Are You Down for the Struggle?

No, this is not an essay on class warfare or racial prejudice. Nor is it a jab at certain wealthy Caucasian presidential candidates pretending to be something they are not (though now I guess I've made it that). Actually, as promised in my last post two weeks ago, I’m going to continue the discussion on two very different kinds of Christian writers—the kind I used to be, and the kind I believe I have become, or, God-willing, am becoming.

Recently, the wife and I watched the movie, The Queen. I was interested in this movie solely because it stars Helen Mirren (we’re big fans of the Prime Suspect series). I had no idea even when I was putting in the disk what The Queen was actually about. Well, I knew at least that it had something to do with the queen of England, but I didn’t know that the plot revolved around the death of Princess Diana. To be honest I never cared much about Princess Di, and I’ve always been both bemused and amused to see so many people obsessed with her, both in life and in death.

But I have to say that since watching this movie. . . I still don’t care. Princess Di doesn’t have a thing to do with what I’m talking about. I only bring it up because I find it rather ironic that a mere five days after the death of Princess Di, the world lost what most of us considered a true saint with the death of Mother Teresa. Now this latter death did bother me, though if memory serves me right, it garnered much less media attention than the former.

I’ll confess that I was not then and am still not an expert on Mother Teresa. I did know that this was a woman who poured herself out in service to God, spent the best of her years trying to comfort the suffering of others. But I had no idea until a few weeks ago (after I read this article from Time Magazine describing a new book on Mother Teresa's life) just how much the Mother and I, and perhaps all of us had in common.

Now, I'm not making any claims to sainthood. I know my faults and weaknesses. There's no halo hanging over my head. It's Mother Teresa's "dark side" that I've found myself relating to. According to letters she wrote, despite all the good she did in the name of Christ, Mother Teresa struggled every day with her faith, the same way in which, to some degree, we all struggle. This is not a bad thing, though. And we shouldn't be ashamed of it. Remember that Jacob struggled with God (figuratively and literally) and was called blessed because of it.    

It does seem that Mother Teresa's struggle may have been more severe than usual. She experienced through most of her ministry what is known as a "dark night of the soul," a kind of dry spell, a wilderness that seemed to her to have no end. She describes the struggle in terms such as "dryness," "darkness," "loneliness," even "torture." Words that, I have to say, ring true with the uphill-downhill course of my own spiritual journey. Critics are bound to point and sneer, claiming she was ultimately a phony. But I think they're missing the point that even when it felt to her God was no longer listening, some seed of faith apparently remained, for she continued to pray. She continued to hope. And that's what faith is, right? The evidence of things hoped for, not things seen and felt and known with absolute certainty.

So, am I saying we as Christian writers should use our writing not to lay out the certain and true road to salvation, but to lay bare all our doubts and uncertainties, our pain and our fears? Well, I can't tell you what you should do. But for me the answer is yes. I think there's a lot Christians and non-Christians can learn from this kind of honesty, this level of "realness." Believers can take comfort that they are not alone, even when it seems that way, for countless saints before them have gone through the same wilderness. I think this approach can also give non-believers a better perspective on who we are and what our faith is about. Seeing that we struggle with our belief may help them better understand how sincere we really are. So many people outside of the faith tend to look at Christians as brainless robots who have forfeited their right or capacity for free thought and serious contemplation, unaware that most of us struggle with our faith constantly. But, as we know and they apparently don't, a person doesn't become a Christian and then immediatly turn off his brain. The truth is, we constantly weigh and re-weigh all these questions of life and death and eternity, and though we may doubt for a season, even for just a moment, the struggle keeps bringing us back to the same conclusion: We are not alone, but under the shadow of a wonderful and terrible Grace.

As readers, believers, non-believers, and just human beings, we gravitate toward writing that reflects this kind of openess. Perhaps this is why many people identify more with the Psalms and words like these:

My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Far from my deliverance are the words of my groaning.

than they do to any of the admonishing proclomations of the prophets.

As a Christian and an artist, I want to write stories that delve deep into the mysteries and wonders of God. I want to create characters that ponder, question, and, yes, even doubt. I want to use my fiction to show this side of the Christian experience that we often seem so ashamed to recognize. 

This is a radical turn from the writer I used to be. The one I called The Prophet would never stand for this kind of uncertainty. For one, The Prophet's primary goal is to convince the reader to adopt a certain line of thinking, and any uncertainty or lack of confidence weakens his argument. The kind of writer I am becoming, which for the sake of alliteration I'll call The Petitioner, doesn't want to argue and is not really interested in convincing. This writer only wants to confess, and through this confession may only hope to persuade. The emblem of The Prophet is the exclamation point; The Petitioner’s is the question mark.

But what good, some will ask, will more questions do for a non-believer who is already in the dark? Why would a Christian writer want to pile more doubt and uncertainty upon a doubtful and uncertain mind? Those who do ask this are still missing the point. They're failing to understand the motive of The Petitioner, because she’s simply not writing for the lost. Period. When you really get down to it, she’s not even writing for God. She’s writing for herself. Story for The Petitioner is an exercise, a meditation to try to better understand God and to make some sense out of all this life and death, pain and beauty. In short, it's the difference between preaching and prayer.

I keep coming back to something I wrote a couple of years ago in a blog post on conversion stories. It seems appropriate to close by quoting it here.

I had set out to make writing my pulpit; it became, instead an altar. This is to me the essence of what it means to be a Christian writer--making each of our stories or poems not a sermon, but a well-crafted prayer, a confession, a humble act of sacrifice.

Christopher Fisher's fiction, essays, and satire have appeared in The Wittenburg Door, the Thou Shalt Not horror anthology, Infuze Magazine, and The Sam Houston State Review. His personal essay, “Scars,” won the editor’s choice award for nonfiction in Issue #4 of Relief Journal and will appear again this winter in a college writing textbook titled One Art: Reading and Writing. He will receive his MFA in Creative Writing this January from the University of Southern Maine.

Comments

[mike duran]

Chris, I'm really with you on this. But I have a question: If the Petitioner "...only wants to confess, and through this confession may only hope to persuade," doesn't this still imply a certain type of "certainty" as to the power of confession and the possibility of pardon? In other words, you frown about The Prophet writer, as I do, for their preachiness and certainty. They can't be that sure of everything. Nevertheless, by seeing ourselves as a Petitioner, aren't we still assuming to know something -- namely sin and the path of redemption -- with equal conviction? No doubt, the posture of presentation is different for both the Prophet and the Petioner. But, in the end, isn't the level of "certainty" the same? Thanks so much for this series!

[Linda Gilmore]

Your last bit really hits me. The Psalms are prayer and resonate with everyone at some time or another. I see myself, hear my own cries to God, in the Psalms. And that's how it is with the best stories.
Thanks for giving me a lot to think about.

[Christopher Fisher]

Mike,

I don't think the level of certainty is necessarily the same, though I do think every writer will need to be certain of at least a few things before he or she can begin to put words to paper (e.g., where, when, how, or of whom does this story take place?). But it's not so much the absence of certainty that I'm getting at as it is the presence of openess. The Prophet (by which I mean the brand of writer I used to be) can not allow very much if any openess without compromising the validity of his message. This fear may actually be an illusion, only in his head. But whether it is real or not, the message is paramount, so he just can't risk it.

On persuasion, I think there is a big difference between preaching and persuading, and perhaps this is where a lot of the confusion lies in these discussions. I reject outright any claims that all writing preaches on some level. To say this, I think, is to misunderstand the meaning of the word "sermon." But I will concede that all writing is ultimately persuasive. When you get down to it, everything we write for the public is trying to persuade someone to do something. Maybe we only want them to tell their friends about us or buy our next book. Maybe we just want them to forget their problems and laugh for a while. Or think deep thoughts about life and God. Or just keep reading to the end of the story.

The crucial difference, I think is that it's not The Petitioner's main intent to persuade the reader toward any religious decision or conversion. Her main concern is to confess, to make herself understood, and let the reader make of it what he will.

[Nicole]

"I reject outright any claims that all writing preaches on some level. To say this, I think, is to misunderstand the meaning of the word 'sermon'. But I will concede that all writing is ultimately persuasive."

I fail to see the difference, Chris, especially in light of sermon definition "any discourse or speech". You might choose to apply "sermon" to non-fiction, but by the very nature of your explanation, what you are saying (preaching, pronouncing, persuading) in your writing is I'm NOT preaching to you--I'm merely sharing my soul. To say that writing doesn't somehow "preach" is to say it stands for nothing--including persuading.

The theme of any novel must make a statement of some kind, and one can call it a persuasion if more comfortable with that term.

[Christopher Fisher]

Nicole,

I can see that you fail to see the difference. If you think a fictional account of fictional characters in a fictional realm is on the same par as a "speech or discourse" then it's obvious we're not even speaking the same language.

I'm sorry I can't seem to make my point of view more clear to you. And I'm sorry you think that my effort at art "stands for nothing."

[Nicole]

Chris, your effort at art of course stands for something, and it's very obvious you're articulate and talented. I know my opinion frustrates you, and I apologize for that. I guess it's semantics. Fiction has to come from a place of honesty--which you explained perfectly. You obviously favor yourself as a possible persuader and somehow condemn yourself as a "prophet"-type writer.

[Christopher Fisher]

Nicole,

Your opinion does not frustrate me at all, and you're completely entitled to it. Don't apologize. If there's any frustration on my end, it's in my seeming inability to "persuade" you that the theme of a piece of fiction is not quite the same thing as the message of a sermon. Perhaps they're related somehow, maybe even first cousins. But it's my view that they are not quite the same creature, and trying to employ these two animals interchangeably will only make for bad stories and bad sermons.

[dayle]

Chris, I don't see any "Christian value" to the non-believer in bearing your doubts and not at least pointing toward the answer that you yourself have found.

Maybe I'm not reading the older CBA stuff, but the closest to "prophet" Christian Fiction I've read shows Christian characters with flaws, struggling through the consequences of doubt and disobedience. This connects with the Christian reader who can identify with those struggles and gives the non-Christian reader the only answer which is "the way, truth, and the life" of Jesus Christ.

I mainly see a blend of the two types you're speaking of. And, even if I agreed with you, I would see no reason to want to do away with the "prophet" writer.

[Jeanne Damoff]

I like what you've said here, Chris. I do believe the struggle leads to answers--real, solid, take-it-to-the-bank answers. But, no matter how deep our roots go, we still "see through a glass darkly." If our God is no bigger than our understanding of Him, we deserve the world's mockery. So, I like the idea of The Petitioner--of approaching writing like we approach prayer. Humble. Searching. Teachable. Walking beside a reader, not standing above her.

Good word. Thanks.

[Christopher Fisher]

Dayle,

Thanks for stopping by. Your comments bring to my mind a couple of interesting questions, and perhaps this is what's really at the heart of the debate. First, can fiction have any real "Christian value" without having explicit value to the non-believer? This is just my opinion, but I think so. Definitely. And if it is so, it brings up a second question: Should we be making a distinction between just plain "Christian fiction" and "evangelical fiction?" I don't know. But maybe.

As for the CBA stuff. I don't read it at all, and I haven't for years. But I have found it interesting throughout this discussion that so many people in this forum seem to assume The Prophet is a veiled reference to CBA authors. I've tried to make it pretty clear that I'm referring to myself and the approach I once took to writing. Sure, there are others out there who take the same approach, and that's fine if that's their thing. But my criticisms here are my own.

As I said in my previous post, I'm not advocating doing away with The Prophet all together (though I do seriously question his effectiveness in the realm of fiction). It's a big Body we're a part of, and I'm sure this kind of writer has his place. It's just not on my hard drive.

Thanks again for the comments.

[Michelle Pendergrass]

"So, am I saying we as Christian writers should use our writing not to lay out the certain and true road to salvation, but to lay bare all our doubts and uncertainties, our pain and our fears?"

This rings true for me.

When I first starting learning about the beauty that comes from ashes (for lack of a better phrase) I didn't really understand the complexity. Church people talked about giving your best, the first fruits, which I don't deny is right, but they didn't talk about what to do with the leftovers. God isn't asking for the best 10% of me, he's asking for all of me and that includes doubts, uncertainties, pain, and fear.

Laying bad experiences on the alter have changed my soul more than giving the best of me ever will.

There are some friends that only know the cheerful, strong, determined, public Michelle. There are less than a handful that know the Michelle that is broken, incapable of decision, fearful, and weak.

There are books both examples. Books that skim doubt, disobedience, character flaws, etc... but when reading, you can tell they're skimming. Those are not books that will change me. Those are books I won't finish.

The books I want to read are the ones that trust me with the whole story. Those are the kind I want to write.

[dayle]

Thanks, Chris.

That was my inference - that you were speaking of mainstream CBA writers. It sounded to me like you were criticizing the current state of Christian Fiction.

Of course, that can't be, since you say you haven't read any.

You said: "First, can fiction have any real "Christian value" without having explicit value to the non-believer? This is just my opinion, but I think so."

Of course, it can. In fact, I believe the potential of Christian fiction as an evangelical outreach is overestimated. But a non-believer who reads Christian Fiction should see Christianity. Otherwise, why would we call it Christian fiction.