THE CAREER NOVELIST
CHRISTIAN FICTION
From as long ago as the appearance of Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress
and Dante's The Divine Comedy, we have been fascinated with
humankind's struggle for faith and quest for spiritual truth.
The fiction of spirituality and faith has a strong legacy in our own
century, most notably in the work of the Oxford literary club called
the Inklings, whose members included C. S. Lewis, Charles
Williams, and J. R. R. Tolkien. Their use of fantasy to portray the spir-
itual journey is mirrored in the work of such contemporary authors
as Stephen Lawhead {The Endless Knot) and Calvin Miller (Guardians of
the Singreale).
Another twentieth-century strand of Christian fiction is the his-
torical novel. Henryk Sienkiewicz's Quo Vadis, Taylor Caldwell's I,
judas, and Lloyd Douglas's The Robe are but a few of the popular
works in this rich tradition. Contemporary examples of this
approach abound: the Shiloh Legacy series by Bodie Thoene, the
Emerald Ballad series of B. J. Hoff, Donna Fletcher's Glastonbury, and
Robert Wise's The Fall of Jerusalem.
Familiar genre forms have also been combined with Christian
concerns. Christian mysteries, thrillers, and westerns can all be
found. Christian romances have moved far beyond the inspirational
tone of Grace Livingston Hill and Catherine Marshall's Christy.
Today, authors like Janette Oke (Heart of the Wilderness, Too Long a
Stranger) are bringing the tone of Christian romances more into line
with current tastes.
Joseph Girzone's Joshua novels and the enormously popular
Christian thrillers of Frank Peretti have also helped to shatter the
outdated images of sentimental moralism and insipid writing that
have limited Christian fiction. That is not to say that Christian
fiction has gone mainstream. In spite of efforts by publishers to
characterize this work as "spiritual fiction" rather than as "inspira-
tional fiction," it is still mainly shelved in religion sections in book-
stores (where happily it thrives).
Given the appeal of the faith journey for outstanding writers such
as Dorothy Sayers, Madeleine L'Engle, and Mormon author Orson
Scott Card, there is no doubt that the category will continue to
grow. For now publishers Crossway, Bethany House, Thomas