All Comments on 'Christian Fiction Sucks'

I am an agnostic who survived Episcopal boarding school, but still works to live by Judeo-Christina values. I was driven away from organized religion because I was asked to park my brain at the door. I am not referring to miracles, instead I was asked to be blind to the hypocrisy of church officials. I was also commanded to admire those whose interpretation of the Bible is taken as THE WORD OF GOD, justifying hate and the destruction of "Sinners", who did not happen to exalt them. Those who read the World of God or speak to him do not speak for God. Stories about this real-world conflict would be much more compelling than the bland & repetitive movies I see on cable.

Finally, there is a core problem with the Christian believe that God is both Omniscient and Omnipotent. In 1982, the Beaune Bus Crash killed 53 people, 44 of whom were children who burned to death in the resulting fire. Why did God, who can arrange all things, decide that he needed such a horrific event? The answer is always, God works in mysterious ways, and we cannot fathom his designs and to keep praying. However, the Bible actually reveals that God is neither Omniscient nor Omnipotent. In Genesis, God goes walking in the Garden of Eden in the cool of the day, and discovers Adam and Eve have covered themselves, showing they have eaten from the Tree of Knowledge, against his direct command. They are cast out, and because of Eve's weakness, Woman is forever shamed as the cause of Original Sin. If God was Omniscient, he would have already known Adam and Eve had sinned, and furthermore, he would have known the whole story in advance. Tree + apple with warning + serpent => Sin, every time. Finally, if he was Omnipotent, he simply could have backed time up, and stopped the sin from occurring, or never set it up in the first place. Indeed, why create a Tree of Knowledge that can never be touched? This means that praying to God may not always work because he does not know all and cannot change all. But this is the bedrock of the Christian theology and one of the reasons to attend church. Stories about confronting such conflicts between what is in the Bible, what is believed and the real world would make very interesting Christian writing indeed.

I could have summarized it more quickly.

All good fiction is about character and his or her journey. The minute you begin a story with a philosophical framework, a philosophy, a political controversy, whatever, you automatically sacrifice the growth of the character to the point you want to make. You might as well be moving chess pieces around a board.

Dickens, as one example, didn't write about the abuses of the Industrial Revolution or the arcane court system of the time. He wrote about the characters who were caught up in the forces of the time, not the forces themselves.

Thank you, you pretty much nailed it.

Dang, I feel your pain. My wife is a writer who is Christian. You two have similar opinions as to what is good and what is crap. I'll ask her if she's heard of that publishing house. She probably has. She's unpublished, but she has 80,000+ plus words she'd love to massage into a television series. Her protagonist is Mal Reynolds styled cop with a love of cats and operates living ship, a la Farscape. Major protagonists are a species of vampires I'd rate close to the Wraith from Stargate. "SHOW, DON'T TELL!" If I had a dollar for everytime.

Preach it, Brother!

I'm wondering what this has to do with anything on an erotica site. By Christian fiction you mean mainstream Christian fiction right?

In fact now you've piqued my interest. Does Christian Erotica exist? Does mainstream Christian Fiction have sex in them?

Dr beulahthebrit; I'm sorry but as soon as I see God and I mean any type of God, I turn away. If anyone can explain what good religion and prayers have done for human kind, please tell me. Religion has caused more wars and deaths than any other thing. Christian's have slaughtered Muslim's and vice versa, both have done the same to non-believers, because they don't believe in `their' sky fairy. The quicker mankind grows up and realises that there is no paradise, only that you live and then die. Just treat people as you would like to be treated, don't be greedy and help each other to better themselves, the better this world will be. By the way, I was raised as a Catholic, school, church, the full works and I don't regret how I live now as an non-believer.

Stephen Fry said it best:

https://youtu.be/-suvkwNYSQo

Any story that makes me "have to think" is a cut above most stories. This angle on Christian Fiction is one of those. I think it would be easy to adopt Biblical stories to "porn". If you take the story of Lot and his two daughters as a starting point you could really go somewhere worth reading with that. The thing is: it would "seem like" being anti-God to write the story. On the other hand; the story wouldn't be Christian Fiction. It would be Biblical Reality. You can see the quandary here: several good (great) lines of possibilities but none would leave you with a "good feeling of accomplishment." I'm having a WWJD moment and thinking He would pass on writing the parable. I'm not a priest, rabbi nor preacher ~ so I can't actually speak for Christ. Thanks for writing something that makes me think.

I worked as a buyer in Christian retail for about 20 years. This piece NAILS it.

My saintly mother, when reminded of all the evil done in God's name throughout history, grits her teeth, and vehemently says "That wasn't Christians! That was Catholics!"

Religion is simply tribalism!

If your in my tribe believe whatever we tell you and we’ll protect you (until we can’t of course).

Many people just need that moral support, but fortunately many don’t. Unfortunately, over the ages many of those stronger personalities have taken advantage of those weaker ‘believers’ and carried out the frauds to end all frauds!

Be it religion, race, colour, wealth, where you live or the sports team you support, it’s all down to some form of tribalism. You’re with us or you aren't!

One might ask if religion is the root of all evil?

Probably it predates any of our current religions, but the current crop do a great job of leading the world in violence, prejudice and exclusion, and aren’t far behind in corruption. Be interesting to create a medal table.