Editor’s note: In the June 2006 issue of Brotherhood Beacon, Megan Donahue asks where all the Christian novelists are, and Brenda Zook reviews Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead, a novel which wowed the critics and won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, quite a coup for a book with explicitly Christian themes. We invite you to join the online discussion. An exciting bonus: Marilynne Robinson has agreed to participate!

By Megan Donahue

If I had to compile a list of “The Greatest Christian Novels Ever,” I would freak out. I don’t have any authority to create such a list, and even if I did, I know I’d be opening myself up for all kinds of criticism. First of all, I’d have to define a “Christian novel.” There’s no way I could come up with that without provoking somebody. Then I’d have to write the list without having read all the novels ever written, or even all the Christian novels, and so I’d be sure to leave something out.

But if it were unavoidable, I would need an arguable, hypothetical, and purely subjective working definition of the “Christian novel.” Very well. The Christian novel might be: a novel that presents Christ; a novel that presents Christian themes; a novel that presents a Christian worldview. There are many books that fit these descriptions, and what follows is an arguable, hypothetical, and purely subjective beginning of a list.

The first novel I would choose would be Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, because it is essentially about redemption. Then quickly after would come The Chronicles of Narnia, en masse. Then I’d probably throw in To Kill a Mockingbird, maybe Silas Marner, and The Count of Monte Cristo (on my mother’s insistence . . . I haven’t read it yet). By reputation, the great Russian novelists would probably get in. And Uncle Tom’s Cabin, even though it reputedly started the Civil War. My list would go on for awhile, but here’s the crucial “hmm factor” (in that it makes me say, “Hmm . . . ”): only C.S. Lewis would show up in a Christian bookstore. And not one of these books was written in the last forty years.

When talking literature with the unchurched, I know that every book on my list is accessible to them. They are in the public and university libraries. Criticism has been written about them, they have been studied, and analyzed, and most of all, enjoyed by generations of readers. They contain a strong Jesus message, and yet are part of the canon of “secular” literature.

If my great Christian novels aren’t in Christian bookstores, what is? “Christian fiction,” a category that contains both Jan Karon’s charming Mitford series and Christianized trashy romance novels. While one could spend a great deal of time debating the merits of this genre, and the consumer culture that created it, that is for another day. My grand question is: Why aren’t there more Christian novelists?

Obviously someone is creating all this Christian fiction, and I suppose we should call these people novelists, yet they are not the kind of Christian novelists I mean. The kind of novelist I am looking for creates stories that pose questions in the broader cultural discussion. This novelist is not writing for a specific marketing target group (i.e., Christians), but rather to explore issues and tell stories that we encounter as human beings. This Christian novelist’s work is just as interesting to the non-Christian reader as it is to those who share the novelist’s faith. This novelist, present since the advent of the novel, is conspicuously lacking in modern literature.

I blame the culture wars. This is hardly surprising, because I blame the culture wars for a lot of things. Still, in this case, I think my assessment holds. In recent years, American Christianity has been so intent on itself that it has largely withdrawn from participation in larger cultural discussions. In effect, we have a cave, and the books are only for the people who live in it. It’s not that Christian novelists have nothing to say, it’s that they’re not saying it to anyone who isn’t saying the same thing. When one examines the political climate, that may seem untrue, what with the emergence of the religious right, but in the arts and culture sector the Christian voice is largely absent as a discussant.

Yet many Christians are writing novels. The issue is clearly not the creation of literature; rather, it’s a question of the utility of that literature beyond American Christian subculture. A novel that revolves around Christian characters, engaging in specifically Christian problems, holds little interest and even less relevancy to the unchurched. A novel about a person struggling with concepts like sacrifice, nobility, honor, and redemption, as does A Tale of Two Cities, is relevant and interesting indeed.

Sadly, the conclusion that can be drawn is that not only Christian novels, but the Christian voice itself, and to go farther, the message of Christ, are irrelevant and uninteresting. This could not be farther from the truth, but literature of recent years is not a particularly glorious testimony. It wasn’t always this way. Where is the Dickens, the Tolstoy, the Lewis (flawed men all, and some with shaky theology, but each presenting truth in his own way)? Where’s Harriet Beecher Stowe, writing for both justice and truth?

Perhaps they’ve been scared away. Hand in hand with the culture wars comes our own indigenous fear of becoming tainted by the world. We’re holed up in our little Christian nests because we’re afraid of what might happen to us, what we might become, if we acknowledge the world that is not like us. If nothing else, we’ll get really depressed.

This is where all my great Christian novelists have so much to offer. Each of the novels acknowledges the sinful, despairing, cynical world. Each one details it in some way. Yes, say my Christian novelists, there is pain, and hatred, and abuse, and racism, and death, and unworthy life, and the good do not always triumph, and sometimes evil carries the day, and yes, yes, yes, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows, but, and each of the novels carries the crucial but, this is not all there is. This is not all that matters. This is not all we have to measure by, to know, to be part of.

With that assertion, that all the world, with all the agony, is not the final point of discussion, Christian novelists make a statement and a separation. The statement is profoundly different than most writers. The separation is one that doesn’t allow them to become part of the world in its final despair. But, and once again, this is the crucial but, they maintain that separation and make that statement while engaging with that very world.

It’s a tightrope walk. The potential for failure on either side is great. Maybe that’s why there aren’t many Christian novelists lately: it’s really hard.

Megan Donahue is a freelance writer, and attends Grace Christian Fellowship in Flint, Michigan. She is also pursuing a B.A. in English at the University of Michigan-Flint.