Guest Blogger ~ Ron Benrey

Ron Benrey and his wife Janet have co-written thee different Christian romantic suspense series for B&H Publishing, Barbour Books, and Steeple Hill. Their latest novel, “Grits and Glory,” from Steeple Hill was published in June.




Ron is also the author of “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Writing Christian Fiction,” published by the Alpha imprint of Penguin. His next non-fiction book, “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Christian Mysteries” (which examines the most difficult Christian teachings) was published early in August.



Putting Fresh Christian Messages in Your Novels

Christian fiction delivers Christian messages to readers. Before you say Duh! consider that many mainstream novels have Christian characters, offer a Christian world view, and may even tell stories about Jesus Christ — although they aren’t labeled “Christian novels.” True Christian fiction requires something more than a smattering of Christianity. The ingredients of the special sauce are explicit Christian messages based on one or more solidly Christian themes.

Broadly speaking, “theme” is a foundational unifying idea of your novel. A theme guides you when you write; consequently, it may be buried so deep that it’s not apparent to readers. By contrast, messages are more concrete and easier to spot. They are the concepts that you want readers to take away from your novel — the points you want to make. To illustrate: the theme of one of our early books was, “telling so-called harmless lies can have serious, unforeseen consequences.” Many readers took away the message that “Christians shouldn’t tell little white lies.”

More than a decade ago, when Janet and I began to write Christian fiction, we cataloged the explicit Christian messages in the Christian novels we’d read. We were surprised to find that most of them flowed from a double-barreled theme: Walk by Faith and rely on God’s Grace. These familiar themes can support many familiar Christian messages. For example:

1. Nonbelievers should become believers
2. “Cultural Christians” should reaffirm that Christ is their Lord and Savior 3. Believers should deepen their relationship with Jesus and trust the promises he made
4. Don’t try to “buy your way” into heaven
5. Abandon the guilt and or shame holding you back
6. You can’t do anything alone (John 15:5)
7. You’re a new creation — your sinful past has been forgiven
8. “Let go and let God” (perhaps the single most popular message in Christian fiction).

Not much has changed during the decade since we conducted our original informal survey. Most of the recent Christian novels we’ve read deliver similar messages, usually in the context of some sort of redemption story.
I’m not being critical, here: Our latest romantic suspense novel — Grits and Glory — tells a straightforward “let go and let God” story. We’ll probably use the message again in the future, for several reasons. For starters, it’s a message worth delivering again and again, to both Christians and nonbelievers. Moreover, readers and editors seem to like it. Finally, it can be the takeaway of an infinity of different stories.

On the other hand, there are many more Christian teachings that deserve to become the central focus of compelling Christian fiction. Using “fresher” themes is a good way to stimulate creativity and produce novels that don’t repeat long-repeated messages. To list a few:

1. Love your neighbor and your enemy
2. Go and make disciples
3. Go the extra mile
4. Be a servant
5. Get the hang of agape love
6. Blessed are the peacemakers
7. God isn’t responsible for the pain and evil in the world — even though he lets both happen
8. Man cannot live by bread alone
9. The kingdom of heaven is like a pearl of great value.

If you look around, you can find Christian novels built atop most of these themes — but the total will be far fewer than the avalanche of stories that demonstrate the worth of walking by faith and relying on God’s Grace.


Simply put, the majority of Christian novelists seem to prefer the central Christian notion of redemption at the expense of the other possible themes.

Why is this so? In my opinion, it’s largely a matter of convenience. It’s easier to write about the familiar, to paraphrase well-known words and concepts that have become old friends over the years. Turning things around, it’s more difficult to apply a theme that requires study to understand and interpret. I speak from experience.

We used the pearl of great value (based on Jesus’ parable in Matthew 13:46) as the core of the Christian message in our upcoming Christmas novel, Season of Glory. Because this is one of the parables that Jesus doesn’t explain, we had to do a surprising amount of research to understand what the story “really” meant. Given the many different interpretations we found “out there,” we ultimately had to reach our own conclusions. The process was rewarding, but took considerable time, and lots of thought.

Most writers of Christian fiction don’t see themselves as apologists, but in fact, a novelist often has to explain the whys and wherefores of Christian beliefs and teachings to create credible messages — not to mention believable dialog. Peter undoubtedly had writers as well as speakers in mind when he wrote, “Always be prepared to gave an answer to anyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” (1 Peter 3:15, NIV). This can be a daunting responsibility when you’re hip deep in developing a novel and you find yourself having to do theological or Biblical research to find an interpretation that won’t annoy-off any readers, no matter what their denomination.

Incidentally, I urge you not to take the two “easy ways” out:

1. Don’t put study-Bible footnotes in characters’ mouths.
2. Don’t invent “fictional” theological opinions on the assumption that weird characters can have weird ideas about everything.

So, where do you find fresh Christian themes for your novels? Now that Janet and I have begun to look for them, we often run across good candidates in the live sermons we hear in church and captured sermons we read on websites designed for pastors. A well-written sermon will give you a comprehensive starting-point “package” that you can expand into a detailed theme — including relevant Scripture, simplified theological explanations, and useful illustrations and anecdotes. Devotionals — in books, booklets, and on the Internet — deliver the same kind of idea-generating “hints” on a smaller scale.

The trick, of course, is to capture Christian themes when you come across them. I carry a little black Moleskine writers’ notebook with me most of the time. I originally bought it to “cast” our novels — I would jot down descriptions of interesting people at airports, malls, and restaurants. But now I bring it to church on Sunday. Pastors don’t seem to mind when they spot parishioners “taking notes” during their sermons.