Christianity in your writing

let's start off by saying I'm not Christian, I'm Agnostic, and I usually find anything Christian hard to swallow sometimes. How does one go about Christianity in their work, and have it actually feel natural to the world, rather than just shoehorned? What I come to realize for me is: it's not the actual religion itself that bothers me, it's actually the frequency that I'm reminded it's there.

I think of Christianity as the salt of writing: just a little can flavor your work, whereas too much can immediately repel your readers away. I prefer building atmosphere over actually telling people "LOOK AT HOW MUCH I'M TALKING ABOUT GOD; I AM SO RELIGIOUS LULZ". Like, say, have your character enter a church: have the echoes from his foot steps bellow across the empty chapel halls as he enters fill me with atmosphere, rather than have him just burst right into the church, and have a Bible verse-off with the preacher.

I feel so hypocritical right now: I'm not much of a reader (if I'm interested in reading, at all), yet I'm talking as if I am. Anyways, I feel tired, so I'm cutting this thread a little short. How do you guys handle it w/o sounding like humongous trolls?

I think you're giving Christianity a more prominent role than it has in most peoples' writings. There are numerous instances in which it simply doesn't come up, such as entirely separate constructed worlds. Unless it has a specific focus, sci-fi also tends not to have a particular emphasis on the Christian religion. Urban Fantasy, though it deals with the supernatural, also might not include explicitly Christian elements for fear that they might overpower the rest of the setting.

I'm writing a constructed world and given that the history and basic rules of the world are different, Christianity as-it-is is entirely absent. I take notes from it and other religions to help with worldbuilding my setting's religions, but at no point does this edge into Christian allegory.

I'm sorry if this doesn't answer your question, it's just I'm sort of confused about what your concern is. I think you're assuming people treat writing a certain way that they might not.

Well, I'll start by saying that anything I write tends to be fantasy, so alternate world and lack of any religions that are here, and thus I don't handle Christianity at all.

However, if I were to write a story in which I had to handle Christianity, I don't think it would have been a problem for me because I had contact with quite a few people affiliated with that particular religion and thus I am very much aware that ... well, "people are people".

Now, what do I mean by that exactly? I mean that any person with whom you can come into contact, be in a Christian or a non-Christian, is a person of their own and their religion (or lack of it) are merely a part of what defines them, sometimes a very small part.

Oh, sure, there are people who simply have to crusade to turn everyone into Christians via aggressive evangelism. But even in those cases religion isn't their defining feature; their aggressiveness, pushiness, and lack of empathy for those who do not subject themselves to their will, are.

And for the majority of people, religion as it is is on the same level as a hobby—quite an important hobby, but one nonetheless—or is simply something they are affiliated with because their parents were affiliated with it too and they just got used to it.

Heck, even people you'd expect to be absolutely religious and accept nothing else can put their religion aside at times. I am someone who most definitely is not religious in any way, and yet I remember receiving quite good advice from a Christian priest, a priest who was aware of who I was, and the advice was pretty much the opposite of the standard "embrace God and you will be saved" some would expect. I also remember once meeting two proselytising (or maybe just advertising some aspect of their religion; I do not feel qualified to say that I know for sure which it was) youths in a part who, upon trying to talk with me and learning that I am not really religious and personally doubt I ever be, spent quite some time with me talking about the perception of morality and ethics based on one's religious beliefs, which was pretty much philosophical musings and I count it as time well and pleasantly spent. Heck, I'm friends with a rather devout Christian, and we never tried to convert each other because that would be just silly (and disrespectful) despite knowing each other for about a decade.

So really, "people are people". Everyone is a bit different in what they do and in what they believe, and religion is nothing different in that regard. And in most cases—that is, unless they were massively indoctrinated by their parents which generally tends to change them as a whole rather than just this one aspect—people's approach to religion is quite similar to their approach to all the things about them.

Also, if you want to write at all accurately about religions, remember that terms like Christian, Buddhist, and so on, are to be capitalised, but terms like agnostic and atheist are not. It may appear to be insignificant in the larger scheme of things, but it is quite an important detail to remember as capitalising one's own titles when it is not necessary is doubtless to cause illusions of unwarranted arrogance.

As an atheist with shades of maltheism, I find that it's actually quite easy to be respectful of religious people when I write.

Admittedly, a lot of the time it's irrelevant for the simple reason that there are relatively few people where their religion truly informs their morality, personality, or actions. Rather, their religion for the most part is one that confirms their morality, personality, and actions; they will selectively embrace the parts of it that are relevant to doing what they want to do and being what they want to be anyways, and ignore the parts that are awkward, or choose their interpretations to confirm their existing feelings and thoughts.

But not always. And those are the times where the question has to be actually addressed.

If I were to trace this in my writing and reading, it's very likely it goes back to Fred Saberhagen's Berserker and his portrayal of Johann Karlsen; when given evidence that parts of his fleet are plotting to depose him on the eve of a massive battle against the genocidal robots that threaten humanity's existence, he asks another character what he should do.

The other character is struck by the fact they're dealing with someone who genuinely, non-hypocritically, believes. Later on there's a scene where Karlsen and the head of the conspiracy make a fleetwide broadcast to show their unity; the viewpoint character from the previous scene realizes that Karlsen brought the conspiracy's members to him, told them that he could end them all now...and offered forgiveness if they would stand with him in battle against the Berserkers. Karlsen knew they would accept that offer and took precautions to ensure they wouldn't double-cross him but he arranged the situation so he could forgive his enemies, as his religion demanded.

It's very likely that my recent portrayal of Lucrezia Noin as a devout Catholic owes a great deal to Johann Karlsen. Now, there's a negative way this can be a part of the portrayal, if someone really, truly believes in the less-positive aspects of a religion. (If you want notes on how to portray that, I recommend Left Behind; it's not supposed to be but it's good at it. See Slacktivist's page-by-page deconstruction for details.) Still, there are certain constants.

So, my advice:

First, someone's religion may inform their every action, but you shouldn't be telling people that constantly. Faith of that sort is an intensely personal thing and while they may elaborate if pressed or just because, unless they have a particular gift for words or they are speaking to someone who has a similar experience (faith is possible about many things, not merely religious; remember that) it's very likely they will fail to convey what it actually means to them or what it's like. They probably won't be explaining most of the time, partially because of the difficulty of explaining and partially because to them, their faith is so much a part of them that they don't have to think about what it requires of them in any normal situation.

Second, unless you have a particular gift for words, you're probably going to fail too if you try to get descriptive. Writing a detailed expression of religious faith is basically the same thing as writing a detailed sex scene; an intensely personal and meaningful experience that will 49% of the time come across as prurient and another 49% of the time will come across as trite. (Hat-tip to Slacktivist, who articulated this first.) If you cut to black or gloss over someone praying, you know what? That's cool! That's probably a good idea!

Third, stop with the people kneeling or bowing or putting their hands together under their chin or whatever the stereotypical prayer pose you're about to use is. I know it's easy and people get it without being told what's going on but for fuck's sake stop. I grew up theist, like most folks my generation, and did my most intense praying sitting in the front seat of a Nissan Sentra while it was driving down Scripps-Poway Parkway. (For the record it was about a relationship, I wasn't in danger or something.) I'm pretty sure the person in the driver's seat had no clue I was praying considered the only visible sign was the fact I was actually bothering to look at scenery I'd seen five hundred times. Prayer isn't something that people do with a specific pose unless they're younger than 12 years old. This is someone talking to a divine being; it's already listening, they don't have to catch its attention with a pose or use its name. People aren't always respectful in prayer; one of the best scenes of prayer in the history of television is when Martin Sheen's character, someone who's been shown previously to have a nearly encyclopedic knowledge of the Bible and gets very upset when people use it to justify violence or bigotry, calls God out in the middle of the National Cathedral on The West Wing. There's nothing about the poses you'd think of and absolutely nothing respectful about it (in fact he's intensely insulting, as seen on our own quotes page for the series). But it is a man speaking to God in the midst of a personal crisis, and if that is not prayer what is?

Fourth, if you want anyone to take your religious characters seriously, they need to know their shit. If you ask most modern atheists who've got seriously into debates with religious people, they will express amazement that most of the people who chose to debate them don't know the Bible beyond a few bludgeon quotes and are often wholly ignorant of the theological reasoning or basis underpinning the doctrines they espouse. I've seen it happen myself and I've heard people comment on it and I've even seen the matter studied by religion professors in their university jobs and the results weren't pretty. Say what you will about the Islamic State, when you ask them to provide a passage from the Koran that supports any particular action they take, they can actually provide one and probably offer you some reasonably knowledgeable discourse on why they interpret it that way, the historical basis for that theological interpretation, and what scholars of Islam supported it. This is a test most evangelicals in America will fail in regards to the Bible and the way they use it. If you want religion to be a defining feature of someone, rather than a contingent feature, they need to actually have a good understanding of that religion and so do you.

Fifth, they are still human. And no human that has ever existed has managed to properly obey the strictures of their religion. (Well, maybe if they're LaVey Satanic.) They should have their failings, and they should admit them. If they are forced into or take actions that violate their religion, they should not shrug them off. More people are terrified of damnation than are of death. I've heard people from more Calvinistic traditions describe intense terror that haunted their every action, not knowing if they were one of the "elect", and how it was in the end a relief to sin, to discover they weren't elect and they could stop worrying whether they'd go to heaven. Someone willing to risk damnation for the good of others is in their own way just as admirable as someone who is willing to risk death for the good of others.

edited 2nd Mar '15 4:18:09 AM by Night

That was amazing advice, Night, thanks for sharing that.

Christianity, as you've noticed, is a major, major, major influence in Western culture. It's not only difficult to get away from it, but for many people in many aspects it's difficult to even notice that it's difficult to get away from it!

Even if you've grown up in a home without religion, or become agnostic, or atheist, or even been excommunicated or disenfellowed...it's very likely that many of the sentiments characteristic of Christianity could be picked out (in your work) by anthropologists or philosophers who recognize the philosophical lineage. Or readers, any readers, who have a disposition to notice that.

And then there's Anime Catholicism which I am so amused by and wish that I could pull off, but it seems to really rely on reaching across a culture clash that I don't have internalized.

That said, I have internalized other aspects and influences of other philosophies that would also make their way into the story, I'm sure. All of that is going to come out, well, however it does come out.

A setting where everything has a Plan and Purpose and Great Cosmic Design For Every Single Person, where one day the pantheon that ensures that (many of them, yes, but unified in one mind) simply disappears and those left behind figure out that personal sovereignty is actually not so bad once they get used to it. I can't help being Christian (as in showing that influence in my life, in that scenario) but it certainly doesn't help Christianity.

Or, a group of psionically gifted teenagers. One is Christian. As the writer, I spare this character an identity crisis by completely ignoring a pervasive interpretation of psionics as the work of the devil, especially as the world that I write doesn't have the devil as a character in the story and doesn't have particularly bad consequences for this character just for having (rather than "using") his gift. He embraces it as a spiritual gift, and takes the attitude of "Y'all need Jesus something fierce" when it comes to the other characters who don't have that perspective of their own psionic talents, but in my writing it's more like their magic is science, so Christianity is merely an aspect of one character. Why'd I keep that aspect? I don't know. My subconscious mind just shmooshes all these concepts and life experiences together and geysers into inspiration.

Actual Christians don't need to approve it. Actual psionic practitioners don't need to approve it. At least, I don't really need them to. I don't know what sort of reader would appreciate that story part and parcel, really. I don't know how it's going to be taken, what cause it's going to harm or support. I just write stories. I just write the story.

edited 2nd Mar '15 3:34:35 PM by Faemonic

I am a Christian (and have done research into Christian Theology), and am hoping to write a christian allegory of sorts that explores philosophical implications of theism.

In my setting, the main character is a Badass Preacher or Church Militiant to a Crystal Dragon Jesus (he's a secret agent who works for a psuedo-religious organization). He's like a cross between JC Denton and Joshua Graham personality-wise (or at least, he develops into that kind of personality). He fights evil cultists.

A lot of his internal monologue is basically philosophical musings by him on a lot of topics, particularly, his religion. Between him fighting killer cyborgs and evil cultists and whatnot. His religion motivates him to do a lot of what he does (both good and bad), but all in all he's (in my opinion) a good guy. He does of course, have a life outside of his religion, (he's married, and adopts a child over the course of the story, and has hobbies like board games and tinkering with machinery).

I think using a Crystal Dragon Jesus helps a lot, since I'm allowed a bit more artistic license, and it helps remove "bias" (basically, to create a fictional religion with a lot that applies to Christianity).

edited 2nd Mar '15 9:51:58 PM by Protagonist506

Listen to this one, I think they're onto something

Whenever I put Christianity into my stories - which is frequently, because a lot of my stories are set in the Real World or some futuristic/derivative version thereof - I base the characters on real people I've encountered and with whom I've talked and, frequently, had in-depth philosophical/religious discussions.

I've met gay Christians and vehemently anti-gay Christians, pacifistic Christians and Christians who have no problem with going to war ("God on our side" and a' that), judgemental Christians and those who actually appear to have read and understood the book of Matthew, those who are out-spokenly opposed to pre-marital sex and those who have no problem with it (nor with co-habiting while unmarried) and so many more variations. I've even encountered Christians who engage in Scriptural Polygamy (technically polygyny, as only men are allowed multiple partners).

I write 'em as I've encountered 'em - so any "No True Christian..." protests can be shot down with "well, the person concerned classifies themselves as Christian..."

In some instances, the fact that the person's a Christian - or any other religion for that matter - is not going to have a bearing on what's happening. Other times their core beliefs are going to affect what they do, how they react, what they think of the situation etc.

If I've got a character who is an obnoxious prick and a Christian, the Christianity may well inform what it is they are obnoxious about, but they're not obnoxious because they're Christians -they'd be just as obnoxious if they were atheist or pagan - they'd just wank on about different things in those cases.

Conversely, a character won't be "nice and caring" because they're Christian, they'll be nice and caring because that's how they are. The way they express themselves, however, is likely to be couched in terms of Christian beliefs and values.

Faemonic likes this post.

I apply Christianity to my writing but make sure to stay as far away from God Is Evil and portraying stereotypical bible-thumping dumbasses as possible. Despite the horror stories I hear on the internet about those people, I have never met one in real life, so trying to recreate the experience in a story would seem needlessly...fedora, if I should use that slang.

A lot of my readers are Christians, and I'd rather not play the "tryhard dawkins fanboy card of religion shaming" because the people I would want to offend doing that, wouldn't be interested in reading my stories anyway. Readers are friends, not enemies.

You're fortunate. I've met a few Bible-Thumping Dumbarses in my time. I've also met a lot of really nice Christian folk who aren't Bible-Thumping Dumbarses.

Met some pretty crappy atheists, agnostics and pagans, too (one of whom would've given the "Arrogant Born-Again Holier-than-thou" stereotype some serious competition in the arrogance and superiority sweepstakes) as well as a lot of nice ones.

People are people.

In one story I'm working on I've got an obnoxious twat who's Methodist, a Deist (who tends to look down on anyone who suggests that The Author of All Things would actually give a shit about something so insigificant as a human's prayer), a couple of atheists, a Lutheran (who's just quietly religious) and an anti-theist (who would certainly take the God Is Evil stance) - but they're characters and they can disagree and have conflicting ideas and argue all they like.

Just so long as I, the author of the book, don't start telling the readers who's "right" and who's "wrong".

I'm an atheist, but Christianity has a prominent role, there are angels, demons, and the Big Bad's plan is to gain God's power. Religious beliefs shouldn't impact plot.

I've never written Abrahamic religions as they are but I have used them as major inspiration at times, especially when I got into Supernatural. I think there's a lot of dramatic beauty in Abrahamic religions, and some of the tension I feel when I use certain themes and motifs makes me think it's healthy to explore them further. Personally, I'm an Ifa practitioner, and I love mixing our Yoruba myths with Abrahamic mythology and using the result as inspiration.

See, I actually don't mind Christianity as an inspiration. In fact, I LOVE it as a supernatural/paranormal setting. It's just the author(s) straight up writing his story as if he's writing some religious debate with a punkass Atheist he JUST met in the comment section of Youtube that I have a problem with.

That's more a problem with anvilicious author tracts written by bad authors trying to pander to Christians than it is writing about religion.

For example, CS. Lewis's works are much better reads, because they're written by a damn good author.

YMMC, Protagonist506. I think C.S. Lewis was Anvilicious.

Madeleine L'Engle was much better about it, in my opinion. (A Wrinkle In Time, a few of its sequels: A Wind in the Door, and Many Waters.)

L'Engle was decent, but she didn't have a The Great Divorce or The Screwtape Letters in her and it is that work by which Lewis deserves to have his merits as an author truly judged. The Narnia series may not measure up to A Wrinkle In Time (or it may; personally I view their differences as based more on target age group than skill), but nothing L'Engle did ever matched the work C.S. Lewis did for adults.

There is a reason why I highly recommend those two books to atheists who are in the mode of being unable to grasp the purpose of religion at all.

More seriously, Lewis was a great Christian writer because he approached his work not as the physical expression of what doctrines and theologies he favored, but as about humans and the human condition and how Christianity influenced that. This is exactly the opposite approach from most modern writers who are attempting to play to a market for "Christian" works that is heavily tribalized and demanding of ideological purity.

Anyone feel free to answer this: does anyone know any good Yu-Gi-Oh! fanfic that naturally uses Christianity in a non-bashing way? I know how how popular Harry Potter is with attracting Christian flaming, and from life experience, I also know Yu-Gi-Oh! gets a decent amount of the same hate as well.

@Night

I am a christian author and I sincerely think your comments are amazing and pretty much spot on. Would you mind if I pm'ed you later for consulting? or would it be against your atheist7malthusian views?

as Anvilicious. YMMV! I personally prefer the philosophy that I infer from L'Engle than Lewis' observations of the human condition that, while soulful and well-meant, just get from me an "ehh…no."

Maybe my reading the So Bad, It's Good of that lot would send me running back to Lewis with a new appreciation.

edited 4th Mar '15 11:31:54 PM by Faemonic

I'll offer what help I can, if you like. I'm not sure honestly how much that would be, though.

Those of you who are turned off by Lewis may appreciate the works of G. K. Chesteron. He's not avilicious at all, merely thought-provoking. I esp. recommend his poem "The Sword of Surprise", IMHO one of the best spiritual poems ever written.

I was under the impression Lewis didn't start off that way, but got like that more and more (apparently accidentally, though I'm not sure) as time went on.

I tend to make it a point to include non-majority religions in my writing, thanks to being a pagan.

Warning: Pagan Hat On!

I'm never going to write a plot about "The Old Ways Are Dying And Being Replaced by Christianity." That happened in the real world and it sucks. In my fantasy stories, everyone's pagan and there's usually no Christianity to be found. If there is, I make sure my setting takes place in the early days of Christianity, when it was just a couple steps removed from a cult.

In my Urban Fantasy Moonflowers, Christian/pagan tensions feature heavily. It's set in Ireland, after all. One of the characters is both gay and pagan, and his town attempted to kill him in the backstory by making up an excuse that he was a changeling. He is now very, very bitter about it. It doesn't help that people try AGAIN in the main plot—they heard about the last time because some of the people who tried to kill him were a very notorious extremist faction of Christianity.

The main antagonist leads The Wild Hunt, and mocks the syncretized nature of Irish Christianity—he calls it "taking the old ways and wrapping them in flimsy excuses." I figured out that since The Fair Folk Can Not Tell A Lie, syncretization COULD be considered a form of lying, depending on the fairy's personality. This particular fairy is a serial-killer who's cursed the female lead and her parents for his own amusement, so he's probably not the best entity to talk to about Christianity.

Then there's a river-fairy, who is friendly, scatterbrained, and enjoys the indirect worship of having babies/new-adherents baptized in his river. By default he's pagan, but he has no problem with Christianity. Specific religion doesn't factor in—they're the people that depend on his river's water, who are also using it in meaningful ceremonies. The pagan members of town use river-water as an ingredient in potions and for cleansing ceremonies.

The group of townspeople who tried to kill the gay pagan are of a very extreme minority, and the others just quietly avoid him and put his near-death down to some bad eggs in the group. They're not above denying him a job for being gay, though.

For the humans, most people—Christian/Catholic, pagan, or other—are pretty normal. The gay pagan's friends are default Catholic/Christian (aside from his grandfather and boyfriend, who are both pagan) and are all very close to him without that horrible "love-the-sinner-hate-the-sin" mentality, and I realized recently that the female lead would probably NOT be of a Christian denomination. Her father's Chinese-American and most likely Buddhist, and her mother's Filipino-American.

Normally Filipino would equate to Catholic, but I realized last week that a Filipino-Chinese girl with an Arabic first name would be odd—unless there were some Filipino Muslims in her family. Which is damn lucky for me, because I made a throwaway comment about her childhood cat playing with nazars (Arabic amulets to ward off the evil-eye), and I also gave her an Indian-Muslim aunt (married into the family) that died of a hate crime shortly after September 11. Her spirit shows up in the most recent chapter and will show up later on as Hades and Persephone slowly work their way around The Wild Hunt's curse on the lead.

Pagan hat off!

Yep, my shit is complicated. This grew from me wanting a story about moonflowers and reading a whole lot of beautiful Celtic Christian moon-worship prayers (ironically enough).

I Just Write the Thing. Literally. All this stuff I posted here was after a good hard think about "huh, only one of my works deals with Christianity as an in-story issue."

edited 10th Mar '15 10:56:03 AM by Sharysa