling the reader that. But, I have to wonder, is the book sharing Jesus if the reader doesn't know that's what the book is talking about?

I have more to say, but I'll fast-forward to Christian fiction for teenagers. I searched online to find some examples of books I could check out and read the descriptors of each one. They all sounded kind of, well, lame. The stories didn't sound terribly interesting, and the characters seemed fake. The situations they found themselves in were no better, hardly relatable to most people.

So I picked up "Left Behind: The Kids" from our church library and read it in about 90 minutes. It is of course based on the wildly popular "Left Behind" series, and I really tried not let my knowledge of the authors' incorrect doctrine get in the way of what I would read. While I appreciate the message the book is trying to spread, the writing is not great. It uses very stereotypical characters, both Christian and non-Christian, to make its points, and it is riddled with cliches, again about Christians and non-Christians alike. Now, a junior high student may not see it that way because they haven't read a lot or know what stereotypes or cliches are prevalent because they have little experience. To that end, the book would be interesting for them.

I think that's the trap a lot of Christian fiction falls into. I think it's kind of hard to write realistic stories with interesting characters when you have a motive for your writing other than "write a good book." It often becomes forced and the message has to get in at the expense of the story or the characters. And I think teenagers are smart enough to see what's going on there.

Obviously I have little experience with this topic, which is why I picked it to study, so I hope to keep reading and finding good books with Christian themes so I have something to point my kids to when they're old enough.