God Is Not Afraid of the Dark
Why Redemption Deserves Pure Stories.
This article is part of a paired editorial. For a complementary perspective, I encourage you to read T.H. Meyer’s article Mythbusting “Clean” Fiction: No, It’s Not All Butterflies and Hallmark
Clean fiction vs. Sanitized
In the publishing world today there is a term that describes a book free of explicit sex, gratuitous violence, and profane language. This is the term of “clean fiction.” Often though that term can tend to be misunderstood as boring, white-washed, or sanitized. Clean and sanitized are not the same. A kitchen counter may be clean of clutter, this does not mean it has been sanitized of bacteria unseen.
I often describe my books as clean, because this is the most readily available term in the publishing industry. But a recent article by Phillip Snyder over at The Living Room Disciple has inspired a hunt for the virtues portrayed in Philippians 4:8 in my own fictional art.
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.
Perhaps pure is the more precise word than clean. Because purity is what should lie at the heart of the motive for our art.
If there be any virtue and if there be any praise.
Art should inspire the virtues of Philippians 4:8. One of which is truth, the reliability of the story portrayed. Another is honest or honorable, depending on translation. The Greek word semnos, means having weight or gravity. It is the idea of something serious and credible. The verse holds a distinction between honest and true.
One cannot sanitize the darkness of our sin-sick world and be honest. An honest assessment of sin requires the truth be told about it. The loveliness of the good report of the gospel is the point that redemption makes what is broken whole. If the wound is diminished, so too is the wonder of the cure.
Perhaps pure is the more precise word than clean. Because purity is what should lie at the heart of the motive for our art. Clean is a description, purity is a standard.
God Is Not Afraid of the Dark
What an odd statement. Of course God is not afraid of the dark, God is not afraid of anything. So let me ask you dear reader, why should we be?
The Bible does not sanitize sin. From Genesis, to Judges to the Prophets, various methods of detailed accounting of wickedness is given. Not to glorify the evil, rather it is always to drag it into the light and call it what it is. To point to the need for the glorious gospel of Christ.
God is not afraid of the dark. Jesus is the light of the World. He told his disciples He came to seek and save that which was lost. The whole point of His life here on earth was to suffer the darkness of cruel death to pay for our crimes against Him.
If we attempt to purge the reality of darkness from our art, we in essence reject the need of the Savior in the first place.
This is not to say that all art must carry darkness, it’s rather to point out the fact that art which does portray darkness, should do so with the purpose or the light of redemption shining that much brighter in it.
God never exposes darkness simply to expose darkness, it is there to show that His redemption is greater than the darkness. Every account of human depravity in Scripture serves a greater purpose. It reveals our need for a Redeemer. If our stories tell the truth about sin, they must also tell the truth about the One who came to conquer it. Darkness is not the destination. Redemption is.
Purity of the scene
So what makes a scene pure?
Purity is not the absence of darkness. It is the refusal to make peace with it. It is the ability to abhor that which is evil and cleave to that which is good.
A pure scene does not need to cut the darkness or trauma. If an author writes it, however, it must be honest. It must treat the brokenness and pain of the character with moral weight. The reader should not experience euphoria at sin depicted in a scene. Sin depicted truthfully should cause sorrow, reflection, and gratitude that God loves us where we are, but too much to leave us there.
That is the purpose of the virtues listed. Sin is not lovely, but redemption and hope are.
The hardest scenes to write.
There are many hard scenes in Bethan’s Identity. There are three that stand out as being the most difficult to get right.
The first was Bethan’s choice to sell her body for food, so she and her brother could eat. I did not write the act, I wrote the negotiation. It was harder, because this scene required restraint in the dialogue. It was pure because the choice itself was nauseating. The reader is left with dread and a feeling of near despair.
The second scene was the assault. This scene stayed in Bethan’s head, she disassociates from her body. I can hear the pearl clutching crowd now. Gasp, how dare you write such a thing and call it Christian fiction.
Because in my own experience, a victim often asks God where were you. So I write the scene to show witness. Because God was there the whole time. Broken hearted, grieving at the sin, with the ability to redeem it.
The third scene was the street preacher who looks at Bethan with kind eyes. Crying out, that Yah-Roi sees, and calls the sinners home. Bethan prays for the first time in years. Interceding for the only person she still loves, and then she whispers. “See him, but do not bother with me.”
That scene was harder than the other two, because it showed how far Bethan had fallen. That too was written from lived experience.
Sin and trauma are not lovely, so why write it at all?
Some authors are gifted at writing stories where hope is quiet, gentle, and comforting. Those stories have ministered to countless readers, and the Church needs them. My stories tend to begin farther down in the valley. They linger longer in the darkness because that’s where I first learned what redemption meant.
Some authors excel at showing the beauty of walking with Christ. My stories more often begin with the question of whether Christ is still there when everything has fallen apart.
When I first started writing Songs of Redemption, fourteen years ago. I knew the direction the story needed to take from the beginning. However I was afraid. Of criticism, of being accused of being unchristian, for the story that was fighting to come out.
So I sanded it down, gave my heroine a noble escape, a thrilling backstory, and strong character virtues. The result was safe. It was pleasant. It was also hollow. A story about redemption had become a story that no longer needed redeeming.
I shelved the story, got married, had children, earned a degree in trauma counseling, and then the Lord walked me through grief I never expected. Miscarriages. Unemployment. A traumatic brain injury. The resurfacing of childhood trauma. Life stripped away the tidy version of suffering I had tried to write.
That is my story, it is neither sanitary nor cozy.
When I started the rewrite of Bethan’s Identity, the story of the escaped girl no longer fit the reality of my experience, or the experiences of many people whom I have counseled over the years. Real life is often deeply raw, painful and dark. To tell the story of a persecuted girl who becomes a refugee in her own country, who betrays God just so she can eat, and finds herself sold into slavery as a result. I had to be honest. And a miraculous deliverance from all of that, so my heroine could succeed, I felt would be a slap to those like me who never got rescued.
I did not get rescued. I got redeemed.
There is a difference. Rescue removes us from suffering. Redemption give the suffering purpose. That realization has changed my faith and the way I tell stories. Bethan does not get rescued. She gets redeemed. Because that is what the gospel is for.
The whole point of the Gospel
Redemption is the theme of the cross. The sacrifice required to buy us back. Free to all who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Our writing is an extension of our worship to the God who saved us. We write the truth of the darkness, to shine the light of the hope we have in Jesus more brightly.
Our fiction is not for everyone, but it is for the weary, for the captive souls troubled in sin, for the reader who needs hope that their darkness is not the end. We write to proclaim liberty to the prisoner and to set the captive free.
Art should inspire virtue, not pacifism.
We do not leave our reader in the darkness, or happy with the sin portrayed. The whole purpose of our writing is to show the moral gravity of sin.
You cannot be honest about sin by pretending it isn’t that bad. An honest assessment demands us to give it the same moral weight that God does. And when we do that, we inspire others to call sin what it is.
Evil.
And refuse to participate in it.
This art is not Hallmark, where hardship is overcome by romance. It is not cozy. Redemption costs something on the page because redemption has a price. The word means to buy back. It implies that something was owned, lost, and returned only after sacrifice.
This is why we write dark. Not because darkness is beautiful, but because redemption is. So there can be virtue and praise of the Father, who loved us too much to leave us there.