New Links

If you scroll down my sidebar, you'll see I've added some new links writerly related - articles I've found interesting and a few sites.
Here, just cuz I wanna, I'll highlight a few paragraphs from an article that's at least 6 mos old but still interesting from the byFaith magazine. The article is "New Direction for Christian Publishing" by Stephen McGarvey.

"Parochialism is a spirit that demands that we create only for the safely defined boundaries of our ethnic, ideological, and spiritual community…Parochialism has been a problem in the evangelical, Christian Booksellers Association universe of fiction, contributing to a perception … that the phrase “Christian fiction” identifies something narrow and artificial." Terrell continues, saying that Christians’ aversion to the depiction of sin in the arts damages the realism of Christian fiction. "The desire to avoid offending sensibilities in regard to dialogue and human situations often results in plastic, smoothed-over characters, and a holding back from the kind of writing that may evoke true inspiration and authentic villainy."
The evangelical community has balked at the depiction of sin in the arts. Rather than wrestle with it, evangelicals have largely expunged it, erasing anything from “Christian” novels that was difficult to deal with. As a result, “Christian” publishing began to carve out a niche separated from the secular publishing houses.