i may not speak for most Christians, but i would like to read about "real-ness" and those who are fearless in the face of staunch and knee-shaking opposition, but stand their ground, and are astutly smart about it, bewcause of the deep-rooted conviction of what injustices arenot s'posed to be, and they might die in the process, but will, with their last breathe fight against tyranny and injustice.
No, not fearless. To paraphrase Heinlein, Fearlessness is not bravery, it is foolishness. The brave man is not fearless, the brave man is one who overcomes his fears.
Confusing bravery with fearlessness is not at all unique to Christians, but it may be more dangerous in a Christian or other work that is trying to teach moral lessons.
Thinking of bravery there is another flaw in simple thinking, we tend to think brave or coward, as if those who are brave are brave in all things and those who are not are not in all things. That is very unreal and getting back to a more real characterization of bravery could work very well in a Christian story. Let me give 2 examples in a non-Christian setting.
Back when comic books were called comic books Amazing (or was it astounding) Tales told a story of a mousy bald man who went to a Gypsy woman for a baldness cure. She sold him a bottle of ointment to rub on his head before going to bed. She said it would cure all ailments of the head. The first night he dreamed he was at Thermopylae, he cut and ran. He woke up with bruises where the leather straps of the shield would have been. Next night he dreamed he was on the Titanic, he dressed as a woman to get on a lifeboat and woke up soaking wet, salt water wet. There may have been one more, not sure. The last night he dreamed that he was working on the Panama Canal, there he volunteered for field trials in Yellow Fever research. He woke up with a high fever. The doctor he saw said it was the first case of yellow fever in decades in the area. He then threw the rest away, he was cured, yes even cured of caring so much about hair.
The other is
Starman Jones by Heinlein. Written in the 40s so key elements fail now (but could be reworked, we would just need a computer failure). It uses one of the common ways to get beyond Faster than Light limits. There are jump points, places that if you hit them just right take you to a different part of the galaxy. The protagonist, Max, is a poor farmboy, stuck with his mom and her current bully of a boyfriend. The society also has basically hereditary professions, ship navigators are one such and the boys uncle was one. He gave the boy his guild books. After a bad incident he takes the books, his meager belongings and leaves the backwoods farm in the middle of the night. He soon meets a man, Sam, who has actually been a spacer who 'helps' him. Great help, the man steals the books and tries to turn them in to the guild for a reward. The books technically were guild property. Max makes it to guild headquarters thinking his uncle had specified him as his heir to guild membership. He had not, it looks like it was just a failure to do the paperwork, but Max is pretty much out of luck. Only pretty much, Sam had tied to get the deposit Max's uncle had to give the guild for the books, he had failed and the guild had the books. Sam was given the deposit. Oh and Max is a math wiz and has an eidetic memory. The books are mostly tables, mainly just logarithms to a lot of decimal points. Getting into space is rather difficult you are 1 percenter rich, an emigrant and that one trip packed like sardines or crew. But to be crew means hereditary guild membership, even for simple things analogous to crew on a cruise ship. Sam and Max are reunited, Max now has money and Sam has questionable connections and experience. Sam can teach Max enough to pass for a pursers mate (I think) and can get forged documents. Sam is straight with Max this time, he lets him know that the forgery will be found out when they return and the trip information is sent to guild headquarters. It is just enough for one trip one where they will eventually jump ship on a nice planet.
It does not work out quite that way. Max shows his math skills and manages to get a chance at being a navigator, at least an apprentice. He is also found out as a fake, but that may be OK as he now has friends in the right places, problems still but solvable. I don't think he ratted out Sam. Things are looking great. But making jumps is a high stress deal. You have to hit spot on, so the ship has to right in the groove, a little off and if you are lucky there is no jump, unlucky and you jump to somewhere unknown. Oh and no computers as we know them mainly done by hand. Yup a jump goes wrong and they end up in unknown space. And from here the adventure starts. I'll omit that except to say that the captain who tried to make a large correction and messed up the sign suffered from guilt and eventually suicided and the navigator who made the initial mistake was unstable and destroyed all the guild books. The only hope is Max and what is in his head. At first they seek a habitable planet, but eventually they decide trying to get home is what nearly everyone wants. They end up on a peaceful planet and decide settling might work. Turns out it is not so peaceful, the top species are centaurs and hostile. Max and his girlfriend are captured and Sam eventually becomes a rescue squad of one to save them. He succeeds but the last bit to the ship is open ground, too much open ground. Sam explains to Max just how important he is, that if Max does not make it they are all pretty much doomed. They try to cross to the ship, they are spotted and while Max and his girlfriend continue Sam turns and fires with textbook perfection, not moving from that position until he is trampled to death.
They then take off and get lucky. With much more in the open one of the ships officers deduces that Sam was almost surely a Space Marine who missed a ships movement and never had the courage to face the music. He did however have the courage to die bravely.
