Clean Fiction Isn’t Enough

As the founding Fiction publisher at one of the world’s largest Christian publishing houses, I oversaw the release of more than 500 novels. During that decade, I noticed the growing shift among Christian publishers towards what I’d call Clean Fiction. 

These wholesome novels are the equivalent of PG-rated movies. There’s no excessive violence or overt sexual content. Most dilemmas center around a quest, a romance, or self-discovery and in the end, good wins. But it’s a generic good where God never needs to show up and, if he does, is distant and irrelevant. Faith, hope, and love may be important to the plot, but not with any eternal underpinnings.

Clean Fiction may be “safe for the whole family”—but when did safety become the primary goal for our stories or our lives? Many Bible stories don’t pass that test—nor should they. In C. S. Lewis’ The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, Susan asks Mr. Beaver about Aslan. “Is he quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion"..."Safe?" said Mr. Beaver ..."Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you." 

We need less safe stories and more good, dangerous, disruptive stories infused with a God-drenched worldview of  love, sacrifice, power, meaning, sin, hope, redemption, and transformation. Novels where God isn’t an afterthought but is the epicenter of all we do and are.  

And we need Christian publishers, writers, and readers to create and support these tales. Because Clean Fiction isn’t the same as Christian Fiction.

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