A Case for Christian Journalism

What’s the missing ministry in worldwide missions today? We have no shortage—at least less of a lack—of preachers and teachers, administrators and accountants, construction teams, musicians, and hostesses with the mostest. Even Christian colleges with dedicated missions programs focus on camps, seminaries, TESL and tentmaking. And I’m all for it! But we could really, really use some writers. So today I’m going to make a case for the ministry of Christian journalism.

Journalism, narrowly defined, is the activity or profession of informative writing, to be distributed across various media—print, broadcast, or online. Here I refer to Christian writing in its broadest creative sense, including BOTH fiction and nonfiction. While we shouldn’t get overly imaginative when dealing with Truth, we don’t need to sound as dry as stale toast, either.

“You can make anything by writing.” —C.S. Lewis 

So here I am, sent to do spiritual battle with the enemy in this place, and if the Sword is the Word…then we are sadly short on backup forces. From my perspective as a missionary in Chile, I note a country where 99% of the people are literate (they can read and write) but aliterate (they don’t). I’d also be willing to bet 99% of the homes boast more than one cell phone and television screen but nary a book in sight.

Reading Vacuum

Chileans aren’t necessarily resistant to the gospel message of Jesus. But their “conversions” aren’t especially committed either. We plant churches, open Bible schools, hold camps, and plan workshops and retreats—all with the express purpose of training disciples. Yet what do the hungry flocks feed on, once they head home? TV series, podcasts, social media scrolling…

Which isn’t ALL bad either, of course. On one hand, it’s characteristic of the age in which we live. It’s what surrounds our daily lives.

But on the other hand, they certainly don’t read. And even the good stuff they consume online—if they possess the discernment to figure that out—resembles buckshot. Or fire-hydrant drinking.

Thirty years ago our modestly educated neighbors perused a weekend newspaper. Do today’s kids ever see newspapers, except as wrapping paper for fish or cheap packing material? I’m pretty sure they think journalism has something to do with television reporters…

I visited a Chilean library once with my middle daughter when she was an elementary school student. If I knew the title, we could request a book from behind the counter and then, if it were available, sit and read it at a table. There was no browsing from a treasure trove of gems. We learned that libraries exist to “foment” reading and provide “access”—but don’t actually lend books.

Of course, it’s understandable. While trash and propaganda pamphlets abound, real books carry a heavy tax load beneath their hefty price tag. We have lovely bookstores, even Christian ones, but who can afford to buy very much very often? All are cramped and crammed, designed to keep an eagle eye out for shoplifters. Also completely understandable in a country whose national sport is getting something for nothing.

Cultural Desert

The Santiago subway system sponsors a free lending library called the Bibliometro in a number of their downtown stations. I commend their admirable initiative and have occasionally seen readers on the metro. However, I recently read that even they have quit trying to charge late fees. Now, those who don’t return their books just lose further borrowing privileges. (“How boorish of you to ask for your book back, and what do you mean ‘it’s not in good condition’?”) Good for the Bibliometro, I say.

Obviously, that sort of a reading culture doesn’t nurture a well-read public. “Children of poverty have practically nothing to read,” writes USC linguistics educator Stephen Krashen. No doubt, that is completely true. In our current city, many families survive between mining jobs. Most have to pay for their kids’ school to ensure a decent education.

Nevertheless, as with time, we always seem to find enough for what we really want. People manage to buy, beg, or borrow (maybe forever, ahem) for soccer games and jerseys, manicures and cable TV, steak and booze for week-long holiday binges, multiple screens and electronics galore. No judgment here, but just sayin’…the money is there. We all make choices. It boils down to priorities.

AND you don’t have to be economically poor to be impoverished in reading. On an average day, the average person reads continually…text messages, emails, social media posts, recipes, prescriptions, even material such as this blog article. But according to New Hampshire teacher and literacy advocate Penny Kittle in Book Love, this is but “shallow reading… If anything, (we) are practicing a lack of attention and deep thinking.” Short-burst, online browsing doesn’t develop needed skills or stamina to become truly literate.

“You must see reading not just as an imperative for becoming a better writer, but for becoming the kind of writer whose life is shaped by story (and The Story).” —Jared C. Wilson, The Storied Life: Christian Writing as Art and Worship

Good writing and journalism, like good reading, should push us to think, not permit us to skim. Surface tickling isn’t the same as deep feeling.

Reading Pain and Poverty

Sometimes—my main point here—there IS nothing interesting or stimulating to read that’s not online. And much of what’s online doesn’t nourish or fill. It may entertain but rarely leads to growth, as a person or as a believer.

Honestly, though, if the Christian reading available to me consisted of (besides the Bible) decades-old tracts, out-of-print books, and second-or-third hand Our Daily Breads, replete with anecdotes I couldn’t relate to, I’d feel discouraged and indifferent too. I probably wouldn’t read much besides those phone memes, either.  

Imagine yourself…

• Shopping in supermarkets without magazines at the checkout…
• Living in a city of half a million people without a real bookstore, let alone one that carries Christian literature…
• Attending a church without bulletins, take-home publications, or Sunday school curriculum,
• But perhaps some mass-market paperback Bibles with microscopic print you could use during the service…

Dear God, give us some good writers, dedicated to the mission of Christian journalism. Committed to presenting transformational truth in a cultural context that our Chilean people can fully identify with.

“The call to write is a call to see as many ways as possible that God is telling stories in the world.” —Jared C. Wilson, The Storied Life: Christian Writing as Art and Worship

We have myriad Chilean soap operas, called telenovelas, but so few Chilean books. A corner of our city’s best supermarket is devoted to prohibitively expensive picture books (i.e., skip the groceries) and works by Hispanic writers such as New York Times bestseller Isabel Allende and Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez. Both of them write better than I could hope to in a lifetime of nothing but trying to match them. But I can’t say I concur with their worldview.

Lost in Translation

Besides that… Almost everything else on the stands is translated. The body of Spanish works by Chilean writers is infinitesimally small. And in the Christian world—all but nonexistent. Translations, nearly 100%.

And guess what? Next time, you start an ‘inspirational’ novel, think about the empty fiction shelf I saw in the last Christian bookstore I visited. One title by Francine Rivers. C. S. Lewis’s Narnia fantasy series. Great. Classics.

But an intriguing, exciting variety? Not much.

So what do my Chilean Christian friends read? What can they read when there’s so little wholesome fare available?

Where are the journalism missionaries?

We need translators, yes. But we also need scriptwriters, filmmakers, novelists, biographers, illustrators, and competent commentators on current events and issues. We need writers of devotionals, study books, newsletters, and children’s stories.

Do you fit into any of these special categories? Do you know of anyone who does? Can you encourage someone who might?

“No one expects your art to preach a sermon. We have preachers for that. But on another level, the enemy can use that fear to water down your creativity. The enemy doesn’t care what we do, as long as we do it without God’s active, intimate presence. If there’s no echo of the eternal in what you’re doing, why do it? If the only way to sell a story is to leave God out of it, does the world really need more of those stories?” –Allen Arnold, Daily Thoughts, “Passionate isn’t Preachy”

The famine of good literature around the world should stop us in our tracks to the library. New Christians put their faith in Jesus. They receive and read the Scriptures, and then what? They depend on North American literature as a model of how to apply biblical truths in a contemporary world. And end up frustrated, confused, and vulnerable to the attractive materials published by cults and other ideologies.

Let’s hold our stories of American football players and dishwasher tragedies, because no one gets them here. Instead, let’s find vibrant ways to show people how we love and live for Jesus in the context of Chilean towns and cities (or other places of the world).

Writer Recruitment

Excellent reading materials should be available. That includes tracts and informational pamphlets, books on practical Christian living, Sunday school lessons, regularly published magazines, and stories and books for all ages featuring people with problems like those our national believers face. I think reviving (gasp!) the interchurch bulletin that used to unite our national churches of like faith would work better (though not easier or faster) than multiple WhatsApp groups. And what about—dare I say—blogs, websites, even films?

Perhaps you should meet Kati, an adult MK (missionary kid) who, with no specialized training in Christian journalism, produces our mission agency’s biannual magazine, the Southern Sentinel, while she raises three children, homeschools, acts as hostess, serves in the office, and is active in her church. A stunning resumé, to say the least.

“The Christian writer’s first audience is the one who has gifted him.” —Jared C. Wilson, The Storied Life: Christian Writing as Art and Worship

Then there’s my middle daughter, another grownup MK, who’s in the process of publishing a requested Spanish devotional book called Jueces para Jóvenes (Judges for Youth). Both of these young women form part of the missing ministry of journalism.

What About Me?

I’m often asked why I don’t write fiction in Spanish or have my work translated (or translate it myself). But I am reluctant. As my character Cole Peterson observed in Destiny at Dolphin Bay, I feel like an outsider looking in. I think Chileans (and people from around the world, for that matter) need at least some of their own stories.

“The world does not need more Christian literature. What it needs is more Christians writing good literature.” —C.S. Lewis

But I’m desperate enough, for all the reasons mentioned above, to try to do something, especially for the women and young people. To do effective journalism within a culture means years of investment. You must immerse yourself in that cultural environment to understand it. And I know enough to know I don’t really know enough.

“Whenever there’s something wrong with your writing, suspect that there’s something wrong with your thinking.” —Patricia O’Connor

So I grant it’s a formidable task, considering the obstacles. However, we can’t just continue to import and distribute publications from abroad and keep the practical reality of Christ and the Scriptures wrapped in our North American cultural packaging. Bible commentaries and theological studies may do their job well enough, but not the stories aimed at touching and transforming hearts and lives.

So I ask again…and beg…and pray…

Where is the missing link, the Chilean writers?

Of course, our sending churches and training institutions can play an important role. In the first place, by opening up to the idea that a journalism ministry within the concept of world missions is not only valid but absolutely essential. Journalism and/or creative writing need to be considered and offered as at least an optional part of a missions major, alongside TESL, education, medicine, counseling, etc. On global fields, these graduates should dedicate themselves to developing a robust national Christian literature for the areas in which they live and work.

But as an ultimate goal—beyond these immediate needs—journalism missionaries would seek out and train potential national believers who have a desire to write for their own people. Working together at first, they could begin to produce the indigenous literature a growing national church needs.

Only then will we have the materials written by Chileans for Chileans, against a Chilean cultural background. As they grow in their understanding and application of the Word of God to their own context, they will come to an intelligent discernment concerning the crucial topics of their time and place and learn to make wise decisions in the practice of their faith.

“He held me spellbound. That guy saw the world lucidly and spoke the truth fearlessly. His dynamic faith and authenticity—at sea, at school, at church—connected with people. His remarkable insight into the islanders’ needs and problems blended inspiration with realism. He could’ve been a preacher. But something told me he served exactly where God wanted him, fulfilling his calling by sharing the Word through his profession in places most preachers could only dream of having the opportunity.” –Cristina Linnenbrink on Nicolás Serrano, Legacy of the Linnenbrink Light, Diana Delacruz

Journaling Answers

What can we ordinary readers and writers do? Perhaps we can become the servants who will take on the challenge of encouraging and teaching the next generation of writers in our countries of ministry, wherever they are. What an opportunity.

We won’t live here forever. We can’t always point our friends to a biblical base for how to respond to the issues and problems they encounter. Yet, through the ministry of Christian journalism, we can offer guidelines, share suggestions, and inspire commitment in the face of struggles with occult practices and substance abuse, poverty and sexuality, sin and suffering. We can present heroes and models of authentic faith in an all-too-faithless world.

I’m a huge fan of international stories. That’s my genre, after all. Chileans would—and can and do—benefit by world literature, too. But what if 99% of your reading material was set in, say, Brazil, for instance?

They need to read.

And they need something to read. Something that will speak to their hearts.

“Where do dreams come from?…They slink out of books, they lurk in stacks of libraries.” –Marge Piercy, “Where Dreams Come From”

Someday I’d like to see my dream of a Christian coffee shop/bookstore here fulfilled. Hey, it’s a dream. Maybe it’ll turn out to be just a mug of tea and a church library where the books and other resources are (ahem) returned for the blessing of others.

And perhaps the day will even arrive when Legado del Faro Linnenbrink stands on the shelf. That’s the Spanish title for Legacy of the Linnenbrink Light, and I just finished the final (English) draft last week. (By the way, if any of you who read Seaglass Blog regularly are interested in being an early [beta] reader, contact me and we can talk about it.)

It’s a story like those I can only wish were available in Spanish. It presents a vision for a transformed world.

A small world where a few courageous people make a big difference. A light in the darkness.

That’s the power of Christian journalism.