Although I wrote this paper as a class assignment, it is truly the position that I hold. The debate over what is "appropriate" or "inappropriate" topical matter for Christian fiction, or any fiction that Christians read, is very delineated. Here's where I stand.
REALISM AND MORALS IN CHRISTIAN FICTION
Fiction—the realm of the fantastical, the imitation of daily life, the place where reality may not be as clear as we think. The realm of fiction contains so many differing areas of work and expression. Yet all areas of fiction, from the utterly fantastical to a story that could take place next door, have one very serious element in common: because they deal with fallible beings, they will contain the mistakes of fallible beings. In order to portray realistic characters in any setting it will be necessary to deal with what are often termed "objectionable elements" in many Christian circles. Yet they don’t have to be dealt with in an objectionable manner. It is very easy to see how pagan writers deal with these elements, but finding examples of proper handling in Christian literature is often a hard task. How is a moral or Christian person to deal with sinful elements in the lives of their characters? And in what way should their dealings with these elements be different from the world’s methods? One has to look no further than the Bible to find examples. From this source, a Christian writer of fiction can formulate his philosophy for handling so-called "objectionable elements" in fictional literature.
The first question probably asked by most readers is whether or not these elements need to be included in fictional literature. In order to answer that question, the purpose of fiction needs to be understood. Rolland Hein reminds us that
the novel presents an imaginative vision of life in order to tell a higher truth. This is the compelling quality of the serious novelist’s vision: he has something true to say about life, but he can way it only by embodying it in an imagined real world.(1)
Fiction becomes the mirror of life and human nature no matter how fantastical it is. If the work has anything to say to its readers, the characters must be real and believable, their struggles identifiable with us. In order to accomplish this, an author must realize that sin is a very prevalent aspect of life. An accurate picture of humanity in any time period can rarely be presented without having to deal with instances like cheating, stealing, deception, adultery and so on. All of these are human frailties caused by sin nature—all actual occurrences in many lives. Therefore, to overlook or ignore them is to be false to life itself. If an author is not honest with life, he cannot present truth to his audience.
There are, of course, certain barriers to the presentation of realism in fiction. One has only to glance at many examples of modern fiction to realize that. In modern fiction one finds factual, and often graphic, presentations of instances with either no moral commentary on the actions at all, or an "open-minded" approach. Not all modern fiction is bad. As one writer stated, "That there is some value in contemporary fiction, poetry, or drama they may not doubt; but often the values remain only half-formulated or completely hazy." (2) The values and intent of the author are often difficult to find or very ambiguous lest they offend a reader. Whatever the reason, these works of fiction become filled with unnecessary graphic details of events that, while true and many times integral to the intent of the author, are explained far more than any reader needs or wants to know.
This trend in modern fiction has tended to cause certain kinds of response in Christian writers. The general response is to withdraw from any kind of realism altogether. In their stories, the morals must be primary, sacrificing realistic characters for "values." They forget, however, that if the characters are not realistic, the audience will not identify with them so the values are overlooked. One author writes, "Evangelical churches have not fared well in the area of the novel." He goes on to note that often
it has been handled sympathetically by pious but artistically limited writers. The latter give either a shoddy two-dimensional picture of life or a prim and proper portrait, so emasculated, so colorless, or so obviously faked that the books say nothing about life of any significance, and can be read only by the already convinced who believe that they are keeping themselves ‘pure,’ ‘unspotted from the world,’ by reading an adulterated rather than an adulterous version of life.(3)
Too often Christian writers seem to forget that eliminating sin from one’s picture of life leaves readers with a sappy sweet picture of perfection, a picture that cannot be applied to real life. But if that is not the proper response for Christian authors to overemphasized realism, what is? The first place to look for the answer is the Bible.
The Bible contains many examples of the foolish acts of sinful men. From Mr. Ingles we learn that
if the Bible is to be our standard, we must admit that nothing lay outside the province of the inspired writers. There are passages in the Bible concerned with the grossest and sometimes the most shocking forms of evil. There are stories of Sodom, of the Benjaminite war, of Amnon and Tamar. And there are the less startling but no less realistic stories of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife, of David and Bathsheba, of Hosea and his faithless wife. (4)
Another author, Leland Ryken, states it simply:
Thinking Christianly about realism begins with an awareness that the Bible affirms the necessity and legitimacy of realism as an artistic technique. The Bible depicts the full range of human depravity and as such adopts the basic strategy of realism. (5)
God included realistic elements of life in His Word. But there is an important principle for the Christian writer to learn from their inclusion. God did not cause these instances to simply be included as factual events, He showed the consequences of the actions. The major difference between the Bible’s presentation of sinful elements and the world’s is this:
The realism of the Bible is realism within definite bounds. Modern realism frequently differs from biblical realism in the following ways:
The Bible does not contain a preponderance of depravity in its account of human experience. It does not leave the reader with the impression that degradation is all there is to life, or that there is no alternative to ugliness and depravity.
The Bible does not dwell on the sordid details of sexual immorality. It avoids dramatizing profanity by using narrative summary instead. It does not share the clinical or descriptive approach of so much modern literature and are in the portrayal of sex.
The Bible never condones the evil that it depicts. A majority of modern. . .literature, however, portrays immorality as a normal and inevitable part of human behavior. (6)
God always reminds his readers of the consequences for sinful actions.
From the example of the Bible, the principle can be obtained that
it certainly is not necessary for the Christian writer to dwell on the portrayal of evil in human experience. Indeed he cannot be a Christian writer if he prefers to wallow in human perversity and sin, to titillate the perverted taste and the defiled imagination of the carnally-minded reader. But, on the other hand, he cannot be a true artist, he cannot he a significant writer, is his vision does not include the whole of human life, the depths of depravity as well as the heights of aspiration. (7)
That is the balance of being a Christian writer.
Of course, without application, all of this is merely a listing of facts, rather than a formulated philosophy of writing. The application must begin with a simple, yet foundational fact--"the Christian novelist is distinguished from his pagan colleagues by recognizing sin as sin. According to his heritage he sees it not as sickness or an accident of environment, but as a responsible choice of offense against God which involves his eternal future." (8) It is always important for the Christian author to bear in mind that man is sinful, and that his follies are sin. Thus, when sinful acts are needful to present a real and necessary picture, the duty of the Christian author is to present them as sin rather than glorifying them as many modern authors do. The Christian author needs to also keep in mind that "the portrayal of evil per se does not make an evil book. If that were true it would be necessary to cut out great portions, not only of the Bible, but of the works of Shakespeare as well." The literary market needs fiction that presents sin in its true face, rendering the consequences for that sin rather than excusing or praising it. "So long as certain areas of life are handled only by the non-Christian writer, we will continue to advance a non-Christian view of life in its deepest recesses." (9) The ministry of believers extends even to the area of literature. Pagans will not be able to see sin for what it is if Christian authors eliminate if from their literature for fear of appearing "indecent." As shown before, the Bible itself "uses the technique of realism to tell us something that we need to know, namely, the sinfulness of the human condition and the misery of a fallen world." (10) The Christian writer is an artist and "art had two main themes—life as it should be and life as it fails to match that ideal. As with the Bible, much art portrays things that the artist wishes to reject and denounce." (11) Though it may be easy to forget, "The only way to offer a negative perspective on something is to portray it in a negative light. But notice in the meantime that artists have to portray evil before they can show their indictment of it." (12) The bottom line for Christians and realistic portrayal of "objectionable elements" is this: in order to present life and humanity in a truthful and relevant manner, Christian writers must present certain sinful elements—but the Christian author has a responsibility to present these elements as sinful. The consequences of all actions, especially sinful ones, must be included and presented to the audience so that they become aware of what is sin. Balance in this area, as in all others of the Christian life, is the key. With that kept in mind, the Christian author can offer to his reading public a powerful and realistic portrayal of life that contains a meaningful lesson for application to his readers lives.
1. Rolland N. Hein, "A Biblical View of the Novel," in The Christian Imagination: Essays on Literature and the Arts, Ed. Leland Ryken (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1981), 257.
2. Virginia Ramey Mollenkott, "A Christian Approach to Modern Literature," in The Christian Imagination, 187.
3. James Wesley Ingles, "The Christian Novel and the Evangelical Dilemma," in The Christian Imagination, 339.
4. Ibid., 341-42.
5. Leland Ryken, The Liberated Imagination, (Wheaton, Illinois: Harold Shaw, 1989), 239.
6. Ryken, 242.
7. Ingles in The Christian Imagination, 341-42.
8. Flannery O’Connor, "Novelist and Believer," in The Christian Imagination, 324.
9. Ingles in The Christian Imagination, 341-42.
10. Ryken, 240
11. Ibid.
12. Ibid.
WORKS CITED
Ryken, Leland. The Christian Imagination: Essays on Literature and the Arts. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1981.
Ryken, Leland. The Liberated Imagination. Wheaton, Illinois: Harold Shaw, 1989.