At Christian bookstores and websites in recent years I've noticed an increasing amount of Christian romance novels sold alongside the devotionals and study Bibles. Written mostly by women authors, they are often historical novels set in the early American frontier, colonial New England, on the mission front or New Testament times like the new novel "The Centurion's Wife". Another new title, "Escaping the Vampire" by Kimberly Powers, is apparently aimed at teenage girls caught up in the wildly popular "Twilight" franchise. According to a blog I read today, Christian romance is one of the fastest growing book genres in the industry, and the proliferation of such titles in the marketplace attests to its growth.
One popular subgenre is the time-travel romance, where neglected women travel back in time to either have secret affairs with "the man who understands" or change history so that the man they REALLY wanted to marry becomes their husband back in the present. One novel, "The Time Traveler's Wife", was adapted into a very successful feature film earlier this year.
Just to humor myself, I decided to google "Christian time travel romance novels" to see what I could find. To my surprise, there are such things. One forthcoming title, "Seasons in the Mist" by up-and-coming author Deborah Kinnard, is a time-travel romance set in 1353 Cornwall that will hit bookstore shelves around the spring of 2010. A science fiction blogger wrote that "The cutting edge in Christian publishing may well be books about time-travelers who fall in love - and find Jesus along the way."
Joan Shoup of Sheaf House, the Christian publisher who will print "Seasons in the Mist", said in an interview that:
"Christian sci-fi and fantasy are growing markets... [and] Christian romance is most definitely a growing genre, as is romance in general. It never seems to shrink, just to grow. Historical romances have been around for a long time, and now we're seeing combined genres springing up all over the place-romantic suspense, mysteries with a strong romance slant, sci-fi and fantasy romances, and so on are becoming increasingly hot. I personally feel the growth potential is huge as long as publishers put out excellent stories that really engage readers."
Again, the above info was from a sci-fi blog, and a secular one at that. Mrs. Shoup says that combined-genre romance novels are becoming increasingly hot. My question is this: what do "hot" Christian romance novels have to do with bringing people to Jesus?
Maybe I am a little old-fashioned because I am a Lutheran, but when I go to a Christian bookstore I usually go for Bibles, devotional books, magazines or a CD from my favorite worship artist. I have seen comic book novels of the Gospels drawn in the Japanese manga style which are biblically accurate and quite good. I still get a kick out of the latest Veggie Tales DVD's and marvel how the quality of the computer animation continues to get better. But I'm not sure where romance novels fit in with edifying the saints.
Some women have admitted to becoming addicted to romance novels to the point that they pull away from their husbands and act out the steamy fantasies they read about. They have affairs, abandon their husband and kids to "find themselves", plunge into sexual addiction, and wreck their lives. They later find themselves in therapists' offices and 12-step groups wondering how it ended up so bad.
I am not saying that the Christian romances engage in such steamy plotlines; they wouldn't be Christian if they were. But it bothers me that we have to create a parallel Christian universe or bubble that creates the same books, the same movies, the same music that the non-Christian world puts out, but OURS is better because it's CHRISTIAN, it's all to the glory of Christ! My experience has been that a big chunk of such "Christian entertainment" is of poor third-rate quality compared to Hollywood. Many evangelical friends of mine were very disappointed that the "Left Behind" movies had such cheap special effects and weren't visual blockbusters like "Independence Day" or "The Matrix".
But worse yet, having a so-called Christian or biblical alternative to everything actually isolates and shields us from the world we are commanded to go into by Jesus Himself in the Great Commission, to make disciples of all nations. Giving your daughter "Praise Ponies" instead of My Little Pony or your son a Bibleman action figure may make you feel good, but I believe it only adds to the isolationism. And Christian romance novels, time-travel or otherwise, are guilty of the same bubble mentality.
I believe we need not shun secular fine arts or entertainment altogether. Rather, we need to exercise discernment in everything we see, hear or read, whether it's the bookstore, the movies, radio, TV, YouTube or our iPod. Speaking for myself, there is so much schlock on TV, even with the new free digital subchannels, I hardly watch anything beyond the news and weather. But in making our leisure or entertainment choices, let us not engage in a circle-the-wagons, us-against-them mentality that isolates us from being useful witnesses for Christ. For if we do, we become a stooge for the devil without even realizing it.
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