Faith 'n Fiction Saturday

My Friend Amy, who brought us Book Blogger Appreciation Week has a new carnival in the works, the Faith 'n Fiction Saturday.

Each week she will post a blogging prompt, which participating bloggers will answer on their own blogs. Then they head back to the original post and sign Mister Linky! This way we can all come to know each other more closely.

Diversity matters in fiction for many reasons, and accurate representations of persons of color, people with disabilities, people with mental illnesses, and people with different sexual orientations is crucial to a more loving and just world. We have discussed this before but is's a subject that bears repeating. Today's goal is to highlight books published by Christian publishing houses that have authentic characters in one of the aforementioned categories.

One of the great benefits of reading reviews and blogging is how my own eyes were opened to this issue and I have Deborah (thank you, thank you) to thank for a lot of that. She always points out the ridiculous! :) But she also points out the good examples as well.

So today's topic is two part:

1) Why does diversity matter in Christian fiction?

2) Pick a book or books you think are good examples.

This is a subject I have talked about MANY times on my blog as well as during the Faith and Fiction discussions. For example here's a post.

I could take this discussion and mention some bad examples about diversity in Christian fiction. Oh what the heck let me mention a few. I'm REALLY tired of seeing books about Asians who have jet black straight shiny hair, or flawless skin, or are skinny or are so small. Also just because someone is Asian does NOT mean they aren't allowed to like other types of food.

Anywho who, if you read that link above you will see why I think diversity matters in Christian fiction. It matters no matter what genre you read but I have been feeling lately that Christian fiction seems to be behind the times when it comes to diversity. This is probably because the main market of Christian fiction is still the Bible belt crowd - middle age, middle class white women who can't seem to relate to anyone outside of their bubble. Le sigh.

Well I'll just post some covers of books that I DO think represent good diversity in Christian fiction. (By the way, I'm talking about the BOOKS overall, and NOT just the covers). BTW just having ONE token POC person in a book does NOT make the book more diverse. Especially when you make that POC person the extreme stereotype of their culture.