On the day of my for­ti­eth birth­day I had finally ripened enough to know what I wanted  to be now that I was all grown up: a writer. Specif­i­cally, a Chris­t­ian writer.

Two let­ters I had writ­ten to the news­pa­per had been  pub­lished which resulted  with  a call from a reporter in Los Ange­las who saw one of  them and wanted a quote from me for an arti­cle he was writing. This helped me real­ize that I had a voice and that my voice could be help­ful in inform­ing other people.

I began to study the art of writ­ing as well as the work of pub­lish­ing. I sub­scribed to Writer’s Digest mag­a­zine, vora­ciously devour­ing every issue cover to cover. WD became my go-​​to source for learn­ing the busi­ness of pub­lish­ing as well as the craft of writing.

One day, a full page ad  caught my eye.  Chris­t­ian Writ­ers Guild, a well estab­lished writ­ing pro­gram based in Col­orado Springs, CO (of course!!) touted  a two-​​year appren­tice­ship writ­ing course called, What’s Your Story? I signed up for the  two-​​year pro­gram and  proudly earned my cer­tifi­cate of com­ple­tion.  I blogged about my pos­i­tive expe­ri­ence in a  post titled , Roger and Me, a ref­er­ence to the men­tor I was assigned  to dur­ing the course. And though I learned so much from Roger and CWG, there began a dis­tant dis­quiet in the far back cor­ners of my mind dur­ing that time:  What if I’m not Chris­t­ian enough to be a Chris­t­ian writer?

I start­ing blog­ging around then as well as dip­ping my pen into the inkwell of free­lance writ­ing.  (You can view a list of  writ­ing cred­its click­ing HERE). Com­pelled to write on issues of faith and Chris­t­ian spir­i­tu­al­ity, I nonethe­less felt a steady ten­sion about forg­ing a writ­ing iden­tity as a Chris­t­ian writer. It was like  hav­ing a low degree fever that makes one feel achy yet still func­tional.  Am I cut out for the Chris­t­ian writ­ing scene?

I fret­ted pri­vately about my mis­giv­ings.  My blog was gain­ing read­er­ship and peo­ple were respond­ing to my angsty posts about all-​​things-​​faith-​​and-​​church.  I made many new friends,both vir­tual and face to face as a result of blog­ging. This was dur­ing the apex of the Emerg­ing Church con­ver­sa­tion, as so many are fond of call­ing it. That’s it, I decided. This is where I belong. I am an Emerg­ing Church kind of Chris­t­ian writer. 

With renewed vigor, I forged ahead with devel­op­ing my voice and rep­u­ta­tion as a woman who writes on issues of faith.  I sub­mit­ted arti­cles to Chris­t­ian pub­li­ca­tions, I read books by progressive-​​minded authors and even attended a con­fer­ence or two that gath­ered together the grow­ing tribe of heretics that I was becom­ing fond of.

My writer iden­tity began to flourish.

Yet there was still the inter­nal cen­sor to con­tend with, that inner guide who is stead­fast in point­ing out how mis­matched I was for a Chris­t­ian audi­ence of any type.  The evi­dence seemed to cor­re­spond with my inner critic. I would peruse the  back cov­ers of authors who seemed to be like me and began to real­ize that I lacked the cre­den­tials they possessed.

• I am not an edu­cated woman.  At least formally.
• I have no min­istry accom­plish­ments. At least formally.
• There is no grand tes­ti­mony found in my life story…at least formally.

Like the time I decided to blog about my shift­ing views on same-​​sex unions. I had decided to be pub­lic about my chang­ing mind on the con­tro­versy of  same-​​sex unions.  It was a delib­er­ate break from keep­ing my views to myself, for I knew that there was a pos­si­bil­ity that going pub­lic would have con­se­quences.  I decided Screw it, I don’t want to hide my chang­ing views about homo­sex­u­al­ity to pre­serve my space as  an emerg­ing Chris­t­ian writer. And so, with a bit of chutz­pah, I pushed the pub­lish key to her­ald to the blo­gos­phere that I was a Christ fol­lower who accepted  same-​​sex unions and gay ori­en­ta­tion as nor­mal rather than unnat­ural. Be bold, I thought. Be that writer who doesn’t play it safe.

“Tell it true, tell it strong,” became my ethos.

For­ward I went in forg­ing my path as a writer. “What do you write on?” peo­ple would ask when I told them that I was not only a pro­fes­sional house cleaner (at the time) but also a writer. “I write on issues of faith and Chris­t­ian spir­i­tu­al­ity,” I’d reply hav­ing rehearsed how to define my writer self when called upon. Unclear and always unsure of what that meant, it was, after all, the kinds of caves I was explor­ing through my blog posts and free­lance arti­cles. My read­er­ship was slowly grow­ing and the all-​​important plat­form was steadily being built. What­ever kind of Chris­t­ian writer I was becom­ing, there was cer­tainly a read­er­ship grav­i­tat­ing to the things I had to say.  I decided to stop wor­ry­ing about if I was Chris­t­ian enough or what­ever and just write hon­est and bold. Fears on my writ­ing path were mon­sters to be slayed.

I took the advice of writ­ing guru Ralph Keyes deep into my heart:

Good writ­ing is hon­est, alive. The more hon­est and alive our writ­ing, the more we show our­selves.  The more we show our­selves, the greater dan­ger we’re in. The greater dan­ger we’re in, the more scared we are. Hence fear is a marker on the path toward good writ­ing.  Ralph Keyes  The Courage to Write

I was thrilled when after five years of hard work an author I admire invited me to coau­thor a work.  YES! This was the break I had been hop­ing for and dream­ing of.  The author had sev­eral books out and a firm rela­tion­ship with a large Chris­t­ian publisher.This author knew me, my views, and loved my writ­ing voice. I was hon­ored to be invited to join in the project.
We had green­lights all the way with the Big Pub­lisher.  Until one day one of the mem­bers of the pub­lish­ing board googled my name.  Fair enough. They need to know who I am. They found this blog and dis­cov­ered that I have some­times used naughty words when writing.…and that I openly sup­port same-​​sex unions.

Total deal breaker.

I was crushed. After I stopped cry­ing, I thought hard about my deci­sion to be trans­par­ent about  my views.  Had I been fool­ish?  Ought I  have kept my changed mind about same-​​sex unions on the downlow?

No, I decided before the tears had even dried.  I do not regret telling it true, telling it strong.

The next day I wrote the edi­tor we had been work­ing with to express my grat­i­tude for the oppor­tu­nity and to also affirm that I under­stood the company’s deci­sion. “Your pub­lisher has their con­vic­tions to live by, I have mine,” I wrote. “I want to be known as a Christ fol­lower who accepts our gay broth­ers and sis­ters and same-​​sex unions. Obvi­ously we are not a good fit together and I am glad this is now real­ized before we had pro­ceeded further.”

Being axed by this pub­lisher became a defin­ing moment for me, a life shap­ing expe­ri­ence to my writer iden­tity.  It forced me to pay atten­tion to what was becom­ing appar­ent to some of my friends:  Pam, you are not a Chris­t­ian writer.  Stop try­ing to be one. 

I have now come to view that episode in my life as a bul­let dodged.  What if the pub­lish­ers found out about my blog’s con­tent after the book came out? What  if book­store own­ers did? I began to hear sto­ries of books pulled from cir­cu­la­tion when a book­store or dis­trib­u­tor became leary of an author, like my friend Kathy Esco­bar who had a book pulled within weeks of being pub­lished.  Her crime?  The dis­trib­u­tor real­ized Kathy was titled as a pas­tor on the cover. Nope. No women pas­tors allowed through their gates. 

Her story con­firmed to me that it was only a mat­ter of time before my blog and pub­lic voice would get me black­listed from the Chris­t­ian book arena. In fact, not too long after that, a local Chris­t­ian book­store owner here in Port­land told me to leave his store when he heard me tell another cus­tomer where to buy a copy of The Shack  (a Chris­t­ian novel con­sid­ered highly hereti­cal in many con­ser­v­a­tive cir­cles).  Our beliefs, when spo­ken out loud, can get us into trou­ble with the thought police.

One of my fave blog­gers recently wrote a kick­ass post about her views on the Chris­t­ian book indus­try. Her point of view is author­i­ta­tive since she is a Chris­t­ian writer expe­ri­enced with the Chris­t­ian book market:

Chris­t­ian book­stores have devel­oped a rep­u­ta­tion for pro­duc­ing a highly san­i­tized cus­tomer expe­ri­ence, purg­ing from their shelves any lan­guage, con­tent, or the­ol­ogy that doesn’t meet their über-​​conservative stan­dards.  Walk into your local Life­Way and you will find plenty of Pre­cious Moments stat­ues, spe­cialty Bibles, Veg­gie Tale movies, and Thomas Kinkade prints…but lit­tle trace of art or lit­er­a­ture that intrigues, agi­tates, and inspires — as true art should!  The Chris­t­ian book­store expe­ri­ence is, in a word, safe. Butsafe is not how Chris­tians are called to live, and safe is not what artists who are Chris­tians are called to cre­ate.  In fact, based on LifeWay’s own stan­dards, the Bible itself — which includes pro­fan­ity, vio­lence, and sex — should be banned from the shelves.

What most peo­ple don’t real­ize, how­ever, is that the prob­lem of san­i­tized Chris­t­ian book­stores extends far beyond the inven­tory on the shelves to cre­ate an entire Chris­t­ian sub­cul­ture that is so san­i­tized and safe it often fails to pro­duce art that is rel­e­vant to our cul­ture or our lives.  (empha­sis by the author)    From Rachel Held Evans 

There is so much to say here to what Rachel is address­ing. Words have power, they are the vehi­cles for ideas and beliefs. What we believe affects how we live, move and have our being. The col­lec­tive of any group think­ing and behav­ing the same way is how cul­ture is bred and enforced.  Books are not just books. They are cul­tural mark­ers.  Books that do not match so-​​called Chris­t­ian cul­ture (which is grossly mis­taken for king­dom of God cul­ture)  become can­cers that have to be erad­i­cated.  Thus, the Chris­t­ian book mar­ket is in dan­ger of being a pro­pa­ganda machine that keeps us from think­ing (or behav­ing) out­side of what is con­sid­ered nor­ma­tive Chris­t­ian beliefism. 

Where then is the prophetic power of the her­alds and writ­ers?  The town criers become the town mutes when their voices are qui­eted by the spirit of fear.

When Chris­t­ian cul­ture has become inher­ently sti­fling to it’s artists, sto­ry­tellers and writ­ers, than it is time for the artists, sto­ry­tellers and writ­ers to cre­ate new access points for telling it true, telling it strong.   For me, it has also meant I must  aban­don the hope of becom­ing a pub­lished Chris­t­ian writer and instead aim for Just Being a Writer. An hon­est, bold, fear­less writer who says out loud what is sim­mer­ing beneath the veneer of con­science. It’s why I wrote my first book, Unla­dy­like: Resist­ing the Injus­tice of Inequal­ity in the Church.  It’s why I hap­pily pub­lished with a small, assisted self-​​publishing press.  It’s why I look ahead to the many other books that lie in my bones, know­ing they will become real­i­ties for I no longer am wait­ing or look­ing for permission.

Never has there been such a time in the his­tory of humankind – or the church! – to be a writer, artist, musi­cian, poet or prophet.  Tech­nol­ogy has made access­ing the pub­lic square avail­able to any­one. I do not have to strive to become a Chris­t­ian writer, to fit­ting myself into a role that I do not occupy very well. Instead, I am run­ning the gaunt­let of just writ­ing as the writer I am meant to be. The only gate­keeper I con­tend with now are Read­ers. They will always be my most impor­tant gate­keeper as they decide whether or not to let me and my dan­ger­ous ideas cross the threshold.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

give away your power.