 C.S. Lewis once said, “The world does not need more Christian literature. What it needs is more Christians writing good literature.” I wasn’t sure what I thought of that at first. How could a Christian writing a good story be better than a book that clearly laid out the steps to salvation and what Christianity looks like? Now that I’ve been writing for seven-ish years, I agree with Lewis. I recently researched and wrote an article for Kingdom Pen about the bestsellers of the past one hundred years and how they impacted our writing today. I’d slogged from 1920 all the way up to the year 2020 when I found something very interesting. (Read the article here: https://kingdompen.org/best-selling-books-last-100-years/) One of the top ten bestsellers of 2020 was the book Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate. That was a Christian novel written by a Christian author and published by a Christian publishing house. Christian fiction is finally getting its head in the game. We’re sitting up and realizing that there’s something more out there. That it’s not just about writing a convincing conversion scene—it’s about writing a good story with God. Don’t get me wrong—conversion scenes are wonderful and even appropriate in some stories. But Christian writers are beginning to widen their focus to the bigger array of nuances, themes, problems, and solutions that the world is looking for. We’re beginning to value compassion and diversity more than our own personal preferences. We’ll go out of our way to write a different race, a different sexuality, a mental illness, a trauma, a physical or mental disability. And we’re doing one up by not just writing those things, but by showing the hope in, through, or out of them. We have started to truly see people, and we value the people we see more than being comfortable and bolstering our own personal pet peeves. We’re writing less books that stay in neat tidy cabins on the prairie and more that get out into the messy city squares of life. We’re not expecting an angelic miracle to save our climax, for prayer to fix everything exactly as we want it, and for a conversion scene to be the only way out of the low point. Rather, we use them as they are the most helpful to our story and more importantly, our reader. We’re writing books where instead of banging you over the head with a Bible, we come and sit next to you on this crazy ride called life. We help you escape the dark for a few hours and give you a few things to think about when the book’s over. Even if we write stories that never once say God’s name, it’s clear He’s all over every page of our manuscripts. We’re writing real stuff. But we’re not discounting the truth. We’re doing what Jesus did. We’re getting down where the action is happening and we’re writing there instead, bringing the hope with us. That’s not to say it’s perfect. We’ve still got a lot to do. But it’s an exciting time to write. And it makes me so proud to be able to call myself a Christian writer alongside so many other people who are trying to do the same thing. *What are the best Christian books you've ever read? Share your adventures in the comments below!* *A meme for your troubles. 
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