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  • Samuel replied to the topic To tone down or not to tone down? in the forum Themes 8 years ago

    @r-m-archer I think it depends on your definition of  ‘clean’. Even the Bible has horrible stories in it, stuff my parents would never let me read in novel form, and yet we gain meaningful insight from that. (Plus those stories were true, but that’s not the topic here.) So I think if you’re still getting biblical insight across, as is your intent, it would be okay. I think it also depends on the age range. Song of Solomon was restricted for Hebrew children until 13. If you’re writing books for, say, twelve year olds, I’d keep it as clean as possible, but if it’s for 16 year olds or older, I would keep it clean, but not so innocent that they feel treated like a baby. I find Christian YA fiction for older teens that purposefully tones down content (i.e. “He wielded his sword against him” versus “He ran his sword through his chest”) particularly bland. For older Christian teens, there should be a little gray area between graphic and innocent that we operate in. I mean, the world’s a graphic place and there’s no reason to avoid that unless our minds are being dirtied by that.

    So if your character will be positively changed and regret her actions, and you make it clear you don’t endorse that kind of innapropriate behavior, then it should be fine imo.

    I know where you come from though, I can’t stand a book with even borderline sexual content. Ted Dekker’s Green, though Christian, was about as far as I go with that kind of stuff.

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