After yesterday’s flap over inspirational vs. erotic romances, I’ve been thinking a lot about inspirational romances and why I feel so squicked out by them. Because to be honest, I am. One of our first Smart Bitch entries was about Religion in Romances, so if you haven’t read it yet go take a peek because we talk a little bit about the issue at hand.
It’s not that I completely avoid reading books with very strong spiritual themes, or that I am incapable of liking protagonists who have a relationship with God that I, personally, could never envision having. I’ve read and liked books featuring both. And yes, I’m going to bring up To Love and To Cherish by Patricia Gaffney for the umpteenth time on this website, because this book just does so many damn things right.
For those of you haven’t read it, To Love and To Cherish is a book about a pastor and an agnostic falling in love. It’s also very much a book about Christy’s relationship with God, and how at one point he loses his faith in both himself and his creator, and how he ultimately makes peace with both. He enters into a love affair with Anne even though it violates his principles, and he and Anne get into the liveliest discussion about the sinfulness of sexual intercourse without the “benefit” of marriage. (Christy: “The Bible prohibits fornication”; Anne: “But how can something so beautiful between two adults be wrong?” Guess which side of the fence I fall on, heh heh.) And through it all, Gaffney somehow avoids making Christy into a prig. The fact that he has a sense of humor and is much harder on himself while being truly compassionate and forgiving of other people goes a long way towards making him likeable, I think.
I think a lot of the appeal of this book (and in case you haven’t gathered this fact yet, this is definitely one of my all-time favorite romance novels) lies in how Gaffney presents the story in non-preachy terms. That it’s beautifully-written with fully-fleshed characters who aren’t just ambulatory allegories with limbs and a mouth also helps a lot.
So what is it about romances that are specifically marked as “Inspirational” that give me the jibblies? Part of it’s because I’m afraid that the Inspirationals will start preaching at me about the unsaved vs. the saved, which, no kidding, will drive me batshit because I’m not about to give money to an author who believes I’m going to burn in hell for not believing a charismatic Jewish carpenter who lived 2000 years ago was the son of God.
Also, most Inspirationals claim to espouse “family values,” a term that gives me hives because I’ve learned to associate it with: 1. Anti-reproductive choice stances; 2. Intense homophobia; 3. Smug self-satisfaction about their “saved” status and a thorough horror for people who aren’t; and 4. An insane and destructive need to shelter everyone (especially our wee pwecious widdle children) from anything remotely to do with sexuality, from sex education to Janet Jackson’s Amazing Nipple of Moral Turpitude to cussing on TV and radio. To Love and To Cherish doesn’t cover any of these except maybe the “saved-vs.-unsaved” issue, and, well, Christy falls in love with Anne and accepts her as she is, agnostic snarkiness at all. And that’s so very, very lovely, and, well, so very Christian of him. Unconditional, undying love, with some truly beautiful sex scenes thrown in—it doesn’t get much better than that.
It’s entirely possible that I have of the wrong end of the stick, but my impressions seem bolstered by reading descriptions of what Inspirationals constitute. For instance, from Brenda Coulter’s website:
In addition to the usual ups and downs of falling in love, the hero and/or heroine must overcome a spiritual obstacle, whether that involves finding God’s salvation, learning to lean on Him, letting go of the past, etc.
Christian women find inspirational romance novels satisfying because they promote strong family values, emphasizing admirable qualities such as duty, honor, and integrity, all while delivering the guilt-free entertainment of a chaste romance story.
And this is from Steeple Hill’s “About Us” page:
Steeple Hill Books is committed to delivering quality Christian fiction that will help women to better guide themselves, their families and other women in their communities toward purposeful, faith-driven lives.
Wholesome entertainment for women of faith, and seekers of all ages that is grounded in family values and high moral standards, Steeple Hill books nourish and revitalize the heart, mind and spirit as they affirm the biblical virtues of faith, hope and love. Steeple Hill authors write from a Christian worldview and convey their personal faith and ministry values in inspirational fiction that offers uplifting and satisfying stories.
These descriptions would lead people to believe that mainstream romances allow undutiful, dishonorable, lying, sleazy, immoral sons-of-bitches to win the day. I mean, c’mon. Certain alpha assholes may triumph, but generally even these are reformed into model citizens by the end of the book. And since when were faith, hope and love Biblical virtues? Aren’t they just virtues, period? Does the Bible somehow have the monopoly on faith, hope and love, or is it somehow the first to suggest these as virtues? If so, various Egyptian and Sumerian texts, the Upanishads, the Vedas and the teachings of the Buddha should collectively file some kind of copyright infringement lawsuit.
Perhaps most importantly, the descriptions just about shout “THIS BOOK WILL PREACH AT YOU” and I don’t want to be preached at while reading fiction. This goes for any topic, because I’m also annoyed by fictional books that preach about causes I hold near and dear to my heart, like conservation or equal rights.
I’ll have to try out a few Inspirational romances just to see whether my assumptions are correct, because at this point they are nothing but assumptions. I won’t lie and say that I’ll be unbiased; I’ll be reading these books as an unbeliever, which means right off the bat I’ll be a harder sell than most people who deliberately seek these out.
