Guest Post by Joshua Madden: CTJ’s Only Fan Issues Writing Advice for Christians

(Editor’s Note: Chad and his wife Becki call Evie, their 4-month-old daughter, “Evie Wonder” when her head movements resemble those of a certain songwriter. You need to know this to understand Josh’s opening reference.)

Since Chad Thomas Johnston has described me as his only fan – something that I think “Evie Wonder” would vehemently disagree with between naps – I was destined to write a guest post for him. The nice thing about this logic is that since Chad will probably not give himself enough credit and assume that only he and I will read this post, I can essentially write about whatever I want.

Given these constraints, it seems only fair that I avoid controversy and write about something safe: religion and politics.

To provide you with a bit of background about myself, I grew up Christian, but I no longer call myself a Christian. I would say I believe in a higher power of some kind, but Christianity is something I very much struggle to believe. I would like to believe in Christ, but I’m not going to pretend to have a genuine belief in something that I do not. Christ said something about avoiding lukewarmness, so I’m going to continue sitting outside of the microwave, hoping that eventually someone will put me back in and reheat me instead of assuming I’ve been nuked all the way through.

Having had the perspective of reading religious works as both a Christian (formerly) and an agnostic (currently), I think I am vaguely qualified to write something about how Christian authors can make their writing more universal. Often I think Christian writing is directed at Christians, which is fine, but it’s often done at the expense of people who do not believe. As a graduate student in information systems, I have seen firsthand how unappealing technical writing can be to people who are not technically-minded. IT writers take active steps to make sure their writings appeal to a wider audience; the book Does IT Matter? is a terrific example of a book that offers broad appeal about a difficult topic.

If post-docs hidden in backrooms across the world have figured out how to effectively do this, I think one billion Christians are capable of doing this as well. Chad does this well, so I think it’s only appropriate that I post my pieces of advice here. Here are four points of advice I have for Christian writers:

Point #1: Understand that writing, for whatever reason, makes you an authority on a topic.

When you write a book or even a blog post, it is generally expected that you know what you’re talking about unless you say otherwise. I’ve worked at multiple college newspapers and, when I first started, I assumed I didn’t need to put forth much effort since it was “only a college newspaper.” Many people who read my columns could understand that I was a college sophomore, but they couldn’t understand why I was wrong. Don’t assume that people will understand your shortcomings unless you share what they are. Even then, do your best to minimize these shortcomings.

I think of Donald Miller’s Christian pseudo-memoir Blue Like Jazz that I had the opportunity to read this year. There’s a section where he talks about the fact that he never understood the importance of tithing. That’s fine for a new Christian, but not for someone working as a Christian writer and speaker. His point is a legitimate one – that we all have struggles to work through as we become better Christians – but it is a point that may be meaningless to people who do not believe.

Point #2: Feel free to be political, but don’t do it at the expense of religion.

Since I dissed on Blue Like Jazz a little bit in the last point, I’ll give him some kudos here: Miller talks about the fact that he was turned off by a religion that seemed to sacrifice its beliefs for allegiance to the Republican Party. Let me be clear: neither the Democrats nor the Republicans were ordained by God, and when Christians pretend otherwise, it alienates people who do not believe.

Don’t get me wrong. If you truly believe in an all-powerful God that desires to save all of mankind from eternal damnation, that is a belief that should inspire absolutely everything else you do and believe. That includes politics. Being religious is not an excuse to avoid politics, but it is a reason to analyze issues from a religious perspective and to try to place yourself in the shoes of others.

I was partially inspired to write about this because of a recent Republican debate in South Carolina, in which Ron Paul was booed for saying he wants to apply “the Golden Rule” to international relations. Straight up booed. For the golden rule. By a room full of Christians.

I’m not saying he was right or wrong, but I think the Christian response should have been to thoughtfully consider his viewpoint, rather than rejecting it outright. When Christians discount other Christians’ beliefs, it makes it easy for people who do not believe to discount them, too.

Point #3: Don’t be afraid to speak when God inspires you.

If you are a genuine Christian, it should impact everything you do. Everything. I recently had a roommate – a devout Christian – who told me he planned to pursue full-time international missions work after school. He then apologized for the fact that he was sure such a pursuit seemed silly to me.

It doesn’t. In fact, at least for me, I envy such a clear purpose in life. With billions of people in the world who are not Christians, it seems to me that Christians should be excited – yes, excited – to share their faith with those who believe otherwise. People understand this, and can sense when a Christian’s enthusiasm is genuine.

I’m not saying all Christians should be full-time missionaries – especially when I’m writing a blog post directed at writers. My parents are both extremely devout Christians, and neither has gone on a long term mission trip. My mother does a lot of organizational volunteer work, and my dad does a lot of volunteer work in construction and maintenance. Both would happily say that, if their work enables someone else to spread the Gospel, they are perfectly okay with that.

As Christian writers, don’t be afraid to say that you feel God has inspired you to write Christian works. When you’re upfront about the inspiration, people don’t feel like you’re trying to trick them into some kind of belief. Everyone loves to be around people who are genuine – even people who believe differently than you do.

Point #4: Be honest about prayer.

The number one issue that Christians sugarcoat, in my not-so-humble opinion, is prayer. My dad used to teach children’s Bible studies, and he always struggled with the fact that, while he presented God as someone like Santa Claus, he knew God was not like Santa Claus. We often go to God with wish lists, but He (the majority of the time) does not grant our wishes. This is a major struggle for people who do not believe. Even the movie Immortals, which is hardly an in-depth look at modern theology, touches this topic. I can guarantee you that when you are not genuine about the realities of prayer, you turn people who do not believe away.

Everyone – both believers and unbelievers – loves to hear when a prayer has been answered in an obvious and meaningful way. Most of the time, however, God has other plans for our prayers, and we may not know how He answered them until years – yes, years – later. Christians understand this. People who do not believe struggle with it.

It’s so easy to make stories of prayer being answered more genuine. Just write at the end, “This was a time when God’s answer to my prayer was obvious, but it’s not always like that. Many times – maybe even most of the time – God doesn’t reveal to us how He’s working on our behalf, and that is one of the ways I grow in my relationship with Christ.” You can write a 5,000 story about how God has answered a specific prayer, but by adding sentences like these, you add an honesty to your essay that appeals to the skeptic.

Perhaps it’s just because Star Wars is back in theaters, but I feel compelled to bring up Yoda. Yoda does stuff all the time that no one understands – he forbids Qui-Gon Jinn from joining the Jedi council, and denies Anakin Skywalker the right to pursue his Jedi training – and people always defer to him because he is wise. Yoda is often wrong, but people still defer to his judgement because he is wise. Why is it we can accept that Yoda would do things that we don’t understand, but God might not? Much wiser than Yoda, God is.

Conclusion:

In order to be consistent with point #1, I’ll take this second to remind you that I am neither a published author nor a Christian, so some of my nuggets of wisdom here for Christian writers may, in fact, be wrong. See my words as observations from a wannabe. However, I hope you might find something in this post worth remembering.

Of course, as Chad’s supposedly only fan, he’s going to assume no one is reading this anyway.

Joshua Madden is a graduate student at Baylor University, where he studies some things and writes other things. For some reason, the Baylor Lariat also lets him work as their A&E Editor. He is writing his second novel and trying to get the first one published. He likes White Castle and Sam Bradford, who got to ride the bench on his championship-winning fantasy team, despite being injured for large portions of the year. You can follow him on Twitter @MaddenJoshua, and you should because he feels sad about how few followers he has.

“Chad Thomas Johnston is an author, sonuva’ preacha’ man, PhD-dropout, singer/songwriter, music producer/sonic reducer, daydreaming doodler, gorilla/guerilla publicist, cinemaddict, & pop-culture obsessive. He is represented by Seattle, WA-based literary agent Jenée Arthur, who is currently shopping his debut manuscript to major publishing houses.

Follow Him on Twitter: @Saint_Upid

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