Episode Details

Nobody claims to like “hate.”[1. Image credit: Christ Washing the Disciples’ Feet by Garofalo, c. 1520/1525 (public domain, source: National Gallery of Art).] That’s bad. Everybody claims they want to “love their neighbor.” That’s good. Should the best Christian-made stories repeat these messages so that readers know Christians are good and not bad? Or could stories with this goal end up actually harming our neighbors?

Episode sponsors

1. Enclave Publishing: Guardian by Cathy McCrumb
2. Return of the Lost Ones by David Liberto
3. Realm Makers: 2024 writers conference

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Concession stand

• Our neighbors need beauty, goodness, and truth from great stories.
• That’s the pivotal (and biblical) assumption we make behind all this.
• We’ll need to presume these definitions as we explore flawed stories.
• Beauty: artistic excellence, craftsmanship, reflection of God our Creator.
• Goodness: moral virtue, righteousness, reflection of our perfect Jesus.
• Truth: biblical doctrine, natural reality, imitation of the Holy Spirit’s word.
• We do know many critics add more heat than light to these critiques.
• So in critiquing stories directly or otherwise, we don’t fault their makers.
• In fact, with one exception, we’ll avoid specific examples on this show.
• Creators have backstories that lead them to emphasize one or the other.
• Yet we still need to “stop the cycle” and emphasize all three at once.
• More than our stories’ excellence is at stake; so our neighbors’ lives.
• Also, many stories only emphasize one of these, ignoring two at once!
• For the sake of brevity, we’ll focus on those who try getting 2 out of 3.

1. Stories try to show goodness+truth, not beauty

• Most of us who think of bad/shallow evangelical stories think of this.
• For instance, many Christian social dramas want to show good behavior.
• And many of these movies also want to show characters extolling truth.
• Readers see these emphases in many works of Christian-made fiction.
• But if they’re not made with creative excellence, beauty, they suffer.
• They also fail to meet the needs of our neighbors who need beauty.
• Stephen once debated a friend who seemed to be getting this all wrong.
• Friend thought Christians should “sell all we have” and live communally.
• This ignores the God-given human need for beauty even in our homes.
• Similarly, a story author could say “only the story matters, not the cover.”
• But in fact the cover does matter. God wants excellence in all our works!
• Without this excellence, our stories inactively harm our neighbors.
• Such stories are bad and even lie by saying “God’s work is not beautiful.”
• So by ignoring beauty, these stori