Are Christian Books Too Preachy?

    Randomly visit the page of a book provider, pick any Christian Fiction book, and read the reviews. No matter how well written the prose are, or how cleverly crafted the plot is, there is almost always someone who said the book was awful because it was too “preachy”. These complaints could be valid and I am not one to belittle another person’s experiences, but when almost every book in a very broad category is getting slammed for this one flaw I have to wonder, is this warranted? Based on my extensive experience with Christianity and Christian fiction, the answer isn’t a simple yes or no because my eyes have looked over the pages of a book I found to be preachy.*Cough* Elsie Dismore *Cough* However, that particular series was written for children over a hundred years ago. Modern Christian books are very different.

       

     Christian fiction isn’t the only category of books with a moral to them. When I was reading Glass Sword by Victoria Aveyard, I noticed Mare mentions anyone can betray anyone on several occasions. Is this preaching? I didn’t think so because I felt this was a logical conclusion for Mare to make based on her past experiences in the social environment around her. I don’t think Victoria wanted her readers to think it is stupid to have faith in people. She was trying to show how betrayal will affect the way a person views the world. Can Christian authors not do the same? In The Redemption by M.L. Tyndall, there is a character who has strong faith in God and his faith was the result of past events. I didn’t find this character was preachy because the author was showing why this man had faith and how it affected the way he lived his life. Just how Victory showed how Mare developed her worldview and how this view affects the decisions she makes.

      What my point is, whether or not something is too preachy mostly boils down to perception. If I were to read a text of a religion I don't practice, I would probably find it a little off-putting because of my biases. However, it might be just another Tuesday to one who practices that religion. The same could go for a non-Christian reading one of M.L. Tyndall’s books. The characters casually bringing up God in conversation may seem to him or her as the author simply using her characters to drill the message even further when in fact she was portraying a normal conversation between Christians.

Photo Sources

Free Images       https://www.freeimages.com/search/pulpit

Amazon.com     https://www.amazon.com/Glass-Sword-Queen-Victoria-Aveyard/dp/0062310666/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1519346295&sr=1-1&keywords=Glass+Sword

https://www.amazon.com/Redemption-Legacy-Kings-Pirates/dp/1618430203