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@mlbolangerauthor I see I’m late to a really good discussion here! It would be awesome to eventually do another blog series about tricky themes sometime in the future (though it would be a while before we’d fully consider that given how much time it takes to put these series together… If anyone has great thoughts on these ideas and wants to submit an article, though, we’re always looking for great content to publish! 😉 )

I agree with a lot of @karthmin‘s thoughts on why Christian storytellers don’t often tackle these subjects. I think there are also specific challenges raised by some of these topics that also explains why Christian storytellers don’t often tackle them.

On race, while you certainly will sometimes get some generic/light themes regarding this in fantasy/sci-fi works when dealing with fantasy/alien races, I wonder how much the absence of this theme in some Christian novels is due to blindness. America’s struggle with racism is unfortunately politicized in such a way where some see racism where they shouldn’t and others ignore racism when it’s clearly present. :/ In conservative evangelical circles (where I am most often), I see the latter temptation pop up more likely than the former, and I wonder if that affects fiction as well. If you’re less likely to see racism in today’s society where it exists, you’re less likely to try to tackle it in stories as well.

With LGBTQ+ themes or themes dealing with other religions, I think there are certain hard limits that traditional Christians run into. Many of the greatest works of literature are written by authors who are in a certain community and who are also critiquing that community. Both qualities are essential for great stories: one for building empathy with readers, the other for making meaningful and needed points.

In light of this, if a Christian wants to critique an outside movement, it’s hard to see where they have room to do so; building empathy in a story in a way that readers feel it despite the author’s status as an “enemy” of some sort seems like an insurmountable challenge to me. It’s hard to see where the audience for that is. For myself, if I know a novel is going to severely critique Christianity, I know that would dissuade me. I do try to read these kinds of books to grow and challenge myself, but I don’t know how many readers think the same way as I do. 😛 I’d tend to say that Christian authors are better off exploring themes regarding how Christians should interact with other religions or members of the LGBTQ+ movement, since there’s a better audience for those and a better mechanism for both establishing empathy and making meaningful points. We certainly need stories like that today.