The Road to Hell

(This is Part 5 of the series, Twelve Pieces of Flesh where I discuss the crisis of conscience of the Christian writer–say that three times fast. I recommend reading Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4 before continuing.)

The question was simple, one any author should know. But I had no answer. I choked–at the perfect time too: this was my first face-to-face with the owners of Crimson Tree Publishing a couple weeks after they picked up my book. I had just stumbled my way through summarizing the plot, which was half me saying, “No, really, it’s better in context.” Then one of them asked me, “Why did you write this?”

“Uhh…”

I told them a few reasons that came to me over the course of my writing: my family members who survived and didn’t perpetuate the abusive cycle, my friends who suffered abuse at the hands of pastors and parents, how I wanted to rid myself of the latent shit from my childhood shit town. But, on the days when smashing my skull through drywall sounded more fun than fixing a chapter, those were not the reasons that kept me going.

I just had to get it out.

Once I told my husband that writing a novel is like having food poisoning. You just have to vomit until you’re empty. Otherwise, you feel sick until you do. (Don’t take this metaphor too far. Writing doesn’t make me nauseous, and I hope the end product is better than puke. But, hey, I never claimed to be some brilliant writer. That’s the best illustration you’re going to get.)

“If a story is in you, it has to come out.” –William Faulkner, author of As I Lay Dying

Circle all the way back to Part 1 when Jonalyn encouraged me to compare my reasons for writing Never Touched absent of any sugar coating to God’s reasons for including gore in the Bible. I didn’t know the answer before I started the book, but after a couple months of writing, it became clear: I had to tell the truth. And the truth was brazen.

But so is abuse, isn’t it?

So, does this match God’s reasons? After meditating on the Judges passage, I felt that God included details of depravity to show humanity’s vile nature, to show how far we, even his people, are from holiness, to show how desperately we need a Savior.

To show how much he loved us to send his Son to be it.

So, yeah, I think I’m in the clear. More than that, I think any Christian author who wants to write honest fiction is in the clear.

Maybe you disagree. Maybe you believe even the best intentions pave the road to hell, that nothing excuses crafting entertainment that is less than “noble,” “right,” or “pure.”* (My two cents: the road to hell is more likely paved with adverbs.** Or unbought stuffed dogs.***)

If that’s the case, I’ll leave you with this. If you want to judge, protest, or ostracize Christian authors who write mainstream books, by all means, do so. You are welcome to spend your energy that way. Before you do, though, please consider what you read, watch, and listen to. The Christian family member who criticized my aspiration to be a screenwriter because I “would have to compromise my beliefs to be successful” enjoys watching at least one popular television show riddled with explicit language and sexual content. If Christians should be condemned for producing something with PG-13+ content, why is it acceptable for them to be entertained by it?

Thank you for bearing with me through this five-part series. I hope it was helpful or at least interesting. I look forward to having fruitful discussions with you once Never Touched releases.

 

*Philippians 4:8

**Stephen King

***Ernest Hemingway

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6 Kick-A Women of Literature

In honor of International Women’s Day, here are six must-read women.

1. Jane Eyre from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

I’ll let Jane speak for herself:

“No sight so sad as that of a naughty child,” he began, “especially a naughty little girl. Do you know where the wicked go after death?”

“They go to hell,” was my ready and orthodox answer.

“And what is hell? Can you tell me that?”

“A pit full of fire.”

“And should you like to fall into that pit, and to be burning there for ever?”

“No, sir.”

“What must you do to avoid it?”

I deliberated a moment: my answer, when it did come was objectionable: “I must keep in good health and not die.”

Drop the mic.

2. Libby Day from Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

Gillian Flynn knows how to write women so complicated you feel that, if you searched the midwest thoroughly enough, you’d find them. Libby introduces herself as this ruined, irredeemable, kleptomaniac burden to society. By the end of the book, I was surprised that she was more than any of this. She was broken, compassionate, relatable.

3. Lily Bloom from It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover

I don’t sleep well when I read Colleen Hoover. I either stayed up late or woke up before the sun to finish Ugly Love, Maybe Someday, and It Ends with Us. While I have been disappointed by some of Hoover’s female protagonists, (Tate from Ugly Love, for instance), Lily grows into one of the bravest characters I’ve read in romance.

4-5. Bronwyn and Addy from One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus

Bronwyn doesn’t take crap from anyone. She’s repentant, humble, brilliant, and won’t let anyone master her fate–or the fate of anyone she loves. Addy grows from doormat to self-assured and selfless. That’s all I can say without spoiling the book. Read it!

6. Addie from As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

Far and away my favorite antiheroine, Addie’s single chapter in As I Lay Dying is the most eloquent. And brazen. Her first line:

In the afternoon when school was out and the last one had left with his little dirty snuffling nose, instead of going home I would go down the hill to the spring where I could be quiet and hate them.

“Them” being her children and husband. She punished them by asking to be buried in her hometown, the trek to which all but destroyed them. I’m not drawn to Addie because she’s vindictive or bitter, but because she doesn’t attempt to hide her faults from the reader or soften them at all. She was the first self-admittedly awful woman I had read. Since I met Addie in my high school US Lit class, I’ve been looking for others like her in every book I read.

Did I leave out your favorite female character? Tell me! I’d love to read about her.

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Sex…in so Many Words

(This is Part 4 of the series, Twelve Pieces of Flesh where I discuss the crisis of conscience of the Christian writer–say that three times fast. I recommend reading Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 before continuing.)

“What is that?”

I looked in the rearview mirror to see my three-year-old son awaiting an answer to what my friend had just spelled: S-E-X. (Why did I teach him basic phonics?) She and I answered rapid-fire:

Friend: It’s what people do when they love each other.

Me: But when they’re grown up.

Friend: Yeah.

Me: And married.

Friend: Right.

Me: It’s not a bad word, sweetie, just a grownup word. God made it, so it’s good.

Silence.

I glanced in the rearview again. “Does that answer your question?”

“Yep.”

God made it, so it’s good. That sentence hung in the air as we drove the last stretch home.

Of the topics covered in this series–violence, explicit language, sex–it’s the only one that God actually made humans for, or, rather, for humans. So, why do so many Christian authors shy away from the topic? Why do some euphemize to the extent that the sex scenes are the only ones in the book not written in full color? This is accepted in Christian culture as appropriate. I have to wonder, though, if we are robbing our readers or tampering with the art itself.

The good news is that the Bible is full of sex, so we can look to its writers for guidance. There are three ways the biblical authors characterized sex: ideal, corrupt, and redeemed.

Ideal

Song of Solomon is a duet between a groom and bride. And, boy, does that groom love his bride’s lips. And tongue. And breasts. There are a few passages where the bride might even be talking about her lover’s package (2:3, 5:15), but considering my lack of background in ancient Hebrew, you shouldn’t take my word for it. The adoration expressed is almost exclusively physical. It’s intimate. It’s unrestrained. It’s advertised.

And it’s praiseworthy.

Corrupt

If you read Part 1 of this series, you don’t have to look any further for sexual abuse in the Bible. Rape, adultery, incest, prostitution, polygamy–throw a dart at the Old Testament and more than likely you’ll hit one of these, sometimes in graphic detail (For instance, Genesis 38:9, “[Onan] spilled his semen on the ground…” That paints a picture I’d rather not see.).

The Bible doesn’t shy away from displaying the sexual misconduct of even its heroes.

  • Jacob married two sisters, Leah and Rachel, but only loved Rachel.
  • Judah, father of the tribe of Judah, solicited sex from his daughter-in-law when he thought she was a prostitute. Then Judah almost had her burned to death for said prostitution. And you think your in-laws are bad…
  • Rahab hid Jewish spies in Jericho, where she was a prostitute.
  • David, a “man after God’s own heart,” forced Bathsheba to have sex with him even though she was married (as was David), then sent her husband to certain death when she found out she was pregnant with David’s child so no one would know of their affair. Obviously, the coverup was a great success.
  • Solomon built the first temple and had 300 wives and 700 concubines.

Redeemed

There is nothing good about Jacob’s polygamy, Judah’s sex-solicitation/incest, Rahab’s prostitution, David’s adultery/rape, or Solomon’s man-whoreness. But God is good. Want to know what all of this vileness resulted in?

Jesus.

Jacob didn’t love Leah, but he still used her for sex. Leah gave birth to Judah

Judah and Tamar conceived twins in their one-night-stand. One of them was Perez.

Perez’s descendent was Rahab.

Rahab’s great, great grandson was David.

David and Bathsheba had a son named Solomon.

Solomon’s line traces to Jesus.

Sexual sin sucks. That doesn’t mean God can’t use it for good.

What does this all mean for the Christian writer? Sex is fair game. We don’t have to be bad writers about this one topic because it’s taboo. We can be artful and sensual and free. We can safely write about sex in all forms: ideal, corrupt, redeemed. Realistically.

This means we can write about a married couple who has sexual conflict even though they are doing it God’s way. We can write about rape and incest in a way that gives words to survivors’ stories. We can write about a healing sexual relationship between two people who aren’t married. If it’s real, it’s real.

You might be thinking, “Wait! That means writing porn.” Yes, real can get graphic. But, by definition, erotica is literature written with the intent to arouse. When you write that sex scene, are you trying to turn your reader on? Everyone’s threshold for arousal is different and each is responsible to his own conscience. What is erotica for one person won’t be for another.

I have to ask, though, is it wrong for Christians to write erotica? Lust is a sin, sure, but lust is defined as a conscious desire to have sex with someone you are not married to. Does erotica cause this? Maybe. Maybe not. What I do respect is the fact that, like anything, erotica can be abused and has potential for harm.

So, before we write any sexual content, we should evaluate our motives. Intentions, after all, are the heart of the matter.

Next time.

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