Being a Christian with a Secular Book

[Barzel]

I am currently working on a secular novel. I have been able to talk about it openly with secular crowds, and with some Christians. Unfortunately, I find myself in a bind when I talk to many Christians about it, because they get hung up on the "secular elements" of the manuscript.

My personal convictions on language and violence in a book do not follow the Fundamentalist mentality I grew up in. However, many in my social circle also come from that Fundamentalist perspective, and they maintain it.

My Fundamentalist friends want to be supportive of my career as a writer, but they mostly end up ignoring me because I do not write strictly Christian fiction. Similarly, I have many atheistic/agnostic friends who decry the Christian elements of my manuscript (several of my characters mention God, and one of them is a defrocked Episcopal priest).

I enjoy the company of my friends and want to keep them as friends, but their attitudes toward me have often been cold, dismissive, and--at times--insulting. Because of my mental health problems, I find these things very difficult to take, and it is not something I can just "get over." As a result, I have had to confront both Christian and non-Christian friends, usually leading to a separation our friendship. In some cases, this has meant distancing myself from friends I have known for twenty or more years.

My conscience is clean in regard to my manuscript, and I am confident that God will use it to His glory, while also allowing it to be a simply enjoyable read for fans of the genre. God has used the secular things of life to minister to me, and it is that approach which I apply to my manuscript. Still, the fact my writing is so divisive is disheartening.

Has anyone else faced similar difficulties? How do you cope?

 

[chaoticfirefly]

I haven't, because I don't surround myself with people who judge.

It's your manuscript, it's your story. What people don't understand is, you're not there to serve them and their beliefs or choice of non-belief. You write for you. Your story is your story, written by you and not them.

If you like what you wrote, forget the people who are upset with you for choosing a secular story.

Get it?

 

[Angelquill]

I will never forget the time a Christian friend came bursting into my little "office" yelling something about the (then new) Harry Potter books. Evidently, she and her church friends disapproved of the books, going so far as to claim that there were child sacrifices in it.
Now, me...I've never been one to take anyone else's word for such things. I had to find out what all the noise was about, so, to my friend's great disgust, I bought a couple of the books.
I was hooked. I now have all the books and all the movies.
Controversy continued to swirl around the stories, with Christians doing everything but going out with torches and pitchforks...

Of course, it's all died down now. Harry has faded into obscurity, and those inflamed Christians have found other things to upset them. Since then, there has been "The Golden Compass", which I found to be rather boring, and, of course, Dan Brown's "Da Vinci Code"...I found the movie too complicated and the protagonist completely unbelievable...

However, both of these films, and several others that my Christian friend disliked, were smash hits.

In other words, I wouldn't worry too much about what a few people think about your writing. You write whatever you are inspired to write.

And just maybe you'll be on next year's best seller list...