As the new TV show previews have increased this summer, I’ve noted a number of debut programs that have decidedly speculative elements, if not complete speculative premises. So I did a little research. Here’s what I found.

The Flash, airing on CW

“This Arrow spin-off stars Grant Gustin as Barry Allen, who becomes the fastest man alive, aka The Flash, after an explosion at the S.T.A.R. Labs particle accelerator bestows him with superhuman speed. The Flash is set in Central City,where Barry works as a forensic investigator and uses his special power to help fight crime.”

Forever, airing on ABC

“Ioan Gruffudd stars as New York City medical examiner Henry Morgan, who harbors an unusual secret —he can’t die. Working alongside his new partner, Det. Jo Martinez (Alana De La Garza), Morgan studies the dead in an effort to discover the mystery of his own immortality.”

Gotham, airing on FOX

“Ben McKenzie stars as Gordon, a fresh-faced police detective whose life begins to change when he and his partner, the brash Harvey Bullock (Donal Logue), start investigating the murder of the parents of none other than a young Bruce Wayne. However, the noir crime drama isn’t just about Gordon’s rise through the ranks of Gotham City’s PD; it also promises to tell the origin stories of several DC Comics’ villains, including Catwoman, the Penguin, and the Riddler.”

Intruders, airing on BBC America

“Jack Whelan, a former Los Angeles cop, has relocated with his wife to the Pacific Northwest in search of a quieter life. But that all goes to hell when she suddenly vanishes —just as an old friend appears on his doorstep asking for help with a murder investigation. As these and other seemingly disconnected events converge, Jack discovers a secret society known as Qui Reverti, whose members chase immortality by seeking refuge in the bodies of others.”

(Quotes, with minor editing, from TV Guide New Shows.)

It seems to me this list is shorter than those of the past few years. But in fact, some of the past seasons’ successes are still going strong. Here are the ones I know of:

Once Upon A Time, airing on ABC

Resurrection, airing on ABC

Sleepy Hollow, airing on Fox

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., airing on ABC

The Vampire Diaries, airing on CW

Grimm, airing on NBC

Of course there are still the shows airing on the Syfy Channel which include Being Human, Face Off, Ghost Hunters, Warehouse 13, SmackDown, Eurkea, Haven, Sanctuary, and Lost Girl.

And then there is Dr. Who, Season Eight which airs on BBC One starting August 23.

So which are your favorites and which of the new shows do you think might be promising?

Do you prefer reading speculative stories, watching them on TV, or seeing them on the big screen?

What stories would you like to see made into a movie or used as the basis of a TV series?

I am the author of The Age of Apollyon Trilogy, a series that imagines a world where the devil has physically revealed himself while God remains silent. Satanism becomes the dominant world religion and the protagonist of the story is a practicing Satanist.

You’re probably never going to find these books on the shelves of a Family Christian Bookstore.

Yet I unashamedly label these books as “Christian fiction” and they are put out by a Christian publisher that releases Amish romances and uplifting devotionals. This was quite a risk on their part but I appreciate their bravery in keeping me on the roster. Of course, the Christian elements of the trilogy are not hard to spot but it is much darker and edgier than what is usually labeled as “Christian fiction.”

When I was writing these books, I was constantly asking myself the question in the title of this article: how dark is too dark? I was writing books about Satan, a Satanic world, Satanic people … but was I going overboard? Was I stepping over the line of necessity into gratuitousness? I wanted the books to be startling and even shocking at times, but the writing process felt like trying to rein in a runaway horse.

It was very hard doing the research for these books. I had to investigate rituals, incantations, terminology, and put myself in the frame of mind that my protagonist existed in — namely, despising God and embracing the darkness. It was mentally and spiritually exhausting and I could feel the darkness pressing on my mind all the time, affecting my mood, pulling me away from the light.

I was very glad when these books were finished.

I set out to write these books with the primary purpose to entertain, but I also wanted to convey a message. So I had to ask myself: what message? God is good, Satan is bad? Real men don’t worship the devil?

As the story took shape, I realized that it wasn’t about the battle between Heaven and Hell; it was about the battle within the human heart, between the root of evil that already exists there against the redemption that is so simple and yet so hard to accept. I wanted to plumb the depths of depravity in order to show how necessary that lifeline is to us fallen creatures.

So plumb I did. In fact, I feel like I kept things pretty tame. It could have been so easy to let the dog off the leash and revel in shock and horror but that would have overridden my purpose. I’ve come across several books in the Christian underground that examine the depraved human soul in order to elucidate the need for a Savior, but sometimes they come across as thinly-disguised horror schlock. I wanted to pattern my books after the Gothic classics that inspired me: The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Monk, and Dracula. Bram Stoker’s masterpiece was particularly instrumental, because the terrifying darkness that permeated the story was offset by the heroes’ unwavering grasp on the light of Heaven to help them defeat evil. That was the kind of energy that I wanted to flow through my story, though I took sort of a reverse approach to reach the same destination.

But how dark is too dark? Is it permissible to include horrific and explicit elements in a story intended for the Christian market? My answer would be: it depends.

Mark Carver

It really comes down to the author’s motivation for including these elements. Are they just trying to stand out and attract secular readers? Are they trying to make Christian fiction more mainstream? Are they a bit twisted in the head and need an outlet for their dark fantasies?

Or are they trying to turn the dark eyes of the world towards the light of redemption? A tiny candle flame burns brilliantly in a dark cave; without total darkness, it is hard to appreciate the relief and comfort that light brings. I believe this is why God allows such evil to exist in the world — to bring to our attention our desperate need for salvation and deliverance from the evil that we perpetuate all by ourselves.

And who says it can’t be the same in the world of fiction? If the darkness is shown to be just that, and not as something intriguing, appealing, or liberating, then there are no limits. But those of us who unleash the darkness have a responsibility to point the way to the light.

There’s enough horror in the world as it is.

It’s a truth globally agreed upon: Young evangelical readers should be able to find Christian fiction beyond historicals, Amish romances, and subpar stories in all genres.¹

What isn’t as universally acknowledged is how to fill this need.

On July 29[, 2013,] The Weekly Standard’s Jon L. Breen arrived to this conversation and extolled author J. Mark Bertrand’s crime novels from Christian publisher Bethany House. In Breen’s view, Bertrand’s talents have been underappreciated and likely restricted:

J. Mark Bertrand deserves a wider readership than a religious publisher affords. Many writers are able to carry readers along by employing nice phrases and descriptive passages, bits of humor, character involvement, and curiosity about how it will all turn out. But few have Bertrand’s relentless narrative power.

This is encouraging. First, it’s great to see a Christian author gaining recognition. Second, Breen moves beyond Christian-fiction stereotypes, recognizing that publishers are relaxing restrictions and even exploring new genres.

Still, Bertrand is now without a publisher, and as paranormal author Mike Duran wrote, “The real victim in this tale of intrigue is not J. Mark Bertrand. It’s the industry that forces him to look elsewhere.”

Yes, despite some changes, excellent Christian novels of crime and other genres don’t gain success. But I believe it’s up to readers to encourage this change. And that starts by diagnosing why current demands for better Christian fiction are simply not working.

Crime fiction is not my favorite genre, I admit. But I’ve known a few Christian crime authors and spent a year working at a Lifeway Christian Store. Most evangelical publishers target such stores, which are patronized by what one indie press founder affectionately called the “little old lady brigade.” For these dear folks, it doesn’t matter if fiction is written well; ergo, all the blogs I’ve read about the need for deeper writing or better marketing won’t accomplish much if these customers aren’t buying. Many of them only want to be entertained safely.

“Yes,” some might reply, “and that’s the problem! Christian readers want subculture ‘safety.’ So let’s have more unsafe fiction, less rules against language, and more gritty content.”

But that “solution” only brings two further problems.

Fun fact: Violet Dawn features a cameo from SpecFaith’s original host Stuart Stockton.

First, many readers think tamed-down, swear-word-free crime fiction is the “unsafe” stuff. They love reading about a severely decomposed body floating in a cabin’s Jacuzzi (an actual scene from Brandilyn Collins’s Violet Dawn). To them, that’s thrilling. It’s gritty. It’s edgy. They’re quite happy to dispense with fiction censorship — to an extent. Thus, evangelical publishers can simply insist, “You want grittier content? That’s what we’re already doing.”

But the second problem is worse: If readers insisted only on loosening content restrictions, fewer authors — let alone readers — know why. Do we want to evangelize more readers? To entertain better? To prove to non-Christians that we’re also cool and gritty? Those are at best secondary goals, and it only repeats the pragmatism behind older content restrictions.

Instead of proposing surface-level solutions, Christians must consider this question:

According to the Bible, what is the “chief end” of story?

Is it evangelism? Gritty realism? Entertainment? Or a higher goal?

Only when we’ve explored the answer can we better promote the stories we love, and even pressure publishers to go beyond Amish books and crime novels where even street-gang murderers aren’t allowed to give a darn.

The Promulgation of the Law in Mount Sinai

I’ve stayed away from the oft debated topic of cussing in Christian fiction—until now. Since there are several facets of it to explore, I figured it needed more than one article to hit the key points.

I’m going to start with an obvious one: taking the name of God in vain.

At least, it seems like it would be obvious. The restriction comes from Exodus 20:7 . . .

Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

The common understanding is that we should not use God’s name in an empty manner like as part of an expletive. Most people who use “God” or “Jesus Christ” as an expletive are not intending to talk about God or address Him. Therefore He is being referenced in an empty way.

Makes sense, doesn’t it? After all, who among us would be happy to have our named used as an expletive? If I’m in a room and hear, “Rick Copple! Watch where you put that thing!” but it is obvious they are talking to George, that would be degrading to me.

Yet, it may not be all that obvious. Here is a different take on its meaning (warning–cussing used in what some would consider using God’s name in vain):

Though I’d quibble with a point or two, he does make a good central argument about the verse’s meaning. To explain that, let’s take a closer look at the verse.

The Hebrew word translated “vain,” according to Strongs, indicates:

evil (as destructive), literally (ruin) or morally (especially guile); figuratively idolatry (as false, subjective), uselessness (as deceptive, objective; also adverbially, in vain):–false(-ly), lie, lying, vain, vanity.

To use God’s name in vain doesn’t mean simply in an empty way, but in a deceptive, idolatrous, false way.

We who are Christians bear the name of Christ. Are we giving honor to His name or making it meaningless and desecrated by our words and actions? Do we take God’s name upon ourselves in vain?

The one other instance in Scripture referring to vain usage, aside from the second giving of the Ten Commandments in Deuteronomy, lends support to this understanding:

Remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me: Lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the LORD? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain.
Proverbs 30:8-9

It is the act of stealing which Solomon identifies as taking God’s name in vain, not the use of it in an expletive.

This understanding makes more sense as well. We’re talking the Ten Commandments here—the top ten categories of sins God wanted to highlight and us to follow. Are we to believe that out of all the sins He could pick from, using His name as an expletive would be sin number three? Yeah, not a good thing, but in the top ten?

Within the correct context of being vain, it fits very nicely with the first two. Taking God’s name upon us as one of His, then not dishonoring that name, goes right along with making Him first and not worshiping any idols.

Now let’s take a step back. Does this mean using God’s name in an expletive isn’t what this is talking about, or is it also included?

After all, for the Christian, using God’s name when you are not addressing Him is a false use of His name—one of the meanings of the Hebrew word for vain. It is a false witness about God to call on Him without the intent to do so. If you are addressing God or Jesus Christ, that is one thing. Using His name purely as an expletive, bearing false witness of who He is, is another.

While using God’s name as an expletive may not be the primary meaning of the third commandment, neither is it true that it is excluded from the meaning of that commandment. Rather, it is not the only meaning.

But God is a title, not a name. That term doesn’t apply to the third commandment.

Strictly speaking, this is true. The KJV, as do many translations, use the term “Lord” in place of the Hebrew name for God. In the Hebrew, Exodus 20:7 literally says:

Thou shalt not take the name of Yahweh thy God in vain . . .

It is the name Yahweh that is not to be taken in vain. God is merely His title, as is Lord.

Two problems with this approach.

One, a name is what we call a person. A title can become a name through usage as such. When reporters call out, “Mr. President!” do you think they believe “President” to be his name? When I shepherded a parish, did my parishioners think my name was “pastor” because they addressed me that way constantly?

Is it too much of a stretch to understand that Christians in the West understand God to be our name for Yahweh because we’ve used it that way for hundreds of years? A name refers to a person, no matter what name is used. God equals Yahweh. Both terms point to the same reality.

Two, if the third commandment only referred to using God’s name as an expletive, this argument would have more of a basis. Since we have shown that the third commandment goes much further than that, but refers to taking on God’s name as His child, we are referring to the same reality whether we call Him Lord, God, Yahweh, or Jesus Christ. We represent Yahweh no matter which title or term we use.

It is no longer the term for Yahweh we use in conversation that matters, but to honor the One the name points to.

Any name that points to Him, used as an expletive, violates the intent of not honoring God with our words and actions, degrades His person, and makes the name we bear vain.

Agree or disagree with my conclusions?

Last night the conflict between Amazon and one of the large publishing companies, Hachette, reached both the national and local news. Their dispute centers on the pricing of ebooks.

Amazon claims to have the best interests of readers at heart. In addition, they make a case for the idea that lower prices will actually result in greater revenue for everyone:

For every copy an e-book would sell at $14.99, it would sell 1.74 copies if priced at $9.99. So, for example, if customers would buy 100,000 copies of a particular e-book at $14.99, then customers would buy 174,000 copies of that same e-book at $9.99. Total revenue at $14.99 would be $1,499,000. Total revenue at $9.99 is $1,738,000. The important thing to note here is that the lower price is good for all parties involved (from Amazon Letter to Kindle Direct Publishing authors)

Traditionally published authors, however, believe Amazon has used strong-arm tactics, which bodes ill, or evil, depending how you look at it, because of Amazon’s growing position of power in the book industry. For instance, Amazon delayed delivery of some books—readers waited up to three weeks—then took down the pre-order button of other titles. Finally they stopped selling some books by some Hachette authors.

Things started warming up because those authors have experienced a sizable loss in income. Best-selling author Douglas Preston took it upon himself to write an open letter about Amazon’s negotiation tactics, and more than a hundred other writers signed it with him:

“Without taking sides on the contractual dispute between Hachette and Amazon, we encourage Amazon in the strongest possible terms to stop harming the livelihood of the authors on whom it has built its business. None of us, neither readers nor authors, benefit when books are taken hostage.

We feel strongly that no bookseller should block the sale of books or otherwise prevent or discourage customers from ordering or receiving the books they want. It is not right for Amazon to single out a group of authors, who are not involved in the dispute, for selective retaliation. Moreover, by inconveniencing and misleading its own customers with unfair pricing and delayed delivery, Amazon is contradicting its own written promise to be ‘Earth’s most customer-centric company’.” (As quoted in “Amazon-Hachette fight deepens as authors take sides,” The Guardian).

What’s more, 900+ authors took out an ad in the New York Times that was to run on Sunday again calling for Amazon to stop their hardball tactics.

Amazon countered by sending their letter to their KDP authors, specifically asking them to write Hachetter (or “spam” them, as one online site characterized it).

Now the analysis is underway. The Los Angeles Times, for instance, published an article examining Amazon’s “everyone makes money if the ebook prices are lower” claim. Here’s a sampling:

The assumption underlying Amazon’s statement is that 1.74 more books will be sold for any and all books. In the real world, it would be delightful if this could work, but it implies that if only publishers dropped the price of e-books by $5, millions more books would be sold. In fact, the book-buying pool probably isn’t that expandable. At some point, readers are going to reach the end of their book budgets. (“What Amazon’s e-book numbers are and aren’t telling you,” The LA Times)

That’s only one of several criticisms about Amazon’s approach to pricing.

In all this, the issues seem a little murky. I, as an author who is benefiting from Amazon’s publishing and as a reader who enjoys inexpensive ebooks (or free ones during promotions), think Amazon is right about keeping the price of ebooks as low as possible and giving authors as high a percentage of the pie as possible.

Of course Amazon has no say about what percent of the pie Hachette will give their authors.

And they shouldn’t. But should they have any say about the price the publisher sets for his product? In their dealings with Hachette, Amazon is essentially acting as a bookstore. Do bookstores tell the publishers to drop the price of their product by a third?

I imagine they can determine that their clientele won’t buy at a higher price, so they could decline to carry the product. That should be their right. But literary agent Brian DeFiore articulated what traditionally published authors see and fear:

Authors who work with traditional publishers like Hachette tend to make more, per copy, from hardcover sales than from e-books. If cheaper e-books draw people away from hardcovers, that could hurt these authors financially. Plus, DeFiore said, Amazon has a huge share of the e-book business, through its Kindle e-reader—even more than it does with physical books. If lower e-book prices were to eventually destroy the market for physical books entirely—or even shrink it enough so that it wouldn’t make financial sense for traditional booksellers to publish them—that would help Amazon consolidate its power, which would ultimately be dangerous for authors. “What happens if, and when, there’s one retailer for e-books left, and they just decide, ‘You know what? We want to price books at four-ninety-nine.’ (“Amazon’s Failed Pitch to Authors,” The New Yorker)

These fears do not seem unfounded:

Journalist Brad Stone writes that [Amazon CEO Jeff] Bezos once suggested that the company should approach small publishers—among the most vulnerable of the company’s suppliers—“the way a cheetah would pursue a sickly gazelle.” Amazon is able to pursue this strategy because it is responsible for the sale of forty per cent of all new books and sixty-four per cent of e-books in the United States, according to the Codex Group, a research firm. The more powerful Amazon becomes, the greater becomes its ability to make demands of its suppliers—in this case, publishers and authors. (Ibid., emphasis added)

In such a scenario, I think readers should be concerned, too. Instead of dropping the price to $4.99, what’s to keep a company dominating the market from raising the price to $19.99? That’s the way monopolies of old ran their businesses. First they lowered prices so far that they forced smaller companies to sell out. They, when they were the only game in town, they raised prices and started bleeding customers.

Amazon could change the rules for authors like me, as well. I’ve already experienced that on a small scale as they have automatically included me in their new lending program—and I have no say and no idea if it will increase my revenue or reduce it.

Companies like Walmart are accused of this same type of, “drop the price lower than the competition can match,” tactic. In fact, so were the big box bookstores—Crown and Borders and Barnes & Noble—which pushed out any number of independent bookstores. While there wasn’t any price gouging (that I’m aware of), holding the corner on books in a town or community, was a powerful role.

The questions, as I see them, are these:

• What’s best for authors (without whom there would be no books) on the short term, so our society doesn’t lose writing as a profession?

• What’s best for independent writers who had no opportunity to publish prior to digital publishing? (Amazon makes an interesting comparison between ebooks and mass market paperbacks in the last century).

• What’s best for readers (who right now are limited from buying some titles they wish, at least for their Amazon reading device, but who may benefit in the long run from cheaper ebooks)?

• What’s good for the book business in the long run? What will keep book content as free as possible from gatekeepters and dominant publishers/booksellers that can squeeze out whatever they desire for whatever reason they determine?

So, is Amazon the godfather of the book business or a visionary entrepreneur? I’m interested in your thoughts.

Independent novelist Tony Breeden

For those of us who seem hard-wired for wonder, the church can often be more of a hindrance to creativity than a help, but I can’t help thinking our Creator, the paragon of creativity, meant us to be so much more.

I guess it all began with nursery rhymes, fairy tales and Bible stories. Whether I was listening to a rhyme about Jack jumping over a candlestick, the story of two poor children outwitting a cannibal witch, the account of God parting the Red Sea for Moses and the Israelites to escape the armies of Pharaoh, or the tale of how Robin Hood won the golden arrow, I was left with a sense of wonder.

Hard-wired for wonder

Looking back, I think I must have been hard-wired for wonder.

I was one of those kids with an incredibly overactive imagination. I could see the stories like a movie playing out in my head. So it’s probably little wonder that I’ve always been drawn to science fiction. There’s a lot floating around in my head from my childhood and teen years: books by folks like Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, Harry Harrison, Piers Anthony, Anne McCaffrey and others. Movies and TV shows like Star Wars, Doctor Who, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Blade Runner, Total Recall, Terminator, Godzilla kaiju movies … gorgeous films touched by masters like Ray Harryhausen, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Ridley Scott and James Cameron. It’s all in there, along with more comic books, Saturday morning cartoons, and action flicks than I care to think about. For crying out loud, my favorite Christmas movie is Die Hard.

Now I freely admit that I rebelled against the church and went the whole prodigal route. I usually summarize that part of my testimony as “For nine years, I was a fool.” Some folks assume that my penchant for dragons and Daleks and other general weirdness contributed to that decision. Don’t get ahead of yourself. My reasons for leaving were varied, but one of those reasons was how the church tends to deal with creativity.

I’ve said this many times, but it bears repeating: It ought to be considered a sin to make the living breathing Word of God boring. First and foremost, the Bible is a book of Wonders, which is little wonder (pun intended) if you stop to consider how very creative its Chief Author is. The God we serve created the heavens and the earth and all that is in them in six short days … and even had time at the end of each day to appreciate His own handiwork and place His personal stamp of approval on it. When we look at the night shy through a telescope or the incredibly tiny worlds captured between the slides of a microscope, we see the level of detail and grandeur of which the ultimate Creative Type is capable of. We admire Tolkien for the influence his work as a linguist had upon his stories, but it was God who spoke first, and who first imagined not only human language, but whale and bird song and the dancing language of bees.

Yet Christianity has not always embraced creativity. For example, when I was a teenager in a Baptistic Christian school, I was told that I couldn’t draw a T-rex because the teacher thought it looked demonic. I’ll admit that T-rexes are scary-looking (it’s the teeth!), but not everything that looks scaly and predatory is a demon, y’all. My well-meaning teacher wasn’t really sure what to do with a creative young mind who was obsessed with dinosaurs and dragons, so she did what a lot of Christians and churches do when faced with creativity: she banned it. But folks, we serve the Creator, the paragon of creativity. When He came to this earth, He had the option of giving us more programs and prohibitions, but the Master Teacher chose creative teaching stories (parables) instead. Stories, like songs, tend to stick with you, making their lessons easy to recall and generalize to new situations.

If we’re called to walk in His steps, why aren’t churches at the vanguard of creativity? Why does the introduction of new music into the church service produce civil warfare rather than encouragement the musicians’ expression of praise and worship? Why is a lot of religious artwork so, well, predictable?

I once saw something in an art museum that has always stood out to me. The artist had restored an old psaltery box, which was beautiful in its own right, but had left the back end open and jagged. It almost looked as if something had exploded from within. The piece was called “God in a Box.”

Let. That. Sink. In.

In any case when I came back to the fold, I ran into a little problem. Christian movies, even when they concern something as inarguably cool as the End of Days, are just flat-out weak. They’re getting better; I’m hoping for Christian B-movies soon.

My decision to start writing came as a direct result of browsing the near-exclusive sea of romance novels of the local Christian bookstores. I remember thinking, “Why should I be forced to get the stuff I actually enjoy reading from secular bookstores in novels written from a non- or even anti-Christian worldview?”

Hard-wired for sci-fi

Science fiction is the thinking man’s genre. The success of the Left Behind series demonstrated how influential exploratory fiction could be in shaping and reinforcing beliefs concerning eschatology. I realized that apologetics fiction could do the same for evangelical convictions concerning our origins. With that in mind, I set out to tell a great sci-fi story that gave a plausible young earth creationist explanation of comic book super powers rather than the prevalent evolutionary assumption of beneficial mutations, popularized in the X-Men movies and on TV shows like Heroes. The result was Johnny Came Home.

I owe a great debt to Frank Peretti and C.S. Lewis, who showed us that we could tell great stories, deal with doubts and questions, and encourage others in their Christian faith at the same time. Exploratory fiction also gives Christians a voice into the future that we’ve largely left to those antagonistic to the faith. Science fiction is often either hostile or ambivalent to Christianity because we let folks with other worldviews dominate the genre and imagineer the future for us — and as a result many folks feel that in some way religion will become increasingly irrelevant!

I have no idea how we let it come to this, but thankfully there a lot of great Christian writers who are changing that. Folks like Tim Chaffey, Joe Westbrook, Sean T. Smith, Robert Mullin, Allan Reini, and so many others besides myself are creating worlds where we can explore answers to the problems Christianity might face in the future and how the church will look if Christ delays a few more centuries (or more). I’m excited to be a part of this growing movement of what fellow author J.C. Lamont terms “literary apologists.”

The story of Esther is often considered one of the Bible’s greatest love stories, which is too bad. Love – romantic love, anyway – doesn’t have a whole lot to do with it.

The odd thing about the Book of Esther is that it starts as if it’s going to be a love story. The relationship between Esther and Xerxes is at the center of the book, vital to everything that happens. And think of the story: A king, searching for a queen, chooses out of many women a girl who is an orphan, a girl in exile from her conquered nation. It’s the sort of thing you’d find in a fairy tale.

Except that it isn’t. Here is a fact all too easily overlooked: All those other girls – the ones who didn’t become queen – Xerxes kept them. This is how a girl went “in to King Xerxes”, and what happened to her afterward:

In the evening she would go there and in the morning return to another part of the harem to the care of Shaashgaz, the king’s eunuch who was in charge of the concubines. She would not return to the king unless he was pleased with her and summoned her by name. (Esther 2:14)

This passage establishes one of the key terms of the relationship between Esther and Xerxes: She was the only queen, but she would never be the only woman. He would always have his harem.

Another window is opened in chapter 4, when Esther answers Mordecai’s urging that she plead with the king for mercy on the Jews:

“All the king’s officials and the people of the royal provinces know that for any man or woman who approaches the king in the inner court without being summoned the king has but one law: that he be put to death. The only exception to this is for the king to extend the gold scepter to him and spare his life. But thirty days have passed since I was called to go to the king.” (Esther 4:11)

Much can be adduced from this. For one, Esther and Xerxes’ lives were so arranged that they would not touch unless he summoned her – or she went uninvited to him, which she did under risk of death.

Secondly, at this point it had been thirty days since Xerxes had summoned Esther – by the time she did go to see him, thirty-three days and counting. That’s how long Xerxes could go without deciding he wanted to see Esther. So she probably wasn’t his One True Love.

Thirdly, Esther believed so seriously that Xerxes might execute her that she didn’t want to go to him even with the lives of her family and all her people at stake. Again, not the stuff of true love.

I don’t want to be too much of a deconstructionist on the story of Esther. It’s a remarkable story, and Esther’s fate was not necessarily an unhappy one. Life has many satisfactions that have nothing to do with romance, and Esther enjoyed some choice ones. And, being acclimated to her own culture’s notions of marriage, she may have judged her marriage much differently than we would. We’ll never know what she thought of it, or how she felt about Xerxes.

Because the Book of Esther is not a love story.

So why is it taken for one? Because people don’t read it or, if they do, they can’t see what’s in it for what they think is in it. It’s not a matter of dishonesty; our perception of things is so easily colored by our expectations and assumptions. Call it the Esther Syndrome.

We humans are always being tripped up by this; we do it, not least of all, to each other. (How suspicious are the actions of people we don’t like!) We often do it in regard to stories – including biblical stories, as you can see with Esther.

The Esther Syndrome is at work in what gets labeled children’s stories; nothing else can explain the fact that “The Three Blind Mice” is considered a childhood staple. (Do parents even listen while they recite that ditty to their children?)

It’s at work in the stereotype of fairy tales as happy fantasies. The older fairy tales, the kind the Brothers Grimm published, are often cruel and occasionally so dark you can only wonder what demented imagination conceived them. Even the more modern versions, mercifully lightened, have their heavy moments.

I emphatically include Disney movies among those modern versions (emphatically = new paragraph). Disney is also stereotyped as being just too happy, by people who are apparently too caught up in the “Happily Ever After” ending to notice the unhappiness that came first.

Are there any famous stories, biblical or otherwise, that you think are misunderstood?

The Mountains of Mourne inspired Lewis to write The Chronicles of Narnia.

In sixth grade, I learned my first marketing lesson: the difference a word could make.

Our teacher gave us the project to write ads showing how a minor change could make a difference in meaning. I went home and attacked the project with vigor. I not only came up with several funny examples, I drew the illustrations to go along with them.

The next day the teacher liked them so much she showed and read them to the class—the only one she presented was mine. The class laughed and loved them. In each one I only changed one word that threw a completely different light on the topic.

I only recall one of those examples. I had drawn a bottle of perfume with wavy lines as the scent wafted from the container. The first ad said, “It smells good!” The second said, “It smells!”

This marketing concept is applied to many venues.

In the 70s, I ate Super Sugar Crisp for breakfast. At some point in the 80s, when sugar equaled demonic possession of children, I ate Super Golden Crisps, which I believe they are stilled called to this day. Same amount of sugar. Different word.

As the term “global warming” became weathered (ha, couldn’t resist), the powers that be started calling it “climate change.” Which is meaningless when you think about it. When has the climate not changed daily since it existed? It would be news if we identified any days of climate stagnation.

Likewise, when the term “Christian fiction” became demonized (keep this up and I’ll cannibalize this horse, not merely kill it), new terms popped up to make it more enlightened and palatable.

The broadest term is “inspirational fiction.” There is a whole Wikipedia article on this term. While the term can be much broader than Christian fiction, it does state:

While, as the above definition shows, “inspirational fiction” is a category and genre larger than religious writing, in the United States and Canada it is often used only to refer to “religious fiction,” “faith-based fiction,” or more narrowly (and perhaps most often), “Christian fiction”.

In short, it generally means it is Christian fiction.

The article also introduces a couple of other terms used instead of Christian fiction: “religious fiction” and “faith-based fiction.” Obviously either could be interpreted as referring to other religions/faiths, not just Christian, but are used mostly in relation to Christian fiction.

“Faith-based fiction” seems to be the preferred term of choice as a code-word for Christian fiction. It pops up all the time as a reference to it.

Are there valid reasons to use these terms or does it boil down to avoiding the term “Christian fiction”?

I’m going to say yes and yes.

Yes, I do think people use “inspirational fiction” or “faith-based fiction” to describe their writing in order to avoid the negative connotations of “Christian fiction.” Many authors run from that term. Going for a broader, less threatening term like “faith-based,” they hope more people will give their Christian fiction a chance.

However, the term “Christian fiction” is not an equivalent to inspirational or faith-based. Remember my definition of “Christian Fiction” a few months ago?

Christian fiction is stories written for the Christian audience focusing on Christian themes, issues, and struggles.

Christian fiction refers to a market.

Indeed, according to the above referenced Wikipedia article, the Christian market is much narrower.

Some inspirational fiction is written to appeal to a general Christian audience, but more often in the United States “inspirational fiction” (and especially “inspirational romance”) that can be classified as Christian is written for the Evangelical Protestant market.

Indeed, the primary association for Christian publishers in the United States is the ECPA, the Evangelical Christian Publisher’s Association. When we mention Christian fiction, we generally mean the Evangelical Christian market.

Inspirational and faith-based fiction, however, focuses not on the market, but the content of the writing.

Inspirational fiction involves stories that serve to inspire people to better themselves in their relationships with God and others.

Faith-based fiction references stories upon which faith in God, in Jesus Christ, is central and foundational to the story’s plot and main characters, no matter how subtle.

It is more accurate to use one of those two terms when referring the type of writing one reads than to say “I read Christian fiction.” Not that it is wrong, but it literally means you read fiction marketed to the Christian reader. If you’ll read fiction marketed to the general market that contains Christian themes, that sentence would technically be inaccurate.

Do you think inspirational and faith-based are feel-good replacements for the Christian label, or do you see value in using them to describe the fiction you like?