y o u r w r i t e r s g r o u p...

Christian Pop Culture and the "Missing Middle"

You may not share this mission. 

Maybe you feel more strongly for something else. Maybe your creative spirit soars to different music. Maybe you don't know what I'm on about discussing books for this "missing middle."

That's okay.

Do your thing and do it well.

But for nearly 20 years, maybe longer, I've been disappointed by Christianity. I've lived in the shadow of something I considered an embarrassment. It seemed to follow me around wherever I looked. I was guilty by association. In the popular parlance of my childhood and early adulthood which took place in the early 80s and 90s, the adjective "Christian" was largely synonymous with "a shoddy, reduced copy."

Some of you know what I'm talking about. Some of you don't.

Sure we had Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith. Frank Peretti wrote that big thriller. And there were a number of excellently produced boycotts. But for every reason to be proud, there were 100 reasons to cringe.

Now that is finally changing, after all this time--in music, in movies, and in books. In my industry--books--the popular interest in spiritual things is welcome indeed.

The Christian pop culture was described well in Rapture Ready! by Daniel Radosh. This is the parallel universe I grew up in. An old article/reviewby Hannah Rosin said:

"A young Christian can get the idea that her religion is a tinny, desperate thing that can't compete with the secular culture. A Christian friend who'd grown up totally sheltered once wrote to me that the first time he heard a Top 40 station he was horrified, and not because of the racy lyrics: 'Suddenly, my lifelong suspicions became crystal clear,' he wrote. 'Christian subculture was nothing but a commercialized rip-off of the mainstream, done with wretched quality and an apocryphal insistence on the sanitization of reality.'"

Where souls are at stake, it seems, creative work is restricted. And where creative work is restricted, it becomes a clanging gong, serving only those already in the club. That's one reason (as Rosin says) “it's always been a stretch to defend Christian pop culture as the path to eternal salvation.” So now can we write books that are Christian but not for Christians? That's where this middle ground is opening up between CBA and ABA through books like The Shack and others. Will we escape the confines of these walls and face up to the fact that a Christian pop culture does not save souls, has never really been about that underneath anyway, and conflicts and confuses converts with its “eternal oxymoron?”

 

Here’s my answer: No. Some can’t. And some shouldn’t. They have God to answer to. Some have been called to preach to the choir to encourage them to sing, and to keep singing even in the face of incredible opposition. Yes, these folks are needed. Let me not stand in their way.

 

But here’s my answer to the new voices: Yes. You don’t have to produce the Jesus Junk and the Kinkade Kommemorative Kolection just because you’re a Christian. There’s a big world out there waiting for your junk, er, work, and Andy Crouch and Mako Fujimura and many "covert Christians" are working to define that space and help it survive its infancy and get off the ground. You'll take some flak for it, but less than you'd expect. It's pretty well established by now--in books like Don Miller's and Rob Bell's and David Kinnaman's unChristian--that there's a problem here and it's not going away until we deal with it.

 

So if you are a writer (elitist, hack, or otherwise), who has a vision for something nontraditional that doesn't fit in the current Christian pop culture market, several modern-world changes are contributing to (as Paulo Coehlo says in The Alchemist) "conspire in your favor." And this should give you all the confidence you need to step out and not accept confinement to your previous notions.

 

Start by reading all the authors and books mentioned in this post. And by sharing your thoughts here. And coming back.

Give It Up, Grousers!

Disagreements, differences of perspective, verbal sparring. This is what good stories thrive on. So it's no wonder that sometimes in the course of discussing things we're passionate about--like writing books--writers can get a little heated up.

I witnessed a couple minor disgreements between writers and editors this week over the definition of quality, and I was reminded of the early days of this blog, back when I'd take on the "establishment" and picket low quality in Christian publishing, excited to find quotes from folks like Marilynne Robinson in The Tennessean this week who said, "I think a lot of Christian fiction feels pat." Which sounds like she's saying something to the effect that Christian fiction is low quality, though she goes on to say that it seems many writers (many, not all) don't learn in the course of writing. And this is why it feels pat. Predictable. Expected.  

These days, I think my fire has turned into a babbling brook. Or maybe a little bunny. I don't want to argue anymore. Some people think predictable writing is boring and pat and connotes low quality. Others think it's nice to escape in something comfortable and safe. Whatever. We all have different reasons for reading and different qualifications for our reading material. I think I've grown to appreciate more pat writing in recent months. I don't care if it makes me seem less intelligent or interesting at parties. Pompous objections to predictable fiction are so predictable and they bore me. So there.

After so many years of fighting for "high quality," working to define it by some objective standard, and searching for new ways to enforce it--or at least get high-quality equal attention--I'm tired of it. I love the difference of opinions, but I just want to read good stories. Maybe I'm compromising. Maybe I want too little out of life or something. But I still want a lot. I want to be surprised, challenged, gripped, inspired. I want to read things that expand my view and make me more accepting, more loving, more dead to my selfish demands, not more. I want excellence, but I want a broad definition of that when it comes to opinions about something as particular and complex as novels. Most of all, I want more respect paid to the people who just enjoy reading and for writers to forget the elitism and attitude, the arguments that go nowhere, and the whining about there not being enough good stuff to read. There is. You just might have to search for it among the piles. Or you might just have to write it yourself. Quit your grousing.

That's the way it is in life. You have to work for it.

So my word for the week is to keep reading, keep writing, and keep fighting for high quality however you define that. Just don't be narrow. And don't come barking at my readers when you don't agree my fiction is high quality. Differences of opinion are what make reading much more fun.

The One Rule for Writing Great

Let our minds be told all they need to know by the empathy of our hearts from the pictures you paint.

Appreciating Art Through Books

Go ahead. Go google “Evangelical arts.” I’ll wait.

…

As one of the first acts of his new reign as AP religion editor, Eric Gorski has decided to prove that some Evangelicals DO care about quality art. The article mentions current EV arts heavy-hitters, Mako Fujimura, Dick Staub, Andy Crouch, and Craig Detweiler.

How can you go wrong? Will you contribute through your talent for words?

Good to the last page

In our profession, Coffee—note the capital C—is lifeblood. There’s a reason for that. And it isn’t just flavor.

So this morning, my wife came up while I was getting ready. “Deep thought,” she said as she sipped. “If you don’t use enough beans, you’re just wasting it.”

Deep thought, indeed. Why go to the effort of making it if you aren’t going to make it great? What’s the point of almost good? Why not work to create the perfect cup?

Of course, this slippery definition of “good” has been well-hashed, here and elsewhere. It leads exactly two places: nowhere and not far. No different with coffee. And like I said, it’s not always just about flavor. So some people like it weak. They may not be able to handle the stronger acid or caffeine. Maybe it doesn’t agree with them.

Not everyone is going to agree with your definition of the perfect cup.

But then there are those who just believe they know what they prefer. Maybe all they’ve ever had is Sanka. Or MJB.

Good is the enemy of great.

Or so we've heard. Fact is, none of us know what The Perfect Cup is. There’s always someone who makes it better. No one’s been everywhere.

Let’s extend the metaphor. Exercise. If you don’t get enough, there’s little point. Or food. If you don’t eat enough, you waste away.

The opposite is true if you’re starving. Go without too long and scarfing rich food could kill you. You can definitely overdo it on exercise. And coffee for that matter. Moderation is still a good rule.

But even if you like your coffee a little weaker, and you don’t need a lot of food and exercise, you don’t get to decide how others take their coffee. There’s a “right” way to make it, sure. And that’s according to each person’s particular tastes. And it doesn’t mean it’s the wrong way if someone else makes it differently.

But if they’re making it for you, on your dime, do you just take it and smile? Keep polite? Mouth shut? They’re your tastes, right? You may offend someone.

But I guess that’s life. Different needs and desires. Different opinions. It’s what makes it fun. I’ll admit that I’ve been guilty of trying to tell people what they should like, but I’m done with that. People can drink any old coffee any way they want. Heck, they can even drink Sanka.

(My impassioned pleas for stronger joe won't stop entirely until there's more of it in general. I'm still looking for that perfect cup. But I'm really hoping the evidence of it helps me quit judging the old stuff. I think it's just time to refocus.)

But when I’m drinking it, I’m still gonna use enough beans.

First, Do No Distortion

It's still early to be speculating, but Walden media (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) has picked up the rights to The Screwtape Letters:

"The novel is a collection of letters from higher-up devil Screwtape to his subordinate nephew, Wormwood, about how he should damn a man known as the Patient. This involves mentoring the younger devil on 'methods of undermining faith and promoting sin' while commenting on Christianity and human nature...According to Variety, the film will be a 'midbudget, primarily live-action pic' that they hope to release in 2008."

Anyway, if it does get made, let's just hope for a high quality production.
....

Which brings me to my point for the evening. Contrary to how it seems to some, I don't think anyone here delights in pointing out the shortcomings of our industry. Frequent protests have required us to defensively support and reassert negative facts in an attempt to reach agreement and move on to addressing and correcting them. Some have been distressed at how frequently it seems we complain about the offerings on the Christian bookshelves. But it's the distorted and reduced Christian books that cause the distress in the first place, and though there's improvement on the horizon, the fact that we're confronted by so many safe Christian books only heightens the irony. Truth must stop being distorted and safety must be dethroned by quality for Christian books to stop deepening the problem.

And praise God, since starting on this Holden Caufield-like journey, I've found I'm not the only Christian editor frustrated with the hyper-safe shelves of CBA. Far, far from it. In fact, I could tell many stories (but never will) about the publishing execs, editors, writers, and sales and marketing forces who have expressed their agreement with many of my statements here, not so much to thank me (though some have), but to point out that I'm by far the first to feel this way. And while it's nice to hear, I have to wonder why then there aren't more blogs like mine and Dave's. Okay, there's Jana. And okay, granted, it's not a big industry and reputations are at stake. No one needs more whining. Certainly, there are more important things to be doing, like actually working to fix it.

Erwin McManus is someone working to fix it. He gave a pretty good interview here. And since there aren’t enough publishing folks to make his new book a hit for Nelson (and none of us actually pay money for books anyway), you have to get the word out and go buy your copies from the most conservative “Christian retail” store you can find. Go forth and multiply. Consider it your duty to society, or your subversive act of cultural espionage, if you prefer...

---------------
CB: You say in your book that your soul “always craves more.” Is this something to which you think all church leaders are equally susceptible?

McManus: I think Christian books aren’t as honest as we think. To be frank, a Christian magazine just did a very nice article on me. In the photo, I was wearing a shirt that had a gun on it shooting out butterflies. When I got the magazine in the mail, they’d PhotoShopped out the gun.

When I saw it, I thought, This is the inherent problem with Christianity. We’re not honest. We distort and recreate truth in a way that is palatable to us. When we do that, people hear our messages and they think they aren’t real and they aren’t honest. We think that because we have the truth, everything we do is truthful. We need to not only preach the truth, but be truthful.

Soul Cravings, for me, is an honest book. O publishers, for God's sake, let us have more.

And for you, writer of that soul-inspiring work of colossal brilliance, I urge you to forget safety and write, headlong into the bleak and terrifying unknown.

And send us a postcard.

What's a Meta-For?

Okay, results of the contract contest are in, and it seems our ubiquitous General Bertrand was favored from the start. Yet what connections between the 2 articles did you find? I’d hoped the stunt would get you to think about the way we work as Christians who write fiction. With Leithart’s article as context, Pamuk showed just how critical our tools of symbol and metaphor really are to high quality stories.

Here’s Mark: “[In lower quality fiction] there's an over-determined quality to the symbolism, as if it came about cognitively rather than procedurally. It is at once too meditated and not meditated enough. The grace with which Pamuk can write about his ancient calligraphers, knowing what's underneath it but never pointing directly to the symbolism, simply isn't possible when Symbol is seen as a technique to be applied rather than a hallmark or byproduct of method…”

Exactly. Quality metaphors are not premeditated. The challenge is to allow them to arise naturally--and then trust readers to connect their own dots. The alternative is to come up with symbols after the fact and insert them. Very few authors are able to make these kind look seamless and end up unintentionally weakening their books. The better idea is to discover those less obvious metaphors after you’ve written the first draft.

This is an incredibly freeing discovery: Metaphors that effortlessly appear for the observer as if all on their own, first appeared for the writer that way.

I like Mark’s word for how symbols arise as a “byproduct.” Deeper meaning is a result of meditation, usually after the story is already out. The work of that second draft is of finding the metaphors and drawing them out without making them too obvious.

We need to trust readers, and not assume stories with implicit truth and beauty can’t also be mindless escapes. It’s not commercial vs. literary; this is a big part of what makes writing quality or not. Simple books and deep books can both offer the commonplace experience of transcendence. Transcendence is a universal experience, isn't it? No explanation is really necessary.

And in writing metaphor well, there's this great result that happens in counteracting the widespread commercialization of faith and God. The divine is not reducable into nice, clean parts. We were created to experience incredible, complicated things, and good books provide those experiences that are otherwise unavailable. Reading is an escape from the everyday and if we wanted commercials, there are over 200 channels to choose from. But what I’d like for Christmas is for someone to blog about choosing to develop the natural metaphors in their story and sharing the observations and discoveries they find. (If you do it--or have an archived post--let me know and I'll provide a link:Meg's great post, Suzan's, Michelle's, Madison's.)

Can you relate to this part of Pamuk's speech? “I am most surprised by those moments when I have felt as if the sentences…have not come from my own imagination–that another power has found them and generously presented them to me.” This goes beyond “getting in the moment,” to the deep mystery O’Connor spoke of. The sacramental art that doesn’t separate spirit from body, meaning from method. This is a divine interconnectedness beyond our words, our ideas, our place in space and time. This is why we can’t control what people will take from our books. Ultimately, we don’t control it. And that’s a great thing if you’re looking to die to self.

Pamuk says he “knew only too well that I lived in a country that showed little interest in its artists – be they painters or writers – and that gave them no hope.” Sounds familiar, and yet he takes writing incredibly seriously: “writing and literature are intimately linked to a lack at the centre of our lives, and to our feelings of happiness and guilt.” That lack is the longing to be reunited with the source. Sacramental art involves natural metaphors, as all of life does because it is all metaphor. And God doesn’t make sure we catch it. “My confidence comes from the belief that all human beings resemble each other, that others carry wounds like mine – that they will therefore understand. …a single humanity, a world without a centre.” When we write, we are not only one; we are all one. We all can have this same experience through books.

And finally, there is Pamuk’s metaphor: his father’s suitcase of words. It stands for something, many somethings in fact. Did you see? A suitcase full of your father’s words is very fitting for us. It’s a weighty thing to carry. Some might think you’re pretty high and mighty to assume you can open this. But we must. It’s our birthright. Our legacy. And we must open it if we want to know what’s inside.

At any rate, I hope all you wonderful writers have a happy, safe, and restful Christmas and an inspired New Year. Let’s make it one to remember.

(As I was writing this, trying to put a certain precocious 3-year-old daughter to bed, she came downstairs with the traditional stall tactic that she was hungry. I gave her the traditional Wheat Thins and milk after reading her another book, and twenty minutes later she tiptoed downstairs to tell us she spilled her milk. After we cleaned up, she said she wanted more. Pushover Dad got her a little more. But no, she said, she wanted it full to the top, pointing out the line on the green cup, the amount she’d had before it spilled. I started to smile, insisting she didn’t need that much milk, that she wasn’t even thirsty, and that she’d have to pee. Three strikes, I win. But she insisted calmly, hands folded, serious as a china doll.

And I stood there as she repeated herself—“I just want it up to the top, Daddy”—and something about it, her persistence, her calm determination about this very serious business of getting a lot of milk struck me funny. I choked down a laugh, told myself I wasn't necessarily contributing to misbehavior by complying, and went to fill it up. When I got back, she inspected it and took a slow, satisfied sip. I couldn’t hold it back anymore and cracked up--just her seriousness over the whole thing. And she laughed too though not really knowing what was funny. Maybe she was surprised at how this had gone.

As I kissed her goodnight and shut the door, I thought, This is it. This is how metaphor is. You write the little details, the particularity of the green cup with the silly little pepper people on it, that stuff that sticks in your head forever—all of it is significant. It matters because it means something. You don’t always know what it means and that’s the point, the whole reason for all of it, and why getting it right isn’t so important. Everything simple is so remarkably ineffable. You can’t understand it, so you just enjoy it, and you keep living and writing about it anyway.)

"There is more..."

Anyone familiar with L.A. Story, that Steve Martin film from the mid 90s, will recognize this quote, from Hamlet.

"There is more in heaven and earth...than is dreamt of in your philosophy."

Back in college, this struck me as a good bit of trivia to remember. In those mind-bending, soul-stretching days, I thought a lot about life and where mine specifically was going. I nursed fantasies of directing movies and writing brilliant screenplays, transforming Hollywood, and basically expanding my influence. For God, of course. But like love or personal character, influence can’t be manufactured. To have influence you must first be influenced. So the thing to remember, it seems, is choose your influences wisely. And attending film school the year L.A. Story released, I started looking for my own magic freeway sign to show me what I felt I needed.

Fact is, each of us is responsible for our influences. Not much of a new thought, but the rub for me is that ultimately, you can’t help but be influenced by many things—more things than anyone can ever know. Concepts, philosophies, cultural histories, experiences far removed from our own. For instance, consider the ways of perceiving you carry, passed down to you by Greek philosophy. Disastrous assumptions about the world go by us every day, unexamined, and among them, this one from ancient Greek philosophy that the world can be escaped by whatever convenient means we prefer.

If escape from the world is what you want, you’ll find Christian fiction to serve your purpose. But if it isn’t? Is there also Christian fiction that provides escape from the illusion that we can escape the world? With so much escapist literature competing for attention, this kind of Christian fiction is becoming an increasingly difficult thing to write. There’s also TV, video games, and surfing the Internet for free blogs to fill our need for input. Will our books conform? Can Christian books fight for incarnational truth?

Who will resist the enormous pressure to revise the intense suffering of our world which grace came to destroy?

“A [Christian] writer who wants to get to mystery cannot bypass the evil and pain and suffering of the world, because that is to bypass the cross.” --Flannery O'Connor

Here’s what’s hard to get at in writing to the best of our abilities: we can't aim to bypass the truth of a fallen world. A singular, powerful idea emerges from the best books—incarnate—in the very process of writing with our eyes wide open: we must grapple with this thing called reality, and when we do, we can come out more alive as a result.

Here’s a little philosophy I want us to ponder today--and next time, we'll link it up with the heirarchy of our geyser analogy (On High Quality-12/7/06).

1. If: the best writing mimics God’s redemption of reality (in nature),
2. And if: reality is how we experience God’s redemption,
3. Then: the best writing is that which depicts the most accurate picture of reality.

If we accept this, some questions follow:

• As writers, are we attempting to mimic the original creative force or the struggle of creation with evil?
• If God allows natural consequences rather than intervening, should our stories portray the natural world as any different?
• If we show nature as less-than fallen in our books, are we negating God’s process in redeeming it?
• If we are not accurate in portraying this process, are we writing at our best?

Nature is fallen. Not all of it portrays God. Yet the "groans" of creation do display the work of God in the way they're continually redeemed. If the fallen natural world is what we have to work with as writers, does ignoring the influence of evil--either for our books or in our lives--end up undermining God's deep redemption? I can't deny the fear that I'll get this wrong and end up writing poorer for it. The big question, it seems, is: If I don't study how God's creation struggles here and now, am I going to naturally write reduced? I think we're forced to look at this struggle to portray it accurately and not look away or try to deny it. And frankly, I don't understand why evil is necessary for grace (as it was for Jesus in inviting Judas to his table, or similar such things), but do I have to? To write well, I don't think it matters if we know why the presence of evil precedes the knowledge of grace. What matters is what happens if we ban it from our books.

I'm content to say "I don't know" the why here, and leave that part to God. He gave us the Word, the Logos (the Logic) to hammer out the natural laws, and the whys remain his. But there are some things we must grapple with; we must wrestle within the tenets of our faith. These are the questions I'm wrestling with--ponder them at your leisure. I've been pondering a while so I have some answers, for me. But you need to find yours, too.

Think of Hamlet. I think Shakespeare, like O'Connor, understood that nature is both sinful and holy, sacred and profane, but that it all would be ultimately redeemed, in the end. It didn't mean their stories always showed this full redemption, but in my philosophy, we can't extract good from evil here on earth. We must commit to writing creation interacting with both, so that no one misses the greater point.

The Geyser Analogy

“I had to write this.”

Ever heard an author say this after receiving an award? What do you think they mean by it? And why do so many say it anyway? Are they serious? They couldn’t help it?

Over the next few posts before Christmas, I’m going to try something I’ve resisted for a few months now. I want to try to lay out the hierarchy I've been working to understand, this hidden structure that supports high quality books. It’s not an easy thing to come to and I’ve seen a lot of confusion about it, even in high places of the book industry. But something I’ve seen consistently in most authors who win awards is that they recognize there is a hierarchy in writing quality books. You don't hear anyone talking about it—maybe it's discussed in some Creative Writing classes—but these award-recipients seem to all be saying something about they way they came to their books, and this has led me to a word picture to describe what high quality books are and how they are produced.

So imagine a geyser on top of a mountain—Mars Hill, if you like. That little space between the rocks, the hole from which the geyser of the created work sprang? That's the author. The story was not theirs; they were used by it. The author becomes the empty space through the process of writing, and both the water and space it flows through are subject to the forces of nature. Factual, objective reality dictates how much, how high, how prolific, how fresh that water is—everything about it, in fact. The author prepares himself for the work to flow through according to how the natural laws have shaped him or her. Now, you don't have to understand these natural laws to write well, but they are what define high quality literature.

I like this analogy because it portrays why some geysers are “better” than others. While some people may prefer the visual explosion of the spray, others might want fresher water. But regardless, the best geyser will be the most appealing and the cleanest, thereby satisfying the most people. Any division between commercial and literary books is artificial because both types abide by the same rules defining high quality.

Rules are rules.

And what I find really interesting about these rules, these natural laws, is that they’re based in the same objective reality as the biblical doctrine of absolute truth. I suppose if I understood more of how deeply everything speaks of God I wouldn’t be so intrigued by this. But I’m still discovering how the act of writing can show us who God is and how he works. And it’s the discovery that drives me and convinces me we’re not just amusing ourselves here, talking about books and getting most of it wrong.

So I want us to work at discovering some of these natural laws over the next few posts. I think that statement from authors who stand on podiums and shrug is much more than a “golly-gee” response. There’s a reason they had to write what they did. A reason they couldn’t get away from it. And I think if we explore this a little, we may find some things underneath that point to the reason their geysers worked so well.

Maybe you’ve thought of this already but haven't interacted with others thinking the same things, let alone heard their responses. But if we can stand here and consider what created this fountain on top of the hill, look at it rationally and experience it with all our senses, we should be able to figure out some of the things these authors have uncovered.

So if you're a regular attender here, please consider yourself a part of the discussion and leave a comment. And new members, I apologize in advance if you get a little wet.