“Christian fiction” is not an easy thing to get right. While “Christian music” is usually just hymns and gospel with a new music style (gospel is technically it’s own music genre but hopefully you get what I mean), Christian stories, and even Christian games, often push the message over the story. Sound familiar? I’m not saying you can’t make a good story with Christian themes and messages. Jesus used parables but they weren’t as heavy handed as some Christian media can get.
Author Brian Niemeier suggests a more subtle approach to how Christian themes and morals are introduced into a story, putting that story first and the messages and themes properly worked into them. Kind of like a certain other ideology that gets that wrong with less noble goals than saving your soul. This way, even if you aren’t winning them to Christ, you’re still telling a good story with a good overall message when “fire and brimstone” is not reaching your audience.
BW Media Spotlight 
[…] Last week’s article link featured author Brian Neumeier making the case that Christian fiction shouldn’t be overly preachy, shouldn’t be just a Christian version of something else. (Kind of hard with porn. Heh.) While I linked to his website I first saw the article on Bleeding Fool, where it was crossposted. […]
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