CSFF Blog Tour: The Shadow and Night Day Three

And so our look at The Shadow and Night by Chris Walley comes to an end.

One of the nice things about this blog tour is when your ideas are challenged a bit. Several people have commented on my confusion regarding the first sin that emerges with the arrival of evil. I have to say, though, that Steve Rice's post yesterday really got me thinking. This is what he said:

"Do you know what the book's first unimaginable act of wickedness is? It's a lie--a silly, trivial untruth that most of us would forget immediately. But here, it is an unthinkable breach of God's peace. It's followed closely by another departure that most of us wouldn't think wrong at all, though Walley's case against it is sound. Is it any wonder that in losing our horror of the small sins, it takes more and more sensational ones to stir us?"

After reading that, I realized that I had tripped over my own theological feet and should have seen that point for what it is.

That said, there's a fine line to be danced upon by writers of Christian fiction, because when you come right down to it, we have an odd, love-hate, symbiotic relationship with sin. Let's face it: you can't write good fiction without conflict of some kind. And where does conflict come from? That's right. Sin. Pure and simple.

But Rice made the good point, as did Walley. We should be just as horrified by the "small" sins as the "large" ones. Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, I understand it now.

So go and see what other people are saying. I know I'll be going out to educate myself as well.

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