Christianity in your writing

When necroing a thread, at least add something original. Are you yourself writing a work that has an element of Christianity in it?

Well, to add something to this, I suppose I need help actually writing real Christians.

To give an idea of what I've previously written;

• Elijah Gibbs, a mega church pastor and self styled Chosen One - abused his grandson Hector due to alleging he saw a demon of homosexuality go into Hector while he was an infant. Elijah also serves to adopt a guy named Caine, completely fails to notice the black armor, the eight obviously evil looking symbols on the black armor, the horrific glowing claws, the axe, the floating swords...and is ultimately killed due to Caine's Batman Gambit.

• Father Augustus, another mega church guy who runs a villainous outfit consisting of powered armor wearing Ku Klux Klansmen and loudly proclaims how conservative he is at every single conceivable opportunity. He's also secretly a Lich and a supporter of the above Elijah Gibbs. Apparently has Rankin Bass Witch King's voice, which Matthew finds completely hilarious.

• Roderick: The priest involved in the scheme Caine made to get Elijah killed. Elijah made the deadly circumstance from which he rescued Roderick (but which also killed Roderick's pre-priesthood flame), purely to get his messiah complex fix. Roderick finds out due to a book Caine left lying around, and promptly skewers Elijah on a display sword. Caine in turn shows how grateful he is by attempting to murder Roderick with his claws.

So not exactly much to write home about.

edited 27th Jun '16 10:34:51 PM by NickTheSwing

It was in the bottom of my stack. I didn't pay attention to how old it is. There's no need to get sassy.

I have a work that weaves Christianity in and out. I might have mentioned it in here, before.

Yeah, I mentioned it in the early pages. My protagonist is a non-practicing Protestant of nonspecific denomination. Most of the Christian references are Protestant, but I also want to figure out writing Catholics. I might have one or two.

edited 27th Jun '16 10:34:56 PM by SpaceWolf

I generally run in the counter direction. I write primarily Catholics, with some Anglicans and Orthodox in the way, but very few Protestants. Namely I end up missing the aesthetic of Catholicism (crucifixes, Gothic churches, the habits of Priests), its more elaborated history (2.000 years and whatnot) and most of all I miss the Saints. I have difficulty working with Christianity without the saints and martyrs. Makes it difficult to vary the faith without the cultural tweaks the Saints provide.

Granted that's a problem with me, not with the religion.

I'd like to see someone do a hardcore protestant demon hunter, actually. Wasn't Soloman Kane a protestant?

edited 28th Jun '16 2:38:22 PM by DeMarquis

Hah, that reminds me of Roger Ebert quote, from All Christianity Is Catholic:

"Why do movies about Satan only have Catholics? We never get to see Methodists or Episcopalians put down demons."

Solomon Kane was a Puritan, if memory serves me. Which basically means a ultra-hardcore anti-Catholic subset of the Anglican Church. Of course I think his faith changes after he does his Heel–Face Turn and becomes a contrite man in his Wandering the Earth thing. Still deeply Christian and with Puritan values, but...changed, since he keeps fighting things God shouldnt allow to exist.

I'm guilty of having primarily Catholic demon hunters and things of the sort. The Catholic aesthetic and lore just appeals to me.

The thing with Catholicism is that it has a great degree of ritual, aesthetic, and structure, and lore to it-which can make it the no-brainer choice for story-telling. For example, if you're making a Crystal Dragon Jesus religion for a fantasy setting, it makes the most sense to base it on Catholicism which has saints and martyrs for characters and rituals which can be turned into Religion is Magic spells.

My Crystal Dragon Jesus religion in my own setting is loosely based on Catholicism aesthetically and structurally. However, I'm not Catholic, and the actual doctrine is closer to my own views (I'm a pseudo-Baptist)

edited 2nd Jul '16 6:58:57 PM by Protagonist506

Note: please read the full paragraph before flipping out.

I try to portray Christianity as I've seen it; full of liars, hypocrites, zealots, and self-righteous pricks. Just like literally every other ideological group of humans. On the flip-side, also full of charitable, kind, courageous, compassionate, gentle, open-minded, and genuinely "good" people. Also like every other ideological group on the face of the planet.

Yes, even Nazis. If I do half as much good as Oskar Schindler, I will die without regrets.

For me, the trick is showing that sometimes, good and bad qualities can exist in the same person. Example; some Christians I've met are total assholes, but give money to the poor and volunteer in soup-kitchens because that's the charitable thing to do. It doesn't change the fact that they treat my homosexual and transgender friends like shit and think they need to be "fixed" at best or are "devil worshipers" at worst, but the fact that they're assholes doesn't erase the kind things they do, either. The good doesn't change the bad, but the bad doesn't change the good, either. Likewise, I've met some who were really, really nice, for the most part, but acted, in a subtle way, like they were better than people who weren't Christian, or were of a different denomination of Christianity. As a certain Elf said to a certain bard, "You are not cruel, but you still see us differently."

Of course, there are also people who seem to exist at the very ends of the spectrum. A few don't seem to do any good at all (Did you even read the Bible? I don't agree with everything that it says, but I'm pretty sure your god said not to do exactly this type of shit), and a few whose confirmation as the second coming of Christ Almighty would prompt nothing more than a quick "Yup, saw that coming," from me ("Holy shit how do you manage to be that fucking nice to literally everyone you meet, and where do you find the time to do all that charity work? What? No, I don't need any water, but thanks for asking").

edited 2nd Jul '16 10:09:20 PM by Dragon573

I feel every fleshed-out character should be shown like that. Regardless of religion, race, gender, species...

I don't think Schlinder would technically count as a Nazi. IIRC, he was actually only a member of the Nazi party specifically to thwart its plans.

Well, technically that does make him count. And I stand by this even just for the fact that this shows that being a nazi or whatever else does not automatically make one irredeemably evil because it's all about the individual and their choices.

People are complicated, we know that. We know that there were nazis who were pretty much irredeemably evil. But we also know that many were simply following orders, which is a shitty choice admittedly but it's already proven that when you control someone to a sufficient degree—be it via fear or anything else—then many people will follow orders regardless of how they feel about it; and we know that there were individuals, few of them but still, who belonged to this group and yet tried to do right by others. And yet, often times nazis, or any other group with people as diverse as that (I don't want to flame but let's just look at the war between religious people and atheists), are all taken to be the same. And that is beyond stupid.

Ah, I see this thread as interesting. I myself am a fan of Chesterton's works, and I love to break stereotypes and twist the plot to fuck around with the readers. (While I haven't made anything worth reading yet,but) I myself am a Catholic since birth and still am, and I always see Christianity as a special-case mission delivered upon every man ever since God the Son (Jesus) came to save humanity, which mission is incredibly difficult to keep and accomplish (because sin), having to throw away and sacrifice the free will that God gave you, and the reward is seeing God and thus experience supernatural happiness in Heaven or a temporary painful cleansing in Purgatory for Christians who die in sin and thus fail their mission. (For good pagans or Unbaptized babies there are Limbo, yes you have real happiness but not supernatural) (for anyone else there's gonna be gnashing of teeth) tl:dr Christianity might not be for everybody, and to keep the two commandments is actually the mission for Christians (and pagans alike), which isn't easy. I do believe religion should not be pushed like they did in the middle ages, pagans who respect the One True God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit and His followers are better than so-called Christians who curse God and thus all he's known for. That's all I'm going to type in now.

Here's a list of my Christian (pagans not included) characters. Take note they're not supposed to be Mary Sue derivatives, and may I ask for what things should I add for these characters?

Act 1-in Japan, 2018

Basic plot- 33% of the entire human race suddenly got superpowers one day

-Okamoto Yohanan, a 24 years old born-Catholic manager who is kind of bored to death until those superpower thing happened, and while he has to work, senses that whatever that's happening might have something to do with his old friends. He set forth in his spare time, trying to figure things out even with his father's debts on his shoulders. Eventually gets healing and exorcism very late into the story and gets called 'the Apostle' despite his disgust. Is really great at wetting every woman's pants, to horrible consequences.

-Okamoto Dzuhomi, the 25 years old whole-family-converted-to-Eastern-Orthodoxy-when-she-was-8-because-somehow-her-aunt-got-exorcised-by-epic-russian-wizard-priests wife of Yohanan, who suffers from awkwardness, inferiority complex and bluntness (and inability to catch morals in a story, and its derivatives), yet can only help her husband's managing work, and fencing with an European hand-and-a-half sword. Eventually gets Glyoxylate cycle (simply put she can keep her blood sugar level good even when starving), and that's it. Goes to a further mental breakdown and gets all emotional and shit, but character development, and she becomes better. Gets triggered if anyone dares approach Yohanan without prior notice, friend or foe.

(Take note that I want to make their relationship seem as if only one is lucky and the other is horribly disadvantaged.)

Ex 1: (OMG that super hot chad has a yandere awkward wife! How unlucky is he!)

Ex 2: (OMG that slightly fat, broke guy seriously has an athletic nerdy wife? How unlucky is she!)

So, an abusive relationship?

Ex 1: Depending on how yandere the wife is, maybe the husband should be looking for a way to get out... Ex 2: This very example sounds sexist, size-ist, and maybe a few I can't think of. I can image characters reacting in that manner, but the work shouldn't.

edited 3rd Jul '16 7:26:11 AM by hellomoto

That's my idea. While they look abusive to each other for bystanders, In reality they're fine with how the other acts. I just want to make them look like they're in an abusive relationship (and that I think the reader should pick a side- i.e. either Yohanan is lucky or Dzuhomi is). The reason Yohanan married her is because he wants to fix her, (and because he's tired of being chased by women of all ages) (and he has a big sister fetish), and Dzuhomi married him because he's the only one that actually approached her (and because she's reminded of how God had saved her from being a 'christmas cake', like how Matthew was saved from a life of lying and stealing as a tax collector)

As she has an inferiority complex, and thus tries to circumvent it by doing whatever the best she can. Cleaning, studying, praying, training, and so on. Yohanan also supports her, although most of the time he ends up getting overwhelmed by her stamina and speed. She may look like a yandere since she carries her sword everywhere and pins it on the necks of those who approach Yohanan. In reality, Dzuhomi actually tries to defend everybody she knows personally (at the start she only trusts Yohanan). Yohanan knows this, and he tries to hook her up with the rest of the team, and while she struggles to help them eventually she becomes the mother figure of the team.

Dzuhomi is a rabid Christian, and tries to drag Yohanan to actually be better also, by making him attend Mass weekly (I forgot to mention that Catholic and Orthodox Churches reunited in 2017 here). He laughed it off at first, but as the situation concerning super-people got worse, he then also goes to Church. I can make any situation and they'll go "we'll suffer together as Christians, don't worry about it", and while they might not have the best superpowers, they have the moral high ground of "we're gonna heal you as soon as you forfeit". At least that's all I'm gonna talk about.

It's kind of off the topic, but I'll just note that if those characters are supposed to actually be natively Japanese then their given names are kind of ... out of it. I mean, they're not impossible (there are always people giving kids weird names), but they certainly are unusual, something proven by the fact that there don't seem to be ways to write those names with kanji outside of nanori (and nanori doesn't count for that, believe me).

Yeah I know, the reason that Yohanan's parents gave him that name is exactly because they wanted to name him 'John' without having to resort to using weird Japanized western names, yet ended up using katakana in the end (Yohanan is arguably Hebrew, and yes it's biblical). I took Dzuhomi because I heard of it somewhere, but I'm not sure if it is actually a viable name.

Other characters in the story actually are more natural sounding (Date Sadawo, Goto Tsuki) or are straight up westerners that had their fantasy ruined by moe culture and such, yet had already gotten a job so they can't go back (Philip)

edited 3rd Jul '16 7:36:00 PM by legonut031

great a religious thread with people criticizing christians

(person who compared Christians to nazis) Wow... yeah, you need to get out of wherever you are. If you're ever in New York, you should check out a church here. A lot are definitely pro-LGBT, etc. I can think of several churches that have LGBT events/flags/groups etc. in them (and at least one where a positive gay-wedding scene in a popular TV show was filmed, and IRL the church has had rainbow flags outside for a long time).

But it is true that every group has their crazies and good people. Even Buddhists have crazies. Jesus himself was nothing like what the fire-and-brimstone people want to think. (Old-testament god sometimes, but that's a different story).

I'm not Christian, but I like the look of churches - stained glass, the architecture... the gothic style ones are nice (or imitation-gothic, in NY) but Baroque churches in Rome... wow. Brilliant. I should include a religion in a story that... well, it would be an alternate world, but with churches that look like that. And the ritual things. Go full-out Crystal Dragon Jesus but like, ignore the gender elements. Teenage Magical Girl pope (or high priestess). Yes.

But yeah, to most people, religion isn't a big deal. The people who'd get offended by Santa Clausmas because it's not Christian enough are about as rare as the people who'd get offended because it's too Christian - if you're surrounded by either, consider moving.

People of different religions don't necessarily act all that different, in my experience, and I've known people of all sorts of religions. If you don't want to write a religious zealot, that doesn't mean the character can't have a religion.

And, umm. Yeah. Change Dzuhomi. I'm not fluent in Japanese (yet) but that's making me cringe a bit. (off-topic, but if you have any iOS things, the Japanese-English dictionary app Midori has a names dictionary, which has been incredibly useful for me. It's just on iOS, though...)

edited 8th Jul '16 12:05:42 AM by lavendermintrose

A bit late to give that particular bit of reply, especially since someone else had already done a part of it for me, but indeed legonut013, I have to tell you that if your goal truly was to give your characters names without "using weird Japanised western names", then you pretty much failed. Japanese people, as a whole (though obviously there are exceptions) are a superstitious and isolationist lot, and as such they often tend to reject foreign people and they put a great deal of weight on names. As such, any name that is not rendered in kanji, be it on-yomi or kun-yomi (or rarely nanori, but that one is a hit-and-miss), automatically counts as a weird Japanised western name, and quite likely can cause trouble for the individual in question. At least ... well, that's the case if you are trying to place your story in modern-day Japan.

That said, yes, both Yohanan and Dzuhomi (or Duhomi, depending on which transliteration you use, and it probably will do you a lot of good to actually look at that and decide on it before you start crafting more names, because lack of consistency is a thing that can kill many a Japanese-knowing readers' interest in your work) are possible names. But then again, so is "Antidisentablishmentarianism" a possible name in USA if you happen across an apathetic enough clerk. Not to mention that lack of kanji in one's name can cause problems as the person grows and becomes an adult, as people who use kana for their names generally have a hard time getting stamps (and Japanese use stamps with their name in lieu of writing their name when it comes to official things, so not having a stamp is ... well, very very bad for an adult, as they can't even get their mail let alone do anything more official).

So ... well, basically the point is that no sensible parent living in Japan for more than a few weeks would name their kids that are also supposed to live there that. If you still want to follow through with it then that is your prerogative, but ... yeah, I strongly discourage it.

PS. The name "Philip", when written in Japanese, comes out as "Hirippo" (there's no "fi", and "fu" is an exception to the syllables that all begin with "h-", then there's no "l-" but rather something that is between "l" and "r" that most transliterations write as "r-",, the "p" is strong so it gets doubled in Japanese and then there's no syllables that end without vowels with the exception of "n" so that "p0" changes to "po"). Just so you know if you ever need it for whatever reason.

PPS. I presume you realise that "Tsuki" is a female name and "Sadawo" is generally masculine.

PPPS. If you ever decide that you want to ask me anything related to Japanese names, feel free to just message me as technically talking about names is off-topic in this thread and we probably should not do that for much longer. I might write scary amounts of text, but I do know a bit about the topic so ... yeah.

edited 8th Jul '16 6:00:07 AM by Kazeto

Well dang. I'll PM you later, then.

"Sadao" makes me think of The Devil Is A Part Timer, where the Demon King gets stranded on Earth in modern Japan and he and the other fantasyland people come up with fake names, and he calls himself Maou Sadao (for Maou Satan - Maou means "demon king"), and all of the actual Earth characters are like, "who even has the name Sadao anymore?" because it sounds so archaic.

Which is, hey - relevant for both topics. Devils. Religion. Yay. (or not?)

Not really though. At least this Sadao's not a bad guy or an old guy (or a demon even). He's supposed to be Buddhist, with his way of thinking that contrasts with the Okamotos. Buddhists try to end their own suffering, while Christians should be willing to suffer to find strength. Something along that line. He's more of an anime protagonist then a pacifist though.

Is there anything you can recommend for him?

edited 8th Jul '16 7:37:52 AM by legonut031

Actually, if there is a reason for that particular choice of name rather than it just being the first thing you'd found then "Sadao" is fine. It's definitely a somewhat antiquated name, and one you don't see used commonly nowadays, but it's not unusual and there definitely are people bearing this name even if they are not too common. And I can actually see deeply religious parents giving their child an antiquated name (and boy would I know about that one).

That said, "Yoshio" and "Setsuo" are both names that could be written with the same kanji as "Sadao", if you really want to keep the meaning behind the name (with "Yoshio" the kanji used are read as "happy man", and with "Setsuo" they are read as "man of honour"; those are obviously not the same kanji, but "Sadao" can be written in a variety of kanji so they are both possible) but make the name itself a bit less outdated.