| Operating Guidelines

How Can a Christian
Write Effectively for This Class?

The golden rule of writing is to write unto others as you would have them write unto you, with respect as applied to audience, subject and purpose.

Regarding audience, both the Judeo-Christian belief system and the world that rejects it or has not made up its mind about it are worthy of respect. Even non-believers acknowledge its benefit to society. An interest in it is a sign of a mind at work.

However, a mistake Christians often make is to preach to the choir -- they write as if readers know the jargon, have no brains, and are convinced by the same persuasion strategies as believers. It's an easy trap to fall into if one does not consider one's audience ahead of time.

If the Bible is correct, non-believers cannot know the language spoken by those who honestly seek God's will. Non-believers really can think for themselves, but they are under the influence of a different belief system, whether they have actively chosen it or not, and whether they know it or not. That world view not only makes the usual Christian appeals to biblical authority, tradition, and anecdotal evidence ineffective in persuading non-believers, but it often undermines the writers' credibility.

When believers miss the mark by designing ineffective appeals, it makes Christians look gullible and uninformed. Worst of all, it makes God look bad. The non-believer thinks, "Any God who has such poor servants representing Him is not worthy of being followed." Instead of helping, the Christian gives God a public relations problem. The Christian who does not consider his or her audience's position effectively blinds that non-believer. God's purpose is defeated.

The subject also bears careful consideration, especially in some class assignments. For example, it can require a relating of at least one writing in the textbook to the point you want to make. There may be others, but I can see one way it can go.

A thoroughly thought-through treatment of the topic relates directly to the concept of verisimilitude that editors often discuss in literature chapters. In literary terms, when Christians (characters) live (setting), act (plot), and talk (dialogue) in places and ways that are consistent with how the Original Author lays that Jesus-clone life out in His User's Manual, it creates an experience that does God credit.

One approach is to demonstrate some of the characteristics of a Jesus-clone as illustrated in literature.

One strategy that may work is to read some of the stories that are not biblically related. Exclude the readings from "Luke" and "Taking Care" and any others directly on the topic. "First Confession" may be borderline. Pick out the characters who keep it real, outline their reality against the background of those who are not real in life, and explain to a fallen Christian, a never-Christian, or a new one, how they may relate.

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There are some lit characters with whose behavior God might be happy. I think He might say "That's my girl! (or boy!)" when he sees people make the choices that some personages make. They achieve what He may have been shooting for when he writes in Colossians 3 to "put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its creator."

Even though they do not proclaim in the streets that they are Christians, literary characters often make choices that if everyone did, would ring up sales for God. The healthy, authentic, real Christian has the self-determined and self-imposed boundaries, character, honor, integrity, and nobility seen in the acts of Sarty in "Barn Burning," Maggie and her mother in "Everyday Use," the priest in "First Confession" (he seems authentic not because he's a priest, but because he's real), Mama in "The Sky is Gray," the squad leader in "The Things They Carried," the sheriff's wife in "A Jury of Her Peers," the checkout boy in "A & P," Jack in Titanic, and the unchained, uncaved former spelunker in Plato's myth.

People learn through examples, good ones and bad ones. That's why so much of God's magnum opus is narrative with characters. Some of them are role models while others are the people that parents warn their children about.

When readers learn from seeing such people and the learning takes, life improves. The outcome has the distinction of not only seeming real, true, and lifelike -- verimilitudinous -- but actually being that truth that Plato's sunlight reveals, good and true in itself and beneficial to everyone around it. The life that results is as authentic and as good as it gets. Salt.

To open blind eyes and reveal the path, then, the Christian writer needs to sense the needs that the readers perceive themselves to have. The effective writer then designs the sentences and paragraphs that target the needs that the person holding the paper and reading it knows s/he has. Until the void s/he feels is filled, the reader will not see the voids s/he doesn't even know s/he has.

Remember that the words Jesus uses with the woman at the well and the woman taken in adultery do not project a complacent, self-satisfied, nor self-righteous tone. He helps them meet their immediate need to keep their dignity, and then speaks the words that help them perceive their greatest need. He does not talk down to people who don't know and don't know that they don't know.

So write for an audience who comes from a different frame of reference -- one who does not speak the language of committed belief, who can think, and who has needs. In all of life, s/he has seen only shadows. That limited vision makes the usual and easy arguments ineffective. Write as if this person is worthy, in a tone that carries respect for both the person and the truth, and in the voice the Savior himself would use.

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It sounds like a big stretch and may not work, but right now, that's one way that comes to mind.

If you choose to go this route, ask and answer these questions.

Which characters in which stories display the characteristic(s) on which I want to focus most strongly?

What can I say about him or her and how can I say it to support the purpose?

Regarding purpose, why does this study need to be done? Who needs the information and why?

Regarding support, give specific instances. Detail them thoroughly with description and dialogue in your essay. Choose each incident with these questions in mind: why is looking at this information important and who needs to know? And we're back to audience. It amazes me sometimes how things work out.

I guess what I'm trying to say is if you're trying to do what I think you're trying to do, look at things from the audience member's point of view. Consider the needs s/he thinks s/he has, and to the degree that you can, make your writing meet them. Write as if someone's life depends on it.

There may be other approaches that you and the class members can see, but to which I am blind. When I was ragging on my son once about a possible pitfall, I said, "Luke, just because you can't see it, it doesn't mean it isn't there!"

He came back, "Just because you can see it, doesn't mean that's all there is." The lesson stuck. And btw, he came through safely. He was going to a Pantera concert, I think, and he and his posse looked out for each other.

That's why, we all together with varied perspectives can do a better job than any one of us by him or herself.

Writing as if it matters is not easy. But then, nothing that is really worthwhile is easy.