1. Hm…I don’t think stories should hide from the way the world is(the bible doesn’t even do that). But how we approach storytelling matters. We need to think about why we are putting something in there, along with how much is needed. Having a full on, detailed sex scene is probably not necessary, for instance. But it might be important to indicate that sex happened and address the effects it had on the chars.

    For me, I dunno. Even when I write a story that’s not blatantly Christian, the content(regardless of what that content is) still serves a purpose usually. Like, illustrating human nature. We need to understand the way people think and feel, along with the causes and effects of that, in order to make enough progress. So sometimes there can be a story that SEEMS to have a morally ambiguous agenda, when in fact it’s simply portraying a thought process that is realistic to the characters so that the audience can understand how people might behave under those circumstances. From there, the audience can think about how to counter such a morally ambiguous philosophy.

    That said, after enough time, experience and effort, most authors should be able to glorify God and tell a good story at the same time. Honestly, though, if a story is low quality it reduces the chances of delivering its message. That can happen for a variety of reasons, such as the story being so boring that the reader doesn’t want to engage in the story or is quicker to take offense and put it down. Also, the lower quality the story, the less likely readers are to get wrapped up in the characters lives and thus experience the lesson on an emotional level (which makes lessons stick better).

What do you think?