In Defense of Clean Speech in Christian Fiction, Part 5

See Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, and Part 8. Flawed Arguments Most Christian novelists would agree that God prohibits His children from using unclean speech in everyday dialogue. But some apparently think their novels fall into a different category. One that is beyond biblical critique. “He’s a bad cop,” they say, “and for him and my story to be realistic, I wouldn’t be doing him or the story justice if I sanitized the language. I wouldn’t be intellectually honest.” They are, after all, seeking to depict reality. They are creating art. And art is honest, they say. Though plausibility is important in good fiction, this logic is flawed. Let’s take a closer look at their arguments for using unclean speech. 1. I want my novel to be realistic. This is fiction. No readers seriously want stark reality in the form of foul language—that’s depressing. They want the impression of reality (the…

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Randy Alcorn: Message in Christian Fiction

I was pleased to stumble across an article by Randy Alcorn in World Magazine a few weeks ago. It dovetails perfectly with my article about why I decided to marry the word meaningful with the word suspense for my author’s tagline. In summary, the thrust of my article was about  why I believe message is important in Christian fiction. I listed several reasons why I strongly believe this way, based on my understanding of Scripture. Many of my fans agree with me. At least one reader took me to task and told me to “lighten up”—that no, not every Christian novel needs to be message driven. Well, no, that’s not what I said. What did I say? Does that mean Christian writers can never write only a fun, entertaining story once in a while? No. But if all we write is entertainment, what eternal value is there? So what does Randy…

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