Brett Nelson
February 25, 2023
As a person, I have a strong dislike of social media.
As an author, I like to participate in reader and author groups on social media because it’s nice to see how readers react to books and authors. Or at least I thought so.
I was in a group on Facebook for a few months until I finally got sick of reading the posts of twenty thousand toxic and angry people who never had anything nice to say about anyone or anything.
One thing that really stood out to me as an author was the level of hate that people spewed when anyone mentioned Christian Fiction, either by way of reviewing a Christian-themed book they’d read and wanted to share, or just asking for Christian book recommendations.
Anytime anyone posted anything to do with Christian fiction, the haters flocked out like a swarm of ants on a spilled ice cream cone. Hundreds of haters “laugh emojied” the post, which is a form of hate speech if the post isn’t meant to be humorous. We won’t even get into all the nasty comments that were made.
Finally, I left the group to get away from all the nasty toxic people, but it got me thinking, why do so many people hate Christian fiction?
I guess I can somewhat understand non-believers hating it, because the Bible says if you don’t have God in your heart, then you don’t have love, because God is love. When non-believers spew their hatred toward anything Christian, they’re just being true to themselves and their nature.
Before I made my very happy departure from the negativity of the Facebook group, I asked a few of the haters why they hated on Christian Fiction so much, and here’s some of the most common answers:
1) CHRISTIAN AUTHORS TODAY ARE NOTHING LIKE C.S. LEWIS. IF YOU WANT TO READ GOOD CHRISTIAN FICTION, READ C.S. LEWIS.
Authors today aren’t like C.S. Lewis? Well, duh! God only created ONE C.S. Lewis, and to judge every Christian author who ever lived to C.S. Lewis is ridiculous. What a boring world of fiction would it be if every single author wrote just like C.S. Lewis? It’s like saying secular authors today are all bad because they’re not Shakespeare. Every author, secular or Christian, brings their own voice into the world, and it’s okay if that voice sounds nothing like Shakespeare or Lewis, because, at the end of the day, even Lewis and Shakespeare have their critics.
2) CHRISTIAN AUTHORS ALWAYS PAINT CHRISTIAN CHARACTERS AS FLAWLESS PEOPLE WHO NEVER DO ANYTHING WRONG.
Really? Have the people who say this ever picked up a single Christian fiction book and read it? I’m a huge fan of Christian fiction, and I can say with certainty that characters in Christian fiction are rarely portrayed as perfect and flawless. If anything, they are portrayed as perfectly flawed. Christian fiction books that I’ve read in the past have characters who struggle with:
- Immense anger and unwillingness to forgive those who’ve done them wrong. Nearly every book I’ve read has at least one character who struggles with underlying issues of anger and unforgiveness.
- Struggling to tamp down sexual temptation and sexual urges in a society that glorifies everything having to do with sex. We live in a sex-crazed world, and Christians aren’t immune to the beguiling call of such things. We may not act on such urges (a lot of Christians do act on such urges) but we are not immune to the temptation that the world offers.
- Coming to terms with their own hypocrisy and sins, because, yes, Christians aren’t perfect–far from it. Any Christian who says that Christians don’t sin…well, they’re either a liar, or they’re deluded.
- Reconciling their tarnished pasts with a God who forgives them of their sins, and with a world who won’t let them forget their sins. When I say this, I’m not talking solely about the secular world, either. I’m pointing a finger at the Christian world. Anyone who has been a Christian for any length of time knows that Christians will rush to flog and kick down an already fallen and hurting Christian. Christians like their cliques, and many are happy to leave the ‘undesirables’ in their midst on the outside looking in. In this regard, the secular world seems way better than the Christian world, in many cases. The secular world, with open arms, will often accept people with damaged and tarnished pasts, while the Christian world often looks down on and whispers behind the backs of fallen Christians. In this aspect, my fellow Christians, we MUST do better and stop being judgmental of each other. God gave us His amazing grace, so how about we reflect that grace into the world around us? Especially to the fallen, hurting, and disgraced ones, whether they’re Christian or not.
- Moving on with life after they’ve been hurt by others. Even Christians struggle to enter healthy relationships when they’ve been hurt by other people’s callous behaviors. Hurt people are often hesitant to befriend new people. Hurt people often don’t want to enter into romantic relationships. Hurt people often don’t want to darken the door of yet another church because they’ve been, seemingly, irreparably broken by the very people who claim to carry the good and loving nature of the God they serve.
Despite what haters of Christian fiction claim, there is a never-ending supply of broken and imperfect characters for readers to learn from, and even in which to see some version of yourself embedded in the story.
3) CHRISTIAN FICTION IS PREACHY AND JUDGMENTAL:
This is a hugely untrue generalization that I frequently see regarding Christian fiction. Is there Christian fiction out there that is preachy and judgmental? A resounding…yes! In all honesty, the large majority of Christian fiction that I read, though, is not preachy, but is simply characters limping along, imperfections and all, attempting to live out their faith, sometimes hitting the mark, and other times missing it entirely. It’s called being a fallible human being.
In fiction, the same as in real life, characters often berate themselves for their failures to live up to their own expectations and moral code. When characters in a book strive to live up to a moral code that is different from the reader’s moral code, that doesn’t make the book judgmental and preachy, and it certainly isn’t usually a personal attack on the reader. It just means the fictional characters in the book are in a different place with different ways of living than the reader. Please, stop trying to impose things onto authors and their books that aren’t there, and just see them for the fictional entertainment that they are meant to be.
In my opinion, when readers accuse a Christian novel of being ‘preachy and judgmental,’ what they’re really saying is some version of, “I don’t agree with this author’s way of thinking or believing, therefore, I’ll publicly label it as preachy and judgmental to make me feel better about myself.”
4) CHRISTIAN FICTION IS POORLY WRITTEN:
Again, this is a grossly unfair generalization of an entire genre. I read mostly Christian fiction because I prefer clean, uplifting stories. That said, I enjoy certain authors in secular fiction, as well. I think reading both Christian and secular books make me a well-rounded reader. As an avid reader, I’ve read many poorly written Christian fiction books and just as many, if not more, poorly written secular books. Both genres have their fair share of well-written books and poorly written books.
5) CHRISTIAN FICTION IS ONLY ENTERTAINING FOR CHRISTIAN READERS:
This statement couldn’t be further from the truth. I know there are many Christians out there who only read secular books and wouldn’t touch a Christian book with a ten-foot pole (these people are missing out on so many good books by dismissing Christian fiction.)
I assume many secular readers are just as offended by gospel truth and Godly living as I am by offensive and profane language/themes. As a reader, I can assure you that I abandon more secular books than I finish because I won’t tolerate excessive profanity and filthy themes. There is a saying, “you are what you eat.” In other words, if you eat nothing but junk, you’ll always feel like junk. If you choose a healthy balance of nutrition, you’ll look and feel better.
The same principle applies to what you allow into your mind. If you always read filth, then filth is what you’ll feel in your soul. Many will not agree with this, and that’s fine, but that doesn’t make it any less true. If you constantly fill your life with books that are profane and filthy, don’t be surprised when you have an unhealthy spiritual life of toxicity and negativity and anger and depression. Negativity in, negativity out. Goodness in, goodness out. That’s how it works.
Does that mean reading Christian fiction will repair all that ails you? Of course not. A Christian reader can be full of anger, and negativity, and depression, but again, what you put in is ultimately what comes out.
When it comes to reading, I choose to put Christian and secular fiction on the same level. In both, there’s good books and bad books. In both, there can be important lessons from which a reader can learn and find entertainment.
If you have a poor opinion of Christian fiction, and if you truly haven’t given it a fair shot, may I recommend that you pick one up and give it a try, as with all things in life, with an open mind. It may never be your favorite genre, but I think you’ll be surprised to find the pages of Christian fiction filled with messy people with messy lives who, in the end, just want happiness and contentment.
Until next time!
If you’re interested in my books:
