Her.meneutics: The Perils of Christian Chick Lit

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June 29, 2010

The Perils of Christian Chick Lit

How my sugary-sweet chick lit relationships turned on me.

Ruth Moon

Mandie Shaw, Nancy Drew, Anne of Green Gables, and Elsie Dinsmore were close companions of mine throughout the teen years. I also enjoyed as occasional playmates Sierra Jensen and Christy Miller.

I now regret some of those friendships.

As a voracious reader, I devoured practically everything that came my way, from Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys to the entire Anne of Green Gables series to War and Peace and even an ill-fated attempt at James Joyce’s Ulysses. And while I initially loved homiletic literature like In His Steps and the Elsie Dinsmore series, and the ubiquitous Christy Miller and Sierra Jensen novels, I’ve since wondered if those novels did more harm than help.

Ruth Graham’s excellent article in Slate discusses the merits of Christian “chick lit” as a “grounded alternative to the Gossip Girl landscape.” This is likely a fair comparison, although admittedly I haven’t read the Gossip Girl book series, now eclipsed in popularity by the TV series of the same name. What I question is whether Christians should be reading, or writing, anything that merits comparison to Gossip Girl, and whether today’s variety of popular Christian fiction is healthier — or more “grounded” — than its secular counterpart.

Elsie Dinsmore, for those who haven’t met her, is a very good 12-year-old in the antebellum South, who is cared for hand and foot by slaves and spreads kindness and doormat-like subservience among everyone she meets. Questions of slavery and Dinsmore’s pampered upbringing aside, Dinsmore’s Christianity is unlike anything I’ve seen anywhere — including the Bible. Even Jesus and Paul got angry when occasion demanded; in the 26-book series, Elsie never does.

Here is a typical narrative arc in the Sierra Jensen genre: The heroine goes about daily life, interspersing said life with prayers, generally out loud, beginning “Dear Lord, please . . . .” When crisis hits, Jensen prays more earnestly, and a miraculous coincidence resolves the crisis to everyone’s satisfaction. And life goes on.

Granted, author Robin Jones Gunn includes some character development and a plot structure on par with Nancy Drew (which isn’t saying much, but certainly made me happy at age 12). But the series’ approach to faith is supremely unrealistic and could even be damaging to young readers. Heroes and heroines in Christian teen novels progress along a normal life trajectory, for the most part parallel to secular books in the adventure/romance genre, but add prayer and subtract four-letter words and sex scenes. The basic message: The Christian life is basically the secular life, with a little addition and subtraction.

This should not be.

The Christian life is or at least strives to be entirely different from a secular one. Christians have a different focus, a different purpose, a different incentive for living. The faith we share should change our lives at the core, not just at the frosting level of prayer before breakfast and during trauma.

This is why I don’t quite agree with Graham’s categorical lumping of Christian chick lit with Catherine Marshall’s beloved Christy. In Christy — one of my favorite novels — a girl sets out to conquer the world and, in so doing, meets her God, herself, and her spouse. Faith is dealt with unflinchingly as a sometimes harsh and unfathomable reality; it is not icing on the cake, the “Dear Lord, give me this dress, and I will be happy” faith of so many teen Christian novels. It’s a faith that allows Alice, one of the main characters, to be raped in her teens by a pastor friend, and allows Christy to see death up close for the first time in the barren backwoods of Appalachia. The faith is one that grows and stretches its followers rather than letting them escape reality.

Of Christian chick lit, Graham writes, “As far as girlish escapism goes, it’s better than holding out for a Prada purse.” But is it really? “So fixed on heaven they are no earthly good” was a popular derogatory description in my grandmother’s generation — and could just as well apply to the heroines of Christian chick lit today. Perpetuating faith as a golden key or get out of jail free card when trouble hits doesn’t encourage readers to grapple with the reality of a faith that often does not answer prayer, at least not in a way we can understand or expect. It’s easy enough to disengage from the world’s problems; we don’t need popular literature to tell us that faith is at root a quick fix.

I want books that offer a faith that is real, a faith that informs my view of the world and helps me inhabit it better. Adding prayer and deleting bad language and sex scenes from a mediocre chick lit novel seems a terrible recipe for healthy entertainment. Perhaps such novels are best left in the bargain bin at the Christian bookstore.

Comments

Oh don't remind me of Elsie Dinsmore! I grew up in an ultra-conservative patriarchal movement that said Anne of Green Gables and most other novels were sinful...but Elsie Dinsmore was approved. In my jr. high years those books did a lot to make me feel I didn't "measure up" as a Christian.

Not to mention that the view of slavery presented is WRONG. Slavery WASN'T wonderful.

Good article and I completely agree with it, but it's difficult to satisfy the need people have for a good story, without it becoming the same ole same ole, with Christian verbiage.

Is that some women just love love stories? Is it that some people always want stories about living happily ever after? I really enjoyed Piretti's ground breaking 'darkness' novels. Regardless of whether you approved of the theology or not, it gave some really different aspects of Christian life... of course, these have been replicated in much poorer ways since then. Piretti may not be the most fluid of writers but his story lines are imaginative and not predictable.

Ted Dekker began really well but his stories have become increasingly so dark that they are now of the 'Christian horror(!!?)' genre... I can't read the newer ones.

Tim Le Haye spun into 12 books a story that should have taken up 3 at the most... but they sold well!

So who can write well, succinctly, imaginatively, and in a way that is spiritually and emotionally healthy and still be interesting? We don't need more writers, but we do need them to be better writers, and to be at least as in touch with the WHY as well as the WHAT of what they're writing.

Thanks for your comments. Bev, you raise a good question; I have enjoyed a small, random spattering from the "chick lit" genre, though few have been geared toward teens specifically.

I really enjoyed (and still do) the books Graham mentioned - The Bronze Bow, L'Engle's Time Quartet and the Narnia books. I also really enjoy Atonement Child by Francine Rivers and Pascal's Wager by Nancy Rue, who also wrote a historical series for children that I remember enjoying in middle school.

As one who read a few Elsie Dinsmore books in the 1930's and found them challenging me to follow my Lord more closely, this sounds like much ado about not much. I have met a few more like me who benefitted from reading Elsie Dinsmore. We weren't as precocious as some some of you seem to have been. I suggest you spend your time to write what you think is needed. In that era, we read and re-read the few books in our homes or schools. Most formative for me were the few missionary stories that came into my little world. Now, we of that era relish all the books and great reading available to us. Yet, for some children I see, reading any of the books you think are not up to par would be a plus in their lives. The world is full of a lot of different kinds of children and families.

When I read the title of this piece, I expected it to be about Chick lit. The article is about young adult fiction as far as I can see. Chick lit is a very specific genre dealing with a single young woman in an urban society, trying to keep her work, social and faith life intact while living in a world that opposes many of her values. These novels usually have humor and make us laugh at ourselves. I just wanted to clarify. I'm a Christian novelist but I don't write chick lit.

As noted, this article is not about chick lit but young adult novels. Before criticizing, it's always good to get simple facts straight. As to the subjects of YA novels being unrealistic or shallow, remember these books are written for girls whose big problems revolve around popularity, boyfriends, and a developing faith. Certainly some face far worse situations, but many if not most face high school and all its pressures. Are these YA books effective or merely shallow? A few years ago I was browsing in the fiction section of a Christian bookstore. Two girls about 17 or 18 were also there. I asked them who their favorite authors were. "Robin Jones Gunn," answered one. "Her Christy Miller series is why I wear this." She held out her left hand, and there sat a purity ring. Not bad for a book series, I'd say.

Genre identification fail!
Author bashing win.

I've noticed that any genre you can find in the general marketplace, you can find the Christian equivalent to in the Christian marketplace. That includes vampire and horror novels, as well as the romance/historical/etc. Interesting. We're mimicking the culture rather than influencing it, and often in a derivative, poor, sanitized way. (Not always.) Just taking out 4 letter words and explicit sexual content and adding pray/Bible verses doesn't make a novel spiritually compelling.

By the same token, having offensive material in a novel doesn't make it spiritually uncompelling, necessarily. My unpublished novel has sexual content and some bad language; it's necessary (and yes, it IS necessary, not just thrown in for "edginess") to the plot, which deals with the harsh reality of lingering sexual brokenness and unrelenting mental illness, even in the lives of those who have received grace and are changed by their faith. I believe that the truth about redemption, hope and grace is evident throughout.

Our world is broken. Lives are messy. We need to grapple with our faith and show the world that it's OK to not have all the answers, that sometimes prayers aren't answered how we want them to be, and that we're just as messed up as people who don't share our religious beliefs. It's my hope that if my book is ever published, that readers will be pointed to God and given hope.

I understand your sentiments. This is why I try to write more realistically for teens. In my close to 100 books for teen readers, I address it all -- including homosexuality, witchcraft, cutting, drugs, sexuality, suicide...you name it and I've probably written about it. And I do take some heat for it too. But the hundreds of letters I've received from teen readers is well worth it. But because I care about my own mental health plus I know readers are diverse, I also write some "ligher" faire. Like Carter House Girls, which--yes--I wrote to compete with Gossip Girl (because I HAVE read Gossip Girl). And I wanted to give those GG genre readers what they want -- boys, fashion, money, mistakes...along with a good dose of consequences and, oh yeah, God.

Of course when you look back on Young Adult fiction (which is what you're writing about, not Chick Lit) as an adult it's going to seem shallow and trite, especially in how it deals with conflicts. That's because, as it's already been pointed out, it's been written for CHILDREN who are still trying to figure out right from wrong. They're not ready for shades of gray.

At twenty-nine years old, I went back to college to finish my undergraduate degree. I remember being shocked time upon time in my Philosophy & Ethics class at the black-and-white way the eighteen- and nineteen-year-olds in the class saw things, how they couldn't see more than one side of an issue, how they just wanted to know what the "right" answer was. And these were COLLEGE students---kids who had graduated from high school. With Young Adult fiction, we're talking about stories written for kids whose view of the world is even less developed (YA fiction usually targets teens between ages thirteen and sixteen).

What I don't see in either commentary (this one or the one on Slate) are the voices of those people for whom these books are written. Where are the quotes from teens who have read these books? I, too, read voraciously as a teen---everything from Madeleine L'Engle to Janette Oke to general-market YA romance novels to Laura Ingalls Wilder to Anne of Green Gables. Do I, as an adult, now consider them "great works of literature"? No, of course not. But not only was I learning the values that shaped me into the adult I've become---learning the precepts of right and wrong, the consequences that follow poor decision-making, and the importance of building healthy relationships with others---I was, most importantly, READING. Expanding my world by reading historical romances set during important events during American history (directly leading me to minor in history) and developing a desire to express my own creativity in writing (six published novels and counting).

By the way, Christy was not written as a Young Adult novel, nor as a "Christian fiction" novel. It was written as, and published as, a novel for the general market, targeted at adult readers. It was published by McGraw-Hill in 1967 and labeled "Historical Fiction."

What a refreshing and honest look at this genre. We should always be thinking critically about what we're reading, even with something like chick lit that most people consider "harmless." (Thanks for sticking up for Christy, though — one of my personal favorites!)

The article shows you are a thoughtful Christian and reader. Perhaps my new release, Angela 1: Starting Over, would be in your line. You can read about it on my blog. Thanks!

"Christy" is based on a true story, although a fictionalized version, so that may explain why it is so very different from the other books mentioned in this article.

I read all the Nancy Drews as a child, but my favorite book from childhood was Alcott's "Little Women." I know that dates me, but so much of what is being written today seems shallow by comparison.

Finally, I have to say that I don't mind if a fictional character is larger than life or an ideal. If I want to read sordid "reality" there's always the newspaper!

I read this article and the one in Slate with interest. As the mother of a tween who reads voraciosuly, I'm excited to have her enjoy Nancy Drew as much as I did as a teen. But I'm also grateful for authors like Nicole O'Dell, Robin Jones Gunn and Melody Carlson who can help me introduce her to real-life decisions and the consequences of those choices. Nicole's Scenarios series is one my daughter can't put down and she enjoys reading the stories and seeing the consequences of different choices. I want to help my daughter confront those consequences so she can have more ammunition as she makes choices. I want her motivation to be pleasing God, but I know it helped me to understand the potential consequences, too.

I'm sorry, but Nancy Drew was for wimps. Trixie Belden was a lot more fun (20 years ago, at least). :)

I wish this article would be re-titled because it doesn't discuss chick lit. Chick lit and young adult fiction are very different things.

While not a great fan of Chick Lit, I love a good love story. But love gets messy sometimes, whether we are talking about romance, families, missions, or any other kind. Please, authors, don't hit me over the head with how very "Christian" your story is. Tell me a good story and let Christ shine through it, even if it means some gritty truth and dirty words. (Yes, ratchet it down for younger readers; some of them still haven't heard it all.) Not everything needs to be ugly, but that was the life I came out of and many others are still stuck in. If God's not afraid to go there, why should you (or I) be? Thanks to all who share the love of God through their writing.

You make some good points here about much Christian YA/chick lit taking Christianity and turning it into something shallow. I think it's good to have alternatives to mainstream chick lit, but that alternative needs to hold up a realistic example of women who "take up their crosses daily."

Not sure if you've read them or not, but I'd be curious to hear what you think of the Yada Yada Prayer Group series and the Potluck Club series. I haven't read either of these, but they're on my TBR list. Fora long time I didn't read any fiction because I was so disenfranchised with the obscenity and lack of morals in secular fiction and the absence of real faith displayed in Christian novels. The series that really got me back into reading fiction was The Mitford Years by Jan Karon. Yes, those books are escapist (and I think that's okay to an extent), but the characters really seek God, and God is treated as a main character Himself.

I'm also curious about your thoughts on feminism in series like Nancy Drew and Anne of Green Gables. I know a lot of Christians who are opposed to these books because they "subtly promote feminism." These same people promote the likes of Eslie Dinsmore without addressing the problems inherent in those books, like glossing over the horrors of slavery and featuring a character who is impossibly perfect.

Thanks for writing such a comprehensive article on such an important topic!

Quote from this article
"... Catherine Marshall’s beloved Christy. In Christy — one of my favorite novels — a girl sets out to conquer the world and, in so doing, meets her God, herself, and her spouse. ..."

A historical note ....Catherine Marshall says that "Christy" was largely based on her mom's real life experiences. Her mom - in the early 20th Century (long skirts & all) was (as I remember) maybe in her late teens when she went to teach in a very poor Appalacian area. Back then, I don't think teachers needed a four year college degree.

Maybe THAT"S the element that 1. made "Christy" so popular and 2. may well make "CHristy" a recurring favorite with our granddaughters...CHRISTY is (essentially) real.
Christy is based on a real life young girl seeking to make life better for others as a teacher and as a young tough sincere christian ...She taught in a very poor Appalacian community (as I remember...it's been a while since I read this vivid book!). She faced some wonderful and brutal real life stuff...Hmmm

Maybe "Christy" needs to be on my college daughter's Christmas gift pile. (And I am NOT any kind of sales representative...for anyone.)

The book CHRISTY does handle some adult level themes - I would suggest "Christy" for junior high girls (boys) and above...but the themes are handled in a strong and NON-gratuitous way. i.e. the pain and suffering involved with some choices follows...and is believable.

No pasted together "Christian Lite" Teen who is almost interchangeable with her somewhat more secular non-Christian colleagues.

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