Ready To Give A Defence

In my post Are You A Teacher In Israel, And Do Not Know These Things? I dealt with the lack of religion in stories. As I put myself mildly succinctly in the post and feel as if I said pretty much what I meant I'll refrain from summing it up here, as I doubt I could do the summary justice. In the comments on the post Gwyn lamented the difficulty of portraying our faith in her own literature. Her exact words were, "I desperately want to portray the Faith in my novels, but I struggle to balance that thread with the other story lines {i.e. the actual adventure}. It either takes over the whole novel making it into 'just another Christian fiction' with foreseeable outcomes, or it's just a shallow undercurrent that doesn't feel necessary. There has got to be middle ground... somewhere."

I know Gwyn is not alone in this (I struggle at times with this myself), and since the answer is much too big for a simple reply in a comment box, I am making an answer here. Rest assured that I do not flatter myself into thinking my answer will be by any means exhaustive. It won't be. Dear goodness, no, it won't be. But I do hope it will set any of you with this difficulty on the right track.

I find that difficulties and errors in Christian literature usually reflect a deficiency in the collective Christian mind. I will therefore answer this question, not directly, but firstly by addressing the nature of our Faith. We believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, whose perfect life was accredited to us at the canceling of our debts by his perfect sacrifice so that now not only are we called to be holy, we might be holy. I think I can be pretty confident that we hold that this holiness applies not merely to Sunday worship, but to every day of the week, to every detail of our lives, that we should "do all to the glory of God." We believe the life and righteousness of Jesus, credited to us, permeates every aspect of our very being - our existence - that when we live and move and have our being in him, he is the medium in which we live, like fish in the water.

If I have not painted a broad enough picture with this then I failed. I think you can see, our Faith covers everything. I think you can see, our Faith sinks deep. It is the air our spirits breathe. It is the light that lights our way. It is our compass, it is our walking-stick, it is our hope of home and belonging. I realize that this seems to play into the (perhaps) extreme of weighing a story down with "too much" religion. So we come to the second point.

There is a notion about these days that says the Church's primary purpose is to evangelize. That's what Jesus said, isn't it? "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you..." What people fail to realize is that their notion is blown to pretty bits by this very passage. Yes, of course, evangelism is a vital aspect of the Church. "How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? and how shall they preach, except they be sent?" But what is woefully missing is the training, the discipleship. The Gospel is hurled broad-cast at any ground that falls under the preacher's eye, regardless of whether it is ready for seed or hard as rock. The important, the vital task of entrenching oneself in the midst of a professing people and helping through long years to cultivate good and sound faith, faith that will withstand temptation, tribulation, hardship, and (most fatal) prosperity is not being done enough.

The Church, therefore, is looked at (if it is looked at at all) upside-down. When you go to put your faith in a novel, or when your faith inevitably bleeds through every pore of that novel, you mustn't think that you are immediately required to deliver the Gospel. Not only are not all of us given to be pastors and teachers, but we should (by virtue of common sense) have a care where we place the precious pearls of our Truth, and how we place them. It is not a necessary reflex action to have a redemption scene in every "Christian" work.

What about the danger of the flip-side, the "shallow undercurrent that doesn't feel necessary"? I know Abigail has complained to me about novels she has read that, though they somehow get themselves under the heading of "Christian," only mention God once or twice, and have otherwise no foundation in Christ's righteousness. This is, of course, a bit far. I would call that shallow without even an undercurrent. I would call that a dry gully. Don't worry, Gwyn - I don't believe this is what you are up against. But having wrestled with this trouble myself, I know what you mean. I think this can best be answered by moving from the negative (an erroneous view of the Church) to the positive, which links us back to some of my first comments.

In Peter's first epistle, from which my post title derives, the reader will be impressed with an overall image of courage, stalwart spirit, confidence, meekness, a constancy that this pale reality seems to break up on and fade away from. "...sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always ready to make a defence to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence..." The follower of God, far from holding the name of God at arm's length and never mentioning it, far from flailing about with it, striking everyone in range, stands firmly, confidently, assured of the truth of his soul. From the very passage it is clear that people see this behaviour and seek to understand it: the image itself, unmoved and steadfast, speaks volumes alone. And when they ask, the man is ready to give an account of his Faith.

The extremes are flailing and being shy. The "middle ground" is being certain of our own Faith; our characters, too, being certain of their Faith, and living it as a living man might breathe air. The dead, who do not breathe, take note of a man whose lungs are working. It is quite possible that your plot will dictate how heavily the Gospel is laid on the shoulders of the reader, or how distant it may seem from the foreground. If your story is such that your faith is intertwined with it be sure that there is no doubt left in the reader's mind as to your stand. This is not at all to say that the reader will, by all the words you write, be able to understand you fully, and get a full comprehension of God's redemptive work - but he should at least be left with the unshakable impression that you have hope, that you know there is truth in the world, that God is sovereign. He may not believe you, and you may not save him (can we save any man's soul?), but he will know that you believe, of that he will have no doubt.

They said the king's particular friends were all a bit strange, standing a bit uneasily on the normal turf of the world
as if they didn't quite belong there.
The Duke