My Grandma Irene, of Blessed Memory, was one of the most devout Christians I have ever known. She somehow got her hands on a copy of Free Bird, my firMy Grandma Irene, of Blessed Memory, was one of the most devout Christians I have ever known. She somehow got her hands on a copy of Free Bird, my first novel, although the family had done our level best to keep her away from it.
She got about one page into it, threw the book across the room, and called me, furious. (If a tiny old woman can be furious. It was like being kicked by an angry hobbit.)
"I am so angry," she said. "So angry. At your publisher. For making you put those bad words in your book."
My grandmother did not understand that Christians could make art about doubt or pain. That sometimes bad words are the appropriate expressions of powerful grief, loss, or anger.
She would not be able to understand how Bastille Day, which is most certainly R-rated, could debut as the top new work of contemporary Christian fiction in America on Amazon.
(She probably would not understand Amazon, either. But that's a whole ‘nother story.)
My whole writing life has been a balancing act between the literary world and the life of faith, between being misunderstood by one group or the other because I'm not strictly one thing. This is not a complaint. Just a fact.
There are secular readers who can't understand how a Pulitzer Prize-winning author like Bob Butler could call me a remarkable novelist if my big thematic concerns include doubt and faith.
And there are religious readers who can't understand how my book could be "Christian" if it includes violence, sexuality, or "bad words."
The climax of Free Bird—which was written when I was not very Christian—is a confession to an actual Catholic priest. The last words of Cycling—written when I was not very Christian—are a meditation on grace.
My great and lasting influences are people like James Baldwin, Walker Percy, Flannery O'Connor, Thomas Merton, and Marilynne Robinson, people of faith who were also trying to create art that told them and their readers something about themselves, the world, and, maybe, God.
Thomas Merton said, if you're going to be a poet and an apostle, then you'd better be a great poet, or your apostolate will be ridiculed.
And James Baldwin simply said, "I want to be an honest man and a good writer."
So be forewarned: there are bad words in Bastille Day.
It is R-Rated.
Like the Bible.
Like life.
But like the Bible--and like life--there are journeys toward love, compassion, courage, and, yes, faith to be observed and celebrated.
I am a Christian novelist. Once I thought I had to be one or the other of those. Now I know: my strength and my joy come because I am both--Greg
Baylor University Baylor University English Department The American Cathedral in Paris The Episcopal Church Paraclete Press Fabled Bookshop & Cafe
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