I. The Kinds of Characters We Write
Is there such a thing as writing a person in the wrong the right way?
In the first and second articles of this series, Your Novel Is Not a Gospel Tract and Your Worldview Is Not a Genre, I argued that Christians ought to have more room to write real life because our theology gives us the freedom to explore consequences from a biblical perspective.
But what happens when that exploration inevitably brings a reader to the uncomfortable realization that the character—or characters—in your novel are lost, sinful, wicked, and generally fallen in nature?
Should an author be condemned to write for a secular shelf because they include a protagonist who identifies with a sexual orientation contrary to Scripture?
Can Christian fiction contain an antagonistic character who claims to be a follower of Christ?
If a character swears in dialogue, has the book suddenly stopped being written from a Christian worldview?
If intimacy between a married fictional couple is depicted, has the author now sinned against their readers?
II. A Christian Character a Hero Does Not Automatically Make
The answers to these questions lie in the developmental portion of the craft. If a writer is going to portray a Christian worldview, then the development of the story must align with the truth of the Bible: humanity is fallen, Christians can disobey and make terrible choices, and life is not always fair.
In Songs of Redemption, my characters Bethan, Tristan, Quinn, and Tarren are protagonists in the sense that the story is about them, but their own sinful choices and wickedness often make them their own antagonists. This is especially true of Quinn and Tarren.
Because in the whole series, there is only one true Hero—Yah-Roi. The God who sees.
He is the Hero because redemption is possible only through Him.
Our art should reflect the principles of Philippians 4:8: truth, honesty, purity, loveliness. And while sin is never lovely, a story that refuses to handle its ugliness honestly is hardly doing justice to the gospel.
People fail. They sin. They hurt others. Christians do too, and Christians have to repent.
An author who attempts to portray a Cinderella type of personality—someone endlessly good, patient, gracious, and self-sacrificing—without ever reckoning with the source and limits of human goodness risks lying to the reader. That sounds harsh, I know. But a character leaning on their own strength may accomplish good things. They may be courageous, generous, disciplined, or kind. What they cannot do is make themselves righteous.
Our characters should be allowed to reach the limits of themselves.
Scripture tells us there is none righteous, that our righteousness is as filthy rags, and that Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. The Christian story does not require the Christian character to always be the hero. Quite the opposite. Sometimes the most Christian thing about the story is the recognition that none of us are.
III. Are Clean and Christian Equals?
Jesus, in His telling of parables, portrayed the abominable: the rich man ignoring Lazarus at his gate, the prodigal son reduced to longing for the food of pigs, and a Samaritan becoming the example of what it means to love one’s neighbor. These stories deliberately confronted the assumptions and sensibilities of His hearers. The portrayal was not wrong—Jesus cannot be wrong—but the truth being portrayed could certainly offend.
In my article God Is Not Afraid of the Dark, I spoke of the offensiveness of the gospel and the true state of man. God’s light shines that much brighter in stories that are honest about the consequences of living in a fallen world.
If the main character is leaning on the Holy Spirit for strength, there will still be times when he is tempted to stray; and times when he does, as we are all prone to do. If the main character is lost in sin, he may eventually face a choice where grace is offered and must be considered.
And he may refuse it.
A character’s refusal to believe on Jesus can be just as powerful a doctrinal statement within a story as the presentation of the gospel followed by belief. Good craft allows a character to be a person first. Sometimes that person will swear. Sometimes things will happen on the page that make the reader deeply uncomfortable.
Well-crafted clean fiction tells stories without explicit language, sex, or graphic violence. There will always be a shelf for that kind of fiction, and I believe we need one.
But clean and Christian are not equals.
Well-crafted fiction written from a Christian worldview will sometimes venture beyond those constraints because the Bible itself does not always remain within what we would call “clean” constraints.
The stories of both Tamars, Dinah, the Judges, David and Bathsheba—even some of Jesus’ own parables—contain realities that are difficult, violent, sexual, shameful, or culturally offensive. Scripture does not pretend those things aren’t there. It handles them truthfully without asking us to delight in them.
These accounts portray the fallen nature of man, the devastation sin leaves behind, the holiness and mercy of the God who made mankind, and ultimately why mankind could never save itself.
Clean fiction has value.
But cleanliness of content and Christianity of worldview are not the same thing.
IV. The Narrow Road of Christian Storytelling
Because they are not the same thing, the author who tells a story from a Christian worldview has remarkable liberty in storytelling—and with it comes remarkable responsibility.
When an author portrays a character, they are borrowing a perspective and a philosophy. But the story itself must remain grounded in the moral order God has established, even when the character cannot see it.
A character may turn away from the gospel and appear to prosper. The wicked do prosper in this world. A character may come to Christ and find that obedience costs them dearly. Christianity does not promise that every consequence will become visible before the final page.
But the story should know the difference.
A character who comes to Christ will still wrestle with sanctification and the daily dying of self. A character who rejects Him does not become righteous simply because his choices produce temporary success. God is not mocked, and whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap; even when the author does not tie every consequence into a neat bow before writing The End.
This means that however we portray sin, licentiousness, evil, and even good, our portrayal is subject to the reality of the fallen world around us. That is a world redeemable only because of the might of the majestic God we serve.
Joseph told his brothers that what they meant for evil, God meant for good. The Father chose to include repentant harlots, Gentile foreigners, and adulterers in the lineage through which Christ came into the world.
If Scripture proves anything about God, it is that nothing is beyond His power to redeem.
That is what gives the Christian author so much room to tell a story.
But redemption always serves a greater purpose.
V. Lest We Cast A Stumbling Block
Now God is able to redeem anything, but here is the responsibility. Leaving the choice up to the reader.
My stories will always be told from a Christian worldview, but my stories are not often very cozy. Sometimes my former military characters are going to swear, sometimes I will allow my reader to witness sexual violence, sometimes I will portray the death of a child or the horrific outcome of certain religious ideology.
I do not want any reader to enter a story without their consent. Therefore, I put disclaimers in the front of every story that may grow too intense for my readers.
I do not add trauma for shock value, violence for gore or intimate or sexual scenes for titillation or eroticism. Each scene serves a purpose even if it is uncomfortable. This form of story telling is not for everyone and that is fine. That is why the clean shelf exists. However, if I am going to believe that Jesus is the Lord over everything then He is the Lord of my scenes too.
I pray often over my scenes, especially the dark ones, especially the ones that give my reader a view inside closed doors. I never wish to cast a stumbling block. I am careful over the way I write, the words I use and the phrases I allow on the page. Because with great freedom comes great responsibility.
This is telling a story on the narrow road.
VI. The End
As I wrap up this series, I sincerely hope my readers understand where my heart is in all of this.
I am not against openly giving the gospel in a novel. I am not against the genre of Christian fiction. And I am not against using characters to portray the ideal of how a Christian ought to behave and act.
I am against bad craft. I am against laziness in the giving of the gospel simply because the author believes it should be there. I am against always making Christian characters choose the right thing. I am against a dishonest portrayal of life simply because the author has hindsight and wishes to change the world with the lessons they have learned.
The character should not be afforded that same hindsight unless that character has walked the road required to get there.
I do not believe that the One who died to give us life, and who gave us our gifts, deserves anything less than our best in the practice and execution of our talents.
If you are going to write a story, show the gospel and its power. Do not sell it short by merely telling it.
If you are going to write a novel, let your worldview color the outcomes on the page.
If you are going to write from another person’s perspective, let your characters have freedom of movement, belief, mannerism, and dialogue.
The God who is still writing the epic story of this earth lets us fail all the time and still came to redeem us anyway. We grieve Him. We go astray. We resist. We make choices that carry consequences, and sometimes we refuse the grace He offers us.
And yet His story will still end exactly as He has planned.
So, dear writing friends, I encourage you:
Know what you believe.
Know why you believe it.
Know your craft.
Know human nature.
And trust the story to hold it all.