Mailbag: What Makes Religious Writing?

As I promised last week, today I’m responding to the many thoughtful comments on my post asking, What Makes Religious Writing? In this post, I talked about the powerful emotion and symbolism that can come from grappling with religious images and ideas. I asked readers to define religious writing as an idea, and discuss how they use it in their own writing. So let’s get to the comments!

Katie said:

I think what makes fiction religious is it become a focus of how the world of the author is seen, or how a main player in the story sees their world. For example, The Eighth Scroll , is a religious fiction with a lot of different points of view, but each of the main players is colored by it in a different way. Its a pretty smart read because of its religious elements and in my mind that is what makes it religious fiction.

Thanks, Katie, for your succinct and authoritative definition. I certainly agree that religious writing often deals with the perception of reality. And as you say, it very often puts forward an argument about how to perceive reality. It also is most successful when it works on a personal level, because religious awakening or feeling is ultimately a personal experience. To make your mystical writing work, therefore, you’ve got to remember to keep it personal, closely in the mind of your character.

Tammi Kibler said:

Interesting synchronicity, I am reading _Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold_ by C.S. Lewis this week. He retells the myth of Cupid and Psyche.

I will check out the Kafka stories this weekend.

Your summary of Vasitthi the Madwoman reminds me of Jane Goodall’s account of a chimpanzee mother who carried her dead infant around for several weeks. Archetypes may run deeper in our psyches than storytelling.

On another note, is is safe to cancel my CWC subscription and trust that these posts will come through my Writerly Life subscription?

Thanks, Tammi! First, let me say that yes, you can cancel your CWC subscription! It’s time to move on over to Writerly Life. I have read Till We Have Faces as well, and that’s an interesting take on religion because it’s sort of a Christian re-imagining of Greek myths. That’s a great way to use old religious stories for your own purposes — take the symbolism and the characters and re-imagine them with a new perspective. That’s why Greek myths continue to be so fascinating even though no one believe in the gods anymore — they work so well as symbols in other faiths. And yes, I saw the story of Vasitthi the Madwoman as a very primordial experience of grief, a grief that transcends lifetimes or even species.

Finally, Mohamed Mughal said:

Using canonical iconography also gives writers a ready device for symbolism. I can’t count how many times I’ve recognized the “Christ figure” in literature, or for that matter, how many times I’ve used it myself in my own writing.

Powerful symbolism!

Thanks, Mohamed! Absolutely, old religious myths and symbols are very fertile ground to make your modern story feel richer and more rooted in a literary or religious tradition. We can see many many Christ figures in modern literature, as well as seeing various saints, prophets, and Buddhas coming to life in new forms in modern literature. The whole point of religion, I think, is to have narratives of belief that continue to rejuvenate themselves through changing ages and times. Having them pop up in your story is a creative way to show religion coming to life again in our consciousness.

Thanks for your thoughtful comments as always, readers. I hope you’ll put these ideas to use in your own writing, to add a little mystical richness to it. Next week, I’ll tackle a post that garnered a lot of attention: How to Write Under Stressful Conditions. See you then!