No Christian writers in SYW?

Status
Not open for further replies.

rwhegwood

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 25, 2015
Messages
323
Reaction score
44
Location
MS, USA
One house that's had a fair bit of success with Christian SF is Enclave Publishing. Just FYI.

I looked at their site and was getting interested until I saw that their writers guidelines limited submissions to those which arise from an Evangelical viewpoint. My monks and nuns ask the intercession of the saints and the Theotokos. I doubt the religious/spiritual content of my stories would pass muster with them. Guess I need an Orthodox Christian publishing house.
 

forsusan

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Dec 19, 2017
Messages
98
Reaction score
6
Location
NE Tennessee
After 50 posts I will be sharing a book called "Make the Light Out, Or What My Pennsylvania Dutch Mother Taught Me About Daily Living" It was written by my late wife, who was raised in the Hegens Valley, Pa. I'ts about keeping the family unit strong in these difficult times.
 

BagfootBandit

Registered
Joined
Jun 22, 2018
Messages
33
Reaction score
1
I'm reviving this thread because it's really interesting to me. My work is very theological. I'm involved with a group called the Anselm Society, an artist's guild with the mission to "revive the Christian imagination," so in some ways I'm on the front lines.

Perhaps one of the problems is that some of the greatest writers of Christian fiction in recent memory, the Inklings, had such a large impact on modern faith (in particular Christian evangelical faith) and on writing itself, that to even delve into certain topics means to tread where the audience has (or thought they have) gone before. To have any impact, it must be a foundational, wide reaching impact. It takes something huge to make religious people think differently about anything (think works like Dante's Comedy or Milton's "Paradise Lost," both of which introduced radically new ways of thinking about theology while simultaneously resting on the shoulders of the giants that came before them).
I'm struggling a bit to convey what I'm really thinking here. This is partially a temperamental problem. Most artists are temperamentally liberal (not liberal in the political sense, though there is significant correlation). Most people on here I would guess are on the open end of the "openness to experience" personality trait expressed in the Big Five personality theory.
Most religious people however are temperamentally conservative. They don't play with new ideas; they preserve ideas that are already, in their experience, tried and true (which is a culturally valuable thing; I'm not trying to badmouth anyone). That makes it really difficult to introduce new things. If it isn't like CS Lewis or Tolkien, or if it doesn't measure up to some kind of other (sometimes quite arbitrary) standard, there is no way a bit of writing is going to be successful even if it's right. That's simply the temperament of the audience we're trying to write to.

It's no wonder then that there are few Christian artists (or ones that are recognized in the mainstream whose work is explicitly Christian). To be successful *and* unique, a Christian artist can't market to Christians (at least evangelicals).
 

Alan Aspie

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 25, 2018
Messages
111
Reaction score
5
Location
Finland
Most artists are temperamentally liberal.. ..Most people on here I would guess are on the open end of the "openness to experience" personality trait expressed in the Big Five personality theory.
Most religious people however are temperamentally conservative. They don't play with new ideas; they preserve ideas that are already, in their experience, tried and true.. ..really difficult to introduce new things.

There is bias in the methods of recognizing conservative creativity and conservative openness.

This bias is very hard to prove scientifically. But you can easily see it. You must use kind of reverse-engineering.

There are many very conservative people, who have done awful lot of creative things. If you pay attention to they creations, you find that things are better made, more finished, there is some kind of industrial element in thinking...

Their creative thinking is less associative, more multidimentional and those dimensions are structured.

If metering openness and creativity is unable to identify both multidimensional and structured openness, then we get statistics that lie to us that conservatives are not creative.

If metering seeks for assosiative, non-logical openness instead of all types of openness, then only one type of openness gets high scores.

Empiric reality shows us creative conservatives. Statistics don't. There is plausible explanation to statistic bias....


(In fact some of the rare super creative people are Shapiro-types - super intelligent, super creative, super conservative, super honest...)
 
Last edited:

BagfootBandit

Registered
Joined
Jun 22, 2018
Messages
33
Reaction score
1
There is bias in the methods of recognizing conservative creativity and conservative openness.

This bias is very hard to prove scientifically. But you can easily see it. You must use kind of reverse-engineering...


(In fact some of the rare super creative people are Shapiro-types - super intelligent, super creative, super conservative, super honest...)

I definitely agree that the picture isn't cut-and-dry and there is statistical bias inherent in the system (psychology is dominated by politically liberal types), but what I meant by "conservative" and "liberal" wasn't political in nature, and that isn't what is meant by psychologists. There are plenty of people who are conservative in politics but liberal in temperament. I happen to be one of those; I ascribe to conservative principles but my natural personality is more open and exploratory.

You do have an interesting point. I think identifying a "conservative creative," or someone who heavily structures their creative output, lies more along trait Conscientiousness than Openness to Experience. People high in both of those tend to be entrepreneurs, the people we associate with conservative creativity (which politically speaking is more libertarian or classically conservative). So you're right in that creativity as such can't be fully measured by Openness; that isn't really the definition of Openness. But, I would argue that conservative creatives are covered by the Big Five quite well when you look at the other Four. And those people too have often rubbed the wrong way with the majority of religious people because of their disproportionate Openness.
 

Taylor Harbin

Power to the pen!
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Dec 8, 2013
Messages
3,078
Reaction score
1,499
Location
Arkansas
I looked at their site and was getting interested until I saw that their writers guidelines limited submissions to those which arise from an Evangelical viewpoint. My monks and nuns ask the intercession of the saints and the Theotokos. I doubt the religious/spiritual content of my stories would pass muster with them. Guess I need an Orthodox Christian publishing house.

I looked at their website and was also baffled by the wording of that prerequisite. Do they mean simply clean stories, or stories that explicitly point to Jesus, a la Narnia? If I could clear that up I would be more interested.
 

Calla Lily

On hiatus
Staff member
Super Moderator
Moderator
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Feb 12, 2005
Messages
39,307
Reaction score
17,489
Location
Non carborundum illegitimi
Website
www.aliceloweecey.net
I looked as well. They used to be Marcher Lord, which was pretty much the first Christian pub to put out even remotely different C-fic. Steve Laube started it; he was a major Christian agent.

Marcher Lord was a decent choice back in the day, geared toward Christian versions of popular styles of fantasy. You know, like the list some Evangelical radio stations create: 'If you like [mainstream singer], then you'll like [similar wholesome Christian singer].'

If you think you might be a good fit, then email them. It's the simplest way. Good luck!
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.