On truth, fiction and being a Christian writer

Christian Century, Dec 17, 1997 by James Calvin Schaap

There are, of course, many Christian writers who won't sit in the seat of the scornful, and therefore don't offend. For almost 50 years the Christian Booksellers Association, an organization of 2,500 bookstores in the U.S., has provided evangelical Christian readers with novels and nonfiction books as a supplement to the annually strong business it does in Bibles, hymnals and biblical reference texts. What the CBA calls "Christian products," which includes much more than books, annually brings in $3 billion or more. While I didn't choose to write this generation's Sugar Creek Gang stories, others have.

The castle walls around the CBA bookstores successfully keep the infidels out. Though the CBA is quick to say it doesn't stand guard on the walls of Zion, publishers who look to market in CBA stores are very much aware of the thin-skinned sensibilities of bookstore owners. Violating the code means banishment from the aisles, stockpiles in the factory, and early remaindering.

What does pass muster? A clear sense of an evangelical Christian vision is required, an open acknowledgment of orthodox Christian faith. But many bookstores have written or unwritten guidelines that also cover subject matter, style and word choice (any profanity will keep you out), because part of the mission is not to offend anyone in the pew. There are biblical injunctions against causing offense, after all, and many people will be more than happy to offer quick reference to chapter and verse. In many CBA stores, the only potentially scandalousfare on the shelves is the Bible itself. One often has the sense that it is the only book in the store not written by a Christian.

In both marketing and readership, then, a vast chasm separates evangelical Christian books from the mainline readership--something that threatens those writers who profess the Christian faith but who see a world much less sanitized than the one prescribed and enforced by CBA bookstore censors. Many Christian writers find themselves too worldly or too earthy for those rigid constraints, but too religious in orientation for mainline publishers and agents. The Mason-Dixon line that separates the American Booksellers Association and the Christian Booksellers Association means that some developing Christian writers are caught between CBA publishers, who question their faith on the basis of their work, and ABA publishers, who question their work on the basis of their faith.

Writers whose work is shaped by the Christian faith probably always will suffer the derision of certain critics who see that work as sectarian or religious. Updike occasionally gets that kind of press. So does Larry Woiwode. Frederick Buechner has, as did Walker Percy. But then it should come as no surprise to Bible readers that religion tends to raise hackles.

Last year a newspaper reviewer told me she liked a recent novel of mine, even though she'd thought she wouldn't when the review was assigned to her. "Why does the book say the word Christian on the back cover?" she asked me. "Now nobody is going to read it." The same novel was reviewed almost fearfully in some Christian publications by reviewers who claimed it should be read very cautiously, since it included references to homosexuality, drug use and adultery.