It’s been a good fifteen or sixteen hours and I’m still miffed. At least it’s downgraded from blazingly furious after a few hours of stopover in fuming.
A couple of days ago, Mike Duran asked his audience (which seems to include my audience more and more since I keep linking to him) if Flannery O’Connor wrote Christian Fiction. Which is sort like asking if Margaret Mitchell was a Southern writer. Because while both women were clearly from those traditions–O’Connor was a devout Christ-follower and Mitchell was born and bred in the South–their work generally stands well apart from the works that comprise those literary traditions.
But before I go any further, let me explain to those of you on the outside of the fence that within the circle of Christian Fiction there is a movement afoot that reminds me of the Disney movie making establishment prior to the advent of Touchstone films. Just as some within the halls of Disney wanted to make family fare that appealed to slightly older sensibilities, these writers want to write fiction for Christians’ leisure reading that is more PG-13 in nature. In other words they still want to have overt Christian themes but they also want to get away from the rigid strictures imposed by the Inspirational publishing houses. This debate generally centers around the code-word “edgy” and usually takes off when someone says they wish their characters could say the occasional Carlinesque Ess Word. It makes me fervently glad that God has called me to write something else, because if I had to spend vast amounts of my time worried about accidentally using the word “panties” and how I should not use the word “panties” I just might go back to booking travel for people who want to use their Sears card to pay for a Hawaiian vacation.
So when Mike asked folks if Flannery was a Christian author he pulled one paragraph out of the short story Parker’s Back to serve as an example. It happened to be the paragraph where the main character, Obediah Elihu Parker says
“God dammit!” he hollered, “Jesus Christ in hell! Jesus God Almighty damm! God dammit to hell!” he went on, flinging out the same few oaths over and over as loud as he could.
Based on that information alone, a man who had not read any of O’Connor’s works and was wholly unfamiliar with her biography decided that she was not only not a Christian writer but had standards far below that of any good Christian. From that point on another discussion ensued about whether or not writers should have their characters swear.
This? This is why Christian art is floundering in the ghetto of Kirk Cameron direct-to-DVD videos, Thomas Kinkaide’s paintings of light and blood and hair and endless stories of Amish girls and quilts. In the presence of true art we are getting hung up on the things we take out of context to fuel our Bowdleresque outrage. As I said over there, debating the use of profanity in that paragraph is like looking up at the Sistine Chapel ceiling and only noticing the strange nudity.
There was much discussion about how bad that paragraph was for taking God’s name in vain. Yet, if you were to read the entire story you would see that not only is the character’s use of those words at that time symbolic of his first supplication to God but it also echoes his disdain for his OWN name that he refuses to speak. So if you were to just see that paragraph you would of course say “yep. He took the Lord’s name in vain.” You’d be missing the whole story.
What good is a writer who misses the whole story?
Just Another Pretty Farce 
I love Flannery O’Connor. She is a great Christian Fiction writer in the Catholic sacramental tradition. Because some evangelicals don’t get too sacramental unless it’s obvious (like an apple pie on a stove, a farmhouse door open, a group of women walking to church, or a person holding a cross) anything symbolic or — God forbid!– sacramental might be missed.
The funny thing though is that when I started reading your post I thought the argument would be whether Flannery was Christian or whether she was too Catholic. Imagine my groan – echoing across the universe– when I saw the discussion turned on something so shallow as God’s name being taken in vain. Heck! (Yeah, I know I just said “heck”) theologians aren’t even sure what taking God’s name in vain means. It could mean anything from using it lightly to saying God “does” this and God “doesn’t” do that.” As for swearing, the idea of cussing meaning bad words can be one meaning. But it could also mean people using oaths.
But I digress. For me, it’s just sad that so many Christians look so judgingly on things and people and art. There is this wanting to IMMEDIATELY “SEE” God in things, people, art…that makes some Christians so shallow. They judge on appearance and not on the heart because they imagine the heart and the appearance are one. The same people who worship Jesus on a cross with a (they suppose) prostitute nearby and two thieves on either side are the same people who would immediately consider someone evil because he was in an electric chair with a hooker beside him. It’s very sad that so many Christians have been trained to look at art this way but also even sadder that they are trained to look at each other this way. And don’t even let me talk about the utter lack of passion or lack of identification with the weak and the wicked in some of those stories. Great post. -C
You very much echo my thoughts on the matter. As I just replied to Jay, I think I’m mostly disappointed by the fact that what had the potential for seriously intriguing and deep discussion became the forty-fifth chapter in the Great Barnyard Talk Debate.
Pretty much everything you say is stuff I’ve either said to folks or thought in my own head so I can’t really add anything other than a very Maine-ish “Ayup.” 🙂
I’m started to get tired of this conversation…which isn’t a negative comment on you or Mike, just the fact that there’s shouldn’t be an argument at all. Description is not prescription. In my work in progress there’s all manner of swearing, the holy grail of offenses for culturally conservative Christianity — because…people swear. The story could be considered “inspirational” without all of that…but I don’t like that route at all. That, as well as other unsavory behavior, is detouring an entire avenue of a person’s character because of the social standards of a subculture of a subculture.
Besides all of that…here’s my ultimate take on it, which I posted about before a few months ago. Christian writers are fine with depicting non-belief and non-believers in their stories, and if non-belief is the worst offense to God why should we have reservations about depicting anything else?
I’m beyond tired of it. I think that’s part of why I’m so miffed. Because I was all excited at the prospect of discussing Flannery O’Connor’s work, symbolism, faith, etc. And then first crack out of the box it turned into yet another majoring-in-the-minors farrago.
Christian writers are fine with depicting non-belief and non-believers in their stories, and if non-belief is the worst offense to God why should we have reservations about depicting anything else?
Excellent point. Very excellent point. The only thing I can come up with is that I think many of those who are writing for Christian audiences do not like to have accurate depictions of those characters because they are uncomfortable with going there in their heads. Hence a lot of camp, stereotypical “unbelievers”. And a lot of flat character arcs.
A writer with a good ear needs no justification.
“I’m started to get tired of this conversation…which isn’t a negative comment on you or Mike, just the fact that there’s shouldn’t be an argument at all.”
Although I snickered at this thread’s title, I’m with Jay. It’s an epic fail that this discussion gets the traction, siphons the passion it does.
Such bicker snits and nit-wittery..
Totally changing the subject now: does anyone have a completed manuscript they want me to read and review? I volunteered to feature some ‘edgy christian fiction’ (stop smirking, dammit! ) on my blog in August.
Okay, so I am the oddball. I DO NOT find the conversations about Christian fiction “tired.” I find them exhilarating. Fascinating. Timely. Important. And absolutely necessary. I believe the subject of “Christians & culture” is hugely important and one believers have not considered enough. Well, I view the “conversation” about Christian fiction as part of that. Frankly, I could talk about theology and culture and apologetics and “Christian art” a lot more than I do. Katherine (and Jay and Pat), I really appreciate you guys staying involved in the conversation despite its potential distaste. I’ll try not to beat it to death but, man, I wish Christians would be more open to talk about these issues, not less.
mike, it’s not the conversation in general I find tired. The main topic is VERY wothy of examination.
What I find tired is how it invariably spirals downward into a petty bicker about syntax.
When analysing the current state of Christian fiction and examining its potential for development, it’s as though we’ve got a twelve-course feast set before us. Yet for some reason all anyone wants to do is snack on saltines. Or it’s like we’ve got a marathon to run and some people insist on making all of us do warmup exercises for eternity.
With your Flannery O connor post there was SUCH potential to go to the next level, to analyse what FO’C did with arc, character, redemptive conflict and extrapolate from there. It was such dialog interruptus to end up at sweartown again. At least to me.
I wrote this on an iPad with the “help” of Autocorrect. Please excuse any weird out of context words or odd typos.
I don’t really mind having the conversation, Mike, but it’s just that the whole thing mostly originates with a certain pocket (big or small, I don’t know) of Christians that had/have a problem depicting un-Christian behavior.
The problem is that those Christians really have a problem with fiction in general, deep down, because fictional narratives involve conflict, which almost always involve sinful behavior. I can’t see how you can have proper fiction without it.
By the way, Katherine, my wife saw the title of this post in my email and was wondering what kind of blogs I read. Hah.
Chuckling over your comment about figuring out where to use and not use the word “panties.” *sigh*
One more thought… it shouldn’t come as a surprise that every point of debate in Christian circles ends up quibbling over syntax… we can’t even agree on what “Christian” means!
Great post, Katherine.
It’s the tedious spiral of argument that wears me out, and like I said, it siphons off passion and energy better spent on actually writing fiction. (of whatever preferred flavor)
Mike, I genuinely appreciate your blog and discussions.
Katherine, thanks for letting me hang out.
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