Try this for openers: an assassin decapitates his latest victim in her own home, props her head on the kitchen counter, brands her forehead with a religious symbol, then casually makes himself a sandwich with the fixings from her refrigerator.
Welcome to the contemporary Christian thriller.
As CBA fiction has grown in popularity and its subgenres have proliferated, thrillers and novels of supernatural horror have seen their star rise. Alongside that trend has been an increasing comfort with some fairly graphic violence, including scenes that are on a par with what you'd find in horror fiction for the general market. Recent faith-based stories have featured chilling scenes of torture, bondage and murder, most often of women.
I am of two minds about this trend. On the one hand, I agree with the various CBA fiction editors to whom I've spoken about this. They generally see the growing openness of readers to these novels as a cause for celebration. "For the first time, you've got authors writing in the CBA who don't feel beholden to the CBA. There's a lot of new talent," says one editor. "There's a feeling that we're reaching a different, broader readership."
Another editor defends the realistic use of violence in fiction because "violence is a way for artists to demonstrate the battle between good and evil." That's an excellent point. Squeamish Christians who complain about violence would do well to reread the Old Testament; there's really no soft, sweet undercurrent to Dinah's rape, Joshua's bloody conquests or Jael's creative use of a tent peg. I would also add one other observation: the uptick of violence in Christian fiction mirrors what is happening in the culture at large. According to a 2004 study from the Harvard School of Public Health, a documented "ratings creep" has meant that what is a PG-13 movie today would often have received an R rating 20 years ago. Violence is an increasingly accepted feature of American entertainment, Christian or otherwise.
Yet there have been times when I as a reader have been disturbed by what I felt were unforgettably graphic scenes in faith fiction. Where is that elusive line between necessary, plot-enhancing violence and gratuitous gore? Does fiction, just because it also carries a Christian message, have a responsibility to eschew shocking or especially sadistic carnage?
My first issue is a concern with the potential consequences of depictions of extreme violence. In 1992, the American Psychological Association announced its findings that violence is a learned behavior, and that a direct relationship exists between the viewing of violence and the tendency toward violent acts. Granted, this research examined the impact of violent films, not books, but is there really a difference?
I am concerned about the cavalier way some CBA authors seem to employ violence simply for shock value. I also worry that the disproportionate depictions of violence against women subtly reinforce cultural stereotypes of women as victims. In many of these books, we see women tied to beds and gagged so they are voiceless. Could the symbolism be any more clear?
Finally, there's a real irony to the almost bipolar selectivity with which Christian fiction is pushing the boundaries of "acceptable" content. You'd think that if the standards for violence were becoming increasingly porous, the bans on profanity and sexuality might be loosening up, too. But the general idea among publishers seems to be that readers who would not bat an eyelash at seeing victims disemboweled in excruciating detail might roar in collective indignation at a naughty word like "damn." Anecdotally, the numbers bear this out; of the buyers and storeowners I've talked to, all had stories of customers who protested the presence of even barely questionable language or hotter-than-usual romance. When I asked how many complaints they've received about violence in CBA fiction, the answer was precisely none.
I'm advocating greater discussion and awareness, not censorship. Authors have the right to tell the stories they need to tell. But I think I'll pass on the garish head-on-the-counter stories myself. After reading that scene, it was a long, long time before I could make myself a sandwich without that unwelcome picture in my mind.
