Episode Details

Most people think “Christian fiction” avoids “unclean” content like sex, violence, and bad language.[1. Photo by Clément M. on Unsplash.] But in fact, many of these stories have often pushed these limits. We know of a few books now that are experimenting. Just in time for Independence Day in the United States, we will ask—should these stories make very free to show their characters cussin’ and fightin’?

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Episode sponsors

1. Enclave Publishing: Estuary by Lisa T. Bergren
2. The Pop Culture Parent
3. Lorehaven Summer Reading Challenge

Concession stand

• This episode serves as sequel to episode 120 (a rare Stephen solo show).
• We’re going to focus on cussin’ and fightin’, and this time no sexy stuff.
• We have plenty of other episodes (and will have more) about sexy stuff.
• Although we’ll touch on the TV shows, here we focus on written fiction.
• Also, we’ll make secondary applications to parenting, yet focus on selves.
• Too many of these discussions skip over individuals and focus on kids.
• Yet all of us implicitly agree that kids don’t see what adults can see.
• We just may pretend that this issue is only about the kids or vulnerable.
• Also we may refer to roundtable discussions from early Lorehaven print:
• Roundtable: Engaging Fictional Violence in Our Real Worlds
• Roundtable: Engaging That @&*% Our Stories Often Say

1. What does the Bible say about Christian freedom?

• Let’s follow the apostle Paul’s truth in Galatians, such as Galatians 5:13:

For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

• Stephen’s actually about to start a Galatians study at church. Please pray.
• Here the apostle Paul has spent many chapters lambasting legalism.
• Many listeners have grown up with “do not handle” rules (Col. 2:20-23).
• So they may be tempted to overcorrect and say that all things are lawful.

“All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up.

1 Corinthians 10:23

• But the apostle Paul doesn’t want to fix only one issue. He wants Jesus.
• The whole point of any good rule, or freedom, is Jesus and human love.
• That’s the point of this text, and we’ll ca