(no subject)

[ebonlock]

Oh c'mon, you had to see this coming:

Could the next Harry Potter be a devout Christian?

As the days tick down until Saturday, when a breathless world learns the fate of the teenage wizard, a new breed of fantasy fiction, with Potter-style stories, is emerging.

Like the Potter series, it has mystical creatures, macabre events, epic battles and heroic young protagonists.

But, unlike the Potter books, this genre has overt Christian tones: messiah-like kings who return from the dead, fallen satanic characters and young heroes who undergo profound conversions. What you won't generally find: humans waving wands and performing spells.

[...]

Steeple Hill, the Christian fiction imprint of romance publisher Harlequin, will churn out 128 titles this year while hewing to strict standards followed by many Christian book publishers: No swearing (not even "gosh" and "darn"), no dancing or drinking by Christian characters, no gambling, no mention of intimate body parts. And forget sex scenes, even if the characters are married to each other.

TBogg comments:

So basically the books will be like the Bible but with more sword fights and less gay-stonings. This could be bigger than Christian Rap.

Isn't all fantasy fiction pretty much the Ultimate Battle Between Good and Evil from Narnia to The Stand?

"Gosh" is a swear word? Huh, I did not know that. And the whole no dancing thing, I thought that was just a rule for the more, uh shall we say, "eccentric" of the Christian groups.

Comments

[kirbyk.livejournal.com]

Heh. I mean, they're more than welcome to publish whatever they want - way, way better than trying to ban the stuff they don't want - but no dancing, really?

It's certainly possible to write good stories with a Christian underpinning (ie, Narnia, though I've never been a personal fan), but I'd be surprised if anything survived this basically slush pile and became read outside of a very closed circle. I mean, I don't need wearing and drinking and dancing and boobies in all my books.

Just, you know, most of them.

[pikabot]

Yeah, only the batshit crazies do the 'no dancing' thing.

Also, I resent that implication about Christian Rap. The only rap artist I actually like falls into that category. >:(

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

Actually one of my best friends growing up was a member of one of the sects that didn't allow for dancing. I always thought that a bit odd but she was a sweet girl so we just avoided the whole dancing thing.

[psyfic.livejournal.com]

Gosh!

Darn.

Bugger even.

[rhi-silverflame.livejournal.com]

"Gosh" is a swear word?

I was raised to believe this, actually. (Though it's fairly evident that I don't buy it any more, huh?)

The general idea as I understand it is that it's a substitute for using the name of the Lord in vain. The rather dominionist church I grew up in held that it wasn't so much the words you used as the emotions behind them that constituted the profanity -- that saying "Gosh" with the same intent and in the same context as one would take the Lord's name in vain still amounted to swearing.

That went for "darn," "heck," etc.

[ebonlock.livejournal.com]

So just out of curiosity how would you express anger/disappointment/etc. in a church approved way? I'm seriously curious about this, I was raised an atheist (though both sets of grandparents attempted to pull us towards either Southern Baptist or the Catholic church) and it all just seems so odd to me.

[elenderel.livejournal.com]

Wow, I didn't realize "gosh" is a swear word, I use it a bit ... although to be honest I have been known to exclaim, on a REALLY bad day, "Jiminy Cricket!" and sometimes even "Christmas Trees!"

The folks at work get a good laugh, I get it out of my system, the planet keeps turning.

As for dancing ... gosh, it hasn't come up at church yet. If you look at a couple of biblical references to dancing, Miriam danced while playing a tambourine (if I remember correctly) and King David danced in his underwear? or naked? (can't recall that one, either) and y'know what? God didn't spank their behinds for it.

Now that I'm thinking about it, the Bible doesn't condemn Noah for getting plastered after the ark finally settled on solid ground (I mean really: wouldn't YOU?) - but his son is cursed because he peeked in on him in his naked drunken stupor. (Moral of the story = drunk is okay, as long as you're not a king/supervisor on the job; and dancing is okay, even if you're worshiping naked while doing so.)