Where Have All the Iconic Christian Characters Gone? an Examination of Christian Fiction

I've been re-reading one of my favorite secular story arcs; a two book series written by Dean Koontz; Fear Nothing and Seize the Night, respectively. I am totally engrossed with the main character, Christopher Snow - a young man afflicted with a rare skin disorder, making him highly susceptible to the accumulation of UV-radiation damage. He is forced to live a life in the darkness, and at the age of twenty-eight, faces the looming specter of his own mortality every single day.

As a character, he experiences all the same doubts, joys, highs, lows, disappointments that we all experience, and Koontz has crafted Chris as so touchingly human - yet so divinely acceptant of his fate, giving and loving to a fault - not only do I think this person could exist, I would love to meet him.

His life-long best friend and major board-head surfer freak, Bobby Halloway, seems plucked right off any coastal beach-line, and I honestly think if I knew him, I'd love Bobby just as much as Chris does. The love between Chris and his girlfriend Sasha is fierce, all-consuming, and even though they are not a "married couple", (I'm skirting the edge here, I know), I see everything in Sasha that made me fall in love with my wife, and I wish everyone were so lucky as to have such a wonderful, intimate relationship with the one they love.

And then I stop and ask myself "The Question" - why does this secular novel provoke a reaction that few Christian novels even verge upon?

Hmmmm.

As I continue to read and review books, plug away until one in the morning on my own modest attempts at literary notability, and pursue my MA in Secondary Education in English/Literature at nearby Elmira College, I've spent a lot of time thinking about why it is - for me, anyway - so much of today's Christian literature tastes stale and lifeless, whereas secular novels are alive, full of depth, and strikingly real.

There's a deeper problem, for me, too. Even after I read a work of Christian suspense or mystery that I would classify as a "good read", it's usually a "one time" deal, and I inevitably return to books written by King, Koontz, Straub, Asimov, and my collection of Star Wars novels, re-reading them over and over again, while my Christian collection - though it had a good run - often sits on my shelves, gathering dust.

It's easy to attack the CBA, and say they are turning out books with trite, easily finished off plots and situations with red-ribbon spiritual solutions at the end, but there's some flaw in that reasoning. I have no idea of the actual numbers - it's sad to say, I don't think anyone reads as much as they used to, period; I see that as a teacher - but Christian readers have been enjoying certain brands of fiction for years, and for every guy like me, there are scores of diehard fans devoted to the staple names in Christian fiction: Tim LaHaye, Jerry Jenkins, Bill Meyers, and Janette Oak, just to name a few (On an interesting note, Stephen Lawhead - who I love - author of the Pendragon Circle and Byzantium, started out with Christian publishers, and now publishes strictly with secular publishers. I wonder...).

There's a market for the staple "Christian story"; if there wasn't, people wouldn't buy these books in droves. And let's be honest - not to boil it down to economics - but in the end, the readers are the ultimate bosses, right? If they enjoy a certain type of fiction, than publishing houses should publish books that fit those tastes.

So the question becomes - okay, Kevin, what's the real point here, then? Maybe there isn't one, and this is just my internal musing about why a Christian novel sometimes leaves me feeling unfulfilled; my own wondering as to why, when I enter a bookstore, my first inclination is to take a right towards the mainstream, secular book racks, and not the Christian section.

I used to think it was simply a case of bad, safe plots written by mediocre writers, (the ole' blame the CBA card again), but with the amount of reading I've done in the past year since my return to the book-reviewing gig, I see plainly that's not the case. A lot of the novels out there have good, interesting plots - The Hidden, by Kathryn Mackel, Full Tilt by Creston Mapes and the current book I'm reviewing, Like Dandelion Dust, by Karen Kingsbury. The writing is not at fault either, Full Tilt and so far Dandelion Dust has proven to be capably well-written.

So what's the problem? (I'm ashamed; I've just violated the "never start a sentence with a conjunction" rule not once, but twice!) With interesting plot-lines, good writing, and a message that should have quite a impact, given what's at stake - carrying the message of Christ to a hurting world - why does so much of Christian fiction fall flat on my own ears, and to those of many others? If anything, you would think the Christian novel would carry the ultimate in conflict - Hawthornian characters conflicted between what they know they should do and what they eventually do, battling temptation, failing and seeking forgiveness, always pushing forward, even when they think they can't or there's no hope.

As I've spent the past few months with Christopher Snow; the protagonist in Seize the Night and Fear Nothing, something has really dawned upon me: I can count tons of characters in secular fiction whom I resonate with; iconic figures, characters who dig deep into my head, and I sit at home, thinking to myself - "I can't wait until the next 'so-and-so' novel comes out, so I can see what they get into next."

When I ask myself to list groundbreaking secular fictional characters that vibrate with meaning, I come up with a HUGE list: Stu Redman - The Stand, Johnny Smith - The Dead Zone, Roland the last gunslinger - The Dark Tower Series, Jack Swayer - The Talisman, Black House, Chris Chambers - The Body/Stand by Me, Odd Thomas - Odd Thomas, Forever Odd, Daneel R. Olivaw, Elijah Baley, Hari Seldon - Foundation Series, Robot novels, Nathan Brazil - Well World Series...and of course, let's not forget Gandalf, Bilbo, Frodo, Sam, Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas. We can go even a little further back to Nero Wolfe, Ellery Queen, and of course Sherlock Holmes, for Pete's sake.

I ask myself to name Christian fiction characters with the same resonance, and I grind to a halt, wheels spinning and churning (granted, I'm still broadening my Christian fiction horizons, but I've still read a lot of it). Finally, I think of: Christian - The Pilgrim's Progress, Aslan and Peter, Susan, Lucy, & Edmund -The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; and I do believe there are few emerging characters who have iconic character potential: Jude Allman - Waking Lazarus, he's a bad guy, but sorry - Marsuvees Black (and all his incarnations) - Showdown, House, Saint, and Johnny - Showdown, Saint, and I really like the burned out preacher, Travis, in The Visitation, and Squid from Squat was just about the most unique character in a Christian novel I've seen yet - my goodness, we don't even know for sure if he got "saved" by the end of the novel!

Characters are the reason we - or at least myself - come back to stories over and over again. All those Christian works I just mentioned, I've either read multiple times, or they carry definite multiple-read potential, and I gotta be honest - if I see another T.L. Hines novel with the subtitle: A Jude Allman Story, I'll buy it without reading the back.

But that's it, folks....that's it.

So, (that's the third time; my sixth graders are screaming in agony!), where does that leave me or us? As a Christian who wants to keep a pure mind, support the ministries of Christian writers but ALSO wants to totally get hooked up with a character, get in their head, think to myself "Gosh...this guy could be real"...I feel tremendous conflict when choosing my reading material. I have to be selective with my secular material, and I take a calculated risk when purchasing a Christian novel that I'm not going to give one whit about the character's fate by the end of the story, simply because he/she had no depth, no real substance (this may be shameful, but by the 8th or 9th or 20th - I lose count - Left Behind book, I was rooting for someone to die - please, a little drama to shake up the core characters! And, when Hattie finally did bite the dust at the Anti-Christ's hands, I felt a little of that "edge of the seat" uncertainty I hadn't felt since the first two installments in that rather looooong series).

I would love to see the day when folks like Dekker, Hines, Peretti, and other fresh voices create strong, resonating characters that sell books, rather than event-oriented, manufactured series and plot-lines (I think Dekker and Peretti are there; Hines well on his way). Of course, everything I say has to be taken with a pound - perhaps a truckload - of salt: I'm an unpublished wanna-be writer giving his "armchair quarterback" opinion.

Another thing that needs to be kept in mind is something stated so perfectly in T.L. Hines's myspace blog entitled: On Realizing You Are But A Speck in the Publishing Universe - there are SOOO many works of published fiction out there, how to canvas them all? What about newbie newbies - like Sue Dent, author of Never Ceese - a vampire/werewolf Christian fantasy; or Robina Williams, author of Angelos, a story about a cat named Quant with a talent for cruising the multi-verse? There are some different voices out there in Christian fiction, you just need to dig, and my opinons of course are my own, reflecting the little slice of the literary pie I've been able to "eat" so far.

The bottom line? As much as I love my above list of secular characters, and will continue to read whatever new adventures their talented - and sometimes ruthless - creators throw them into next, (I'm breathlessly awaiting the third Odd Thomas installment, Brother Odd, and the new Marvel Comics graphic novel series Dark Tower, written by Stephen King and chronicling Roland's early days, and will always buy any novel with Luke, Mara, Han, or Leia in it), I look forward to the day when my Christian list of characters can be just as exhaustive.

Hmmmm. Maybe another good article would be: what is an iconic Christian Fiction character?