You’re a reader. You always have been. Your earliest memories include stuffing your mother’s tote bag full of picture books from the library. Eventually, you graduated on to juvenile, then YA literature. It didn’t quite matter what they were about. Well, it did if your dad picked up one and didn’t like what he saw.

Eventually, you started working at the library you loved so much. One of your jobs included refilling the themed endcap book displays, and through this task you finally moved up to adult fiction. Sitting at your little desk in the computer lab, you read The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivy, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, The Book of Speculation by Erica Swyler ––among many others. Some of them you really liked, some of them you pretended to love just because the concepts seemed cool. Some of them you still don’t understand. Others…you felt the need to hide from your parents.

After all this reading, pursuing a career in literature seemed a very good option. I’d know, because this “you” is actually me. Unfortunately, English majors don’t just sit around and read books all day, as I had hoped. There is plenty of that (more than plenty, actually), but it’s more than merely reading the words on the page, like I used to do. Now, I’ve learned how to pay attention to the structure of the text itself, analyze the author’s motifs or narrative tones, connect it to the cultural and historical context of its writing, discuss the importance of the the author’s intentions and through it all: discern the message and impact and implication of the story. 

Story is the driving force of life. For the Christian, the reasons for this claim should immediately prove apparent. What is your faith, if not adherence to the grandest and most overarching redemptive storyline of all time–––the storyline from which all others must be patterned? What is your God, if not the source of all the beauty and truth you seek to find as you read your books? What is your Hope, if not the expectation that every happy or helpless ending inevitably hints toward? What is your responsibility as a Christian reader, if not to discern all of this, and use it to further your own and other’s worship of God?

Fear not; I am not about to suggest you read only those opaque Christian fiction novels that follow precisely the same plot and teach the same lesson––quite the opposite. I do not discredit these books nor their authors, but I do seek to expand your understanding of the kinds of books that contain good and profitable Christian elements. When reading your novels, no matter the genre, the three most important things you must look out for are: Beauty, as in that which is aesthetically pleasing and technically proficient; Truth, as in that which is faithful to the realness of life and God’s reality; and Grace, as in that extra bit of transcendent implication which points us out of this world and into the next. You must be careful of any story which lacks or twists these elements. Yet the variety of ways in which a story may contain one or any of these might surprise you. 

BEAUTY

The characteristic of beauty contains two distinct aspects: an aesthetically pleasing composition and a technically sophisticated form. Though the two are related, a book may have one without having the other. You might think that claiming a book’s “aesthetic beauty” presents a subjective appeal, yet the Christian concept of beauty proves transcendent and objective. God is beautiful; beauty is a characteristic of God. Thus, all the beauty we see in our world finds its source in God––just as does goodness, truth, holiness, etc. Any humanly “created” beauty is not an original creation, but a reflection and an expression of beauty already in existence. God created the earth with balance, symmetry, ideal ratios: components that satisfy our built-in human longing for beauty. Any proficient artist recognizes the necessity of these components, and what is a writer but an artist of words? God provided us with both a visual revelation (creation) and a textual, literary revelation (His Word). Literature is important because it reflects the beauty of God.The Christian reader has a responsibility to uphold and support beautiful writing because the appreciation of God’s true beauty is a form of worship and thankfulness towards him. Writing isn’t easy; it requires hard work, editing, and a sophisticated understanding of technical sophistication and genre characteristics. Any book that is to be beautiful must be written by a writer with these proficiencies, and it is your responsibility to recognize and appreciate it. Hold your books up to the revelation of God and notice those which accurately reflect His beauty back.

Example books:  If On a Winter’s Night A Traveler by Italo Calvino, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fizgerald

TRUTH

The characteristic of truth is a bit trickier, as it must be qualified. Something can be true, as in accurate, and yet not beneficial. A graphically portrayed sex scene might be accurate, but you as a Christian must ask yourself if the act of reading it would be beneficial to your walk with God. Nevertheless, the Christian must affirm that truth is objective, in opposition to the postmodern tendency to push a reality based on one’s own perception. Stories must both be accurate in their portrayal of reality, and propagate principles and realities which are true. This makes up the two primary domains of truth: transcendent, moral truth, and local, ontological truth. Every book contains its own “fictional dream.” For fantasy fiction, this might include a world with dragons and elves. Yet despite being a “false” world, it can still reflect a true image of God’s world. Every story is a subcreation, patterned after the story of God. And God’s story has some harsh realities in it, such as the existence of sin and suffering. A book which glosses over these is not accurately portraying truth. A reader who avoids or downplays such difficult but realistic perceptions does not “love the truth” as a Christian should (2 Thess. 2.10, English Standard Version). Recognize the truth, honor it, and uphold it––yet retain your heavenly perspective above all. 

Examples: Beloved by Toni Morrison, Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. 

GRACE

If I’m being honest, grace may prove one of the most difficult to find amongst your secular booklists. The world loves beauty, and truth when it serves them, but the concept of Grace is so obviously God-derived that the secular author would rather propagate ideals of fairness and justice––getting exactly what you deserve. Grace is getting something you don’t deserve, and that sounds great when it’s happening to you, but not to your enemy. Earlier, I expanded the definition of Grace to include that which points to the transcendent reality of God and the hope of the world to come. If this world is all there is, why forgive? Why show mercy? What basis does one have for these if not that “great love with which he first loved us”? (Eph. 2:4). Nevertheless, look for these fingerprints of God in your books. They’re there, often quite hidden. You might find them in a character’s act of selflessness. Perhaps your novel contains a redemptive storyline founded upon principles of forgiveness, or a “eucatastrophe,” a joyful turnaround when all looks dark. You’ll notice that the best books, the books you enjoy most, are the ones that have this––the ones that point towards the transcendent and end with a hope that things will not stay dark forever. 

Example books: Pride and Prejudice  by Jane Austen, Billy Budd: Sailor by Herman Melville 

While this short introduction is not an exhaustive or comprehensive guide to all you must consider when reading fiction,  I hope that it will serve to point you in the right direction. Not all of your novels may contain beauty, truth, and grace, but they may prove instructive by the illustration of the opposite. Sometimes, you will struggle to read the stories even if they do contain these 3 aspects. They will still be hard to read. Life is the subject of story, and life isn’t easy. But your greatest advantage as a Christian reader is your transcendent perspective. You will recognize the goodness of beauty, the objectivity of truth, and the presence and implication of Grace. You will recognize that there is meaning in this life, that there is meaning in your stories, and that it all points (in different ways) to the greatest Story––to the Gospel of our Savior. 

Works Cited

The ESV Student Study Bible. English Standard Version, Crossway, 2011.