Sitting in a knotty-pine cabin near Copper Harbor, Michigan, I was enjoying a get-away to a peaceful setting on the edge of Lake Superior. Reviewing books is something that I tackle because it causes me to read outside my usual genre preference. So I picked up a Christian romance novel off of a shelf in the cabin mainly out of curiosity. The plot of this particular novel involved a young man and woman getting to know each other because of difficult family circumstances. The young man and woman in the novel spend hours visiting in each other’s homes with a lot of physical contact not progressing beyond a certain level. The female makes note of the rippled muscles of the man or his tan face or his tousled hair or his tight jeans. The male notices the slim figure of the woman or her delicate fingers or her feminine legs. The woman stays in the man’s home, but they sleep in their separate rooms, “of course.” He brings her tea in her room, but he leaves promptly. In nearly every chapter, the kissing, shoulder-rubbing, and the caressing continue to occur without any consequences and little verbal communication. I began to become concerned about the poor example of communication between a couple with conversation no deeper than “What should we have for lunch?” And the other concern inherent is a misconception of the physical relationship in dating that is misconstrued as “normal” or “necessary” for a dating couple. The apparent naivety might cause a young person to wonder either why the dating partner does not want physical contact or to wonder why the physical progressed rapidly and regrettably too far in their relationship. These concerns stayed with me as I engaged in another regular week of teaching.
After a few weeks of having returning to school, I proceeded to take an informal, anonymous survey of both college-aged women and married women who had read quite a number of these types of Christian romance novels. Many of them reported that their mothers and grandmothers had bought them several Christian romance series for every birthday and then proceeded to read the series themselves. One young, single woman wrote to me the following: “I believe that my thinking was shaped by the way that Christian fiction romance portrays love–that you can have all of the cuddling and touch but have no problem with impurity before marriage.” One married woman wrote to tell me that these novels became the romance that she did not have in her marriage and that the heroes in these novels made her have disdain for her husband because he was not “like that hero.”
Maybe the novel that I had read on a break from school had been a “bad egg.” So I then walked into a Christian bookstore and literally grabbed another Christian Romance novel directly from the shelf as to not be biased in my choice. I did not choose the novel because of the author or because of a questionable title. Once again, I was rather amazed at the overemphasis on the physical and the lack of biblical communication between the “Christian” young people that were dating. Besides a rather shallow plot and, in some aspects, inconsitent writing style in this particular novel, the couple ends up getting married yet have never communicated their feelings to each other at all.
These reading experiences caused me to stop and to ask myself a few questions. “What have we done to an entire generation of readers?” “How have we misinformed these readers about genuine relationships, friendships, and marriage?” Probably girls and boys as young as 9 through 12 years old would be reading this type of Christian romance. Also, I imagine a generation of men and women (single and married), who have saturated their reading hours with these romance novels and have deemed those novels to be acceptable binge material because the books were purchased in a local Christian bookstore or online from a Christian book distributor. Here is what I am asking of you as a reader: “Can we simply keep an open mind to some of the concerns of such reading material?” I began to jot down several other areas of concern. One of those dangers was this apparent distortion of biblical relationships when it comes to dating and marriage.
Since the explosion of Christian Romance fiction onto the popular market in the 80s and 90s especially, how many young adults have been fed the questionable philosophy of friendship and dating based on little communication verbally and much interaction physically. My concerns are not without objective back-up. I had received numbers of letters from my anonymous survey that confirm the concern that relationships have been distorted because of past reading material that in reality caused the young person to question a genuine relationship simply because the dating partner wanted to be careful in the area of the physical relationship. So the novels had affected the ability of some young people to order a balanced and careful relationship. They also expressed the awkwardness at times of thinking that their relationship would be perfect like the novel’s message of “relationship.” This concerns me.
Another concern with this type of Christian romance fiction comes the question of discerning simple fiction from sophisticated fiction. Simple fiction would typically have a blatant theme or watered-down theme. The theme may end up lending itself to “preaching” or telling the reader what to think or encouraging the reader not to think at all because of the wishy-washy emphasis. Usually, the reader knows the beginning, middle, and end of the novel simply by reading the book’s back cover. The plot is simplistic; subplots are absent; and melodrama runs high. Melodrama would be something like a blind girl who has a blind puppy gets adopted by a blind couple. Simple fiction should rarely bear the label of literature. It just does not rise to that level—it appears to be market-driven and a “quick read.” Characters are few yet perfect, flawless, and static. Typically, Christian romance novels follow this basic concept: Young independent woman ventures out into the big world to see something beyond her wholesome upbringing. Woman meets dashing, handsome, successful rancher, farmer, businessman, athlete, or writer in the town or city where she hopes to make a way for herself. Upon their first encounter, she does not like him at all. He woos her with his large biceps and hairy chest. She finally gives in, dates him, gets that first kiss magic, and ends up having a perfect picnic in a field or in the middle of Central Park. I’m being rather facetious here, but I think you can catch what I’m talking about.
Sophisticated fiction has fresh, deep, insightful, critically-thought-through themes. Richly developed subplots help to drive the theme throughout the work. Characters have flaws. They are relatable. They have depth and room for growth. Sophisticated fiction makes full use of literary devices like metaphor, symbolism, foreshadowing, and mystery. Let’s take the novel The Count of Monte Cristo by the French author, Alexandre Dumas, for example. We have themes of revenge, love, war, justice, friendship, loyalty, and personal faith. The character relationships in the novel are complex to say the least. We are not told what the desire for revenge does to someone; we see what the desire for revenge does. Sophisticated fiction leaves the reader with a sense of personal growth, change, and the memory of having shared life with real people in real circumstances. The other dimension of a sophisticated work is that many times the author has written from what he/she knows. Thus, the ability to relate to the author increases once again.
Our literary history is full of works that rise to the level of sophisticated reading. In fact, the redemptive plan many times could be the template for many novels whether the authors are Christian or not. Man’s need of God is evident whether the author intended for that truth to overshadow the work or not. I would encourage all of us as readers to be on the mission of finding and of reading sophisticated fiction. I did not say that there is no sophisticated Christian fiction. I am focusing in on Christian Romance fiction, a subset of Christian fiction. I do not want to be misunderstood.
Maybe these concerns are not popular; maybe people want to have a quick read, a secret pleasure. Maybe I am in the minority at my concerns. But I do think that my voice needs to be heard, especially to those who have preteens who are engrossed with novel series that disillusion them regarding true life, relationships, and challenges of life that require critical thinking and discernment.
I do have other concerns regarding the genre of what is called Christian Romance Fiction that include a lack of the presence of local church, improper counseling with the novels, theology taught through fictional material at times erroneously, and the appearance of “market-driven” to the detriment of the greater body of Christ. My desire is to raise the concerns and to hope that someone will take notice to think these concerns through critically.