Assistant Editor Heather von Doehren attempts to answer some commonly asked questions about what Relief is willing to publish.

We receive a lot of questions about why (or sometimes if) we publish works with profanity and “questionable” subject matter.  Questions like…

·         “I was thinking about submitting but I don’t think my work is ‘Christian enough’ for your journal, is that okay” or

·         “What do you consider edgy ?”, or 

·         “What sort of language do you allow?” or

·         “Why would you allow such filth to appear on Christian pages?”

All of these are complicated questions in any venue.  Relief's stance is that we will not censor our authors in an effort to never offend .  Anyone who has spent a lot of time people-pleasing will tell you that there is always someone, somewhere who will be offended by something.  With that said, we don't draw lines. 

A Little Pastor Once Told Me…

I am reminded of something Jarrett Stevens once taught about when the youth/20-somethings in his congregation kept asking him questions about what was acceptable sexually in God's eyes.  The questions he kept getting would range from "Is kissing okay?" or "What about second base?" or "What if we keep our clothes on?" and after this line of questioning, Jarrett smiled and said, "I think you are missing the point." And then he explained that people too often want their churches to draw lines on their bodies like "Everything above this line is okay, and everything below this line is not," but that's not what God designed or intended.  Look at the Song of Songs or in Genesis (hello?  Adam and Eve, naked, doing it like bunnies!).  Like anything that is amazing and worthwhile in life, like friendship, love, sex or even the words we speak, we don’t see a right or wrong, this side or that side, but many varying degrees all contingent upon the circumstances.  The gift of seeing the differences in these circumstances people term “discernment .” God knows what is in people's hearts.  And with careful study and a prayerful spirit, so can we. 

How We Make Distinctions:

When we do consider work that has the potential to offend the “innocent,” we consider always the larger story.   Consider these two scenarios:

1.    A Christian who volunteers willingly and joyfully at a homeless shelter, attends church regularly, prays wholeheartedly, and is very generous with all aspects of her time, dropping whatever she's doing to help a friend, falls down a flight of stairs breaking her hip and screams "F**k!" when she figures out that she can't move and no one will be home to help her for five hours.

2.    A Christian who attends church so he can be seen by his friends, leads the family in prayer at dinnertime, donates money to charity for the tax break, passes a bum on the street and says "You f***ing repulse me!" carefully under his breath so no one hears.

In either case, do you think God will be concerned by the Christian swearing?  I think He'd be more bothered by other things happening in the scene.  But both of these situations you'd find in our journal, uncensored because this kind of stuff really happens.  And in either scene, I believe the swearing is necessary for the storylines and the characterization.  The swearing represents or marks turning points for both.  The first scene, the character loses patience and composure in a moment of extreme pain and in later scenes this first character will use this incidence (her literal fall) as an unconscious justification for a growing spiritual fall—a mark that will be most (perhaps only) noticeable through her language. 

Q: How do you make the reader aware of a loss in faith if the character is unaware? 

A: Show, don’t tell.

No one was there to help her.  Her broken hip means that she is unable to do the things that define her as a Christian.  She is now struggling in every sense.  But, without the character swearing—here and in future scenes—the writer would have to explain this change in her character through the narrative, rather than one simple slip of the tongue.  This is what we’ve been talking about all along by show, don’t tell, or “surprise us ,” or “stop moralizing! ”  In the second example, yes, the swearing is condemnable but necessary for the same reasons that the swear is necessary in the first scene.  It demonstrates what is in the character's heart in these private/public moments in a way that exposition would make cheap and cliché. 

We examine each and every submission like this (that’s why it takes so freakin’ long to respond).  If the swearing (or other "unchristian" acts) is gratuitous, unnecessary, or contradicts overall messages in scripture…we reject the piece without a second thought.  But we won't dismiss a piece just because someone said a bad word.  People swear.  People sin.  We can't ignore it or hide from it.  In fact, oftentimes the moments where people do find God or draw closer to God are in these “fallible” moments.  These are the kind of stories we're interested in publishing.  And on the other side, people lose faith, pull away from God, and ignore the consequences of their own behavior.  These stories are also something we're interested in publishing.  And on top of all of this, Christians are far from perfect.  Just because we are "saved" does not mean that we are safe from worldly ramifications—but I have a feeling that many non-Christians think we should be perfect.  And when we aren't (hello…it’s because no one can be this side of heaven) they perceive (extrapolate?) the imperfections in character as an imperfection in the religion, or worse, in God.  I don't think Christians who censor or hide their own moments of imperfection do any good to this false perception of "perfection."  And worse, non-Christians reading stories of unrealistically perfect Christians could perceive themselves as unworthy because of their own constant struggle.  I don’t think that God loves us in spite of our sin; I think He just loves us.

What we are NOT saying.

Yes, there are many places for safe and censored writing.  Walk into any Christian bookstore and you’ll find it.  We, on the other hand, do NOT belong in a Christian bookstore.  To reference EMINEM, I wouldn’t let my own daughter read us either…not at least until she (that’s the hypothetical she by way) was older.  So with that in mind, Relief is not for everyone.  But it does put us in a strange place: we are too secular for Christian publishing and too Christian for secular publishing.  But that is what makes this Relief.

Dudes, it's like 2:30 in the morning and I should so be asleep. We've been going since 8 this morning what seems like nonstop!

Thanks to all the folks that stopped by our booth today to talk with us!  

Of course we added to our Friend wall again. Today we added Cathedral Hill Press (what's up, Dan and Steve!), Creative Byline (hi Gloria and Brad!), Intervarsity Press (shout-outs to Heather and Adriana!), and several others that I can't remember because my picture of the Friend wall is currently sitting on the memory card of the camera that wants to have a sleep-over in the car. Dudes, I'm sorry, but I just can't get myself to go get it. I'll update this in the morning from the Exibition Hall. Pics have been added in the Gallery. Hit the Read More link to see! 

Update: More new Friends on the wall: Culture Is Not Optional, Word Farm (s'up Andrew and Mark!), and Qara Ministries! 

We planned this little improptu gathering at a local establishment called the One Trick Pony. It was a lot of fun, but unfortunately your friendly neighborhood tech guy can't seem to get correct directions. So if anyone actually used the directions I printed out and got lost, I am so sorry, and I am so fired from ever printing out directions again. Fortunately my other skills make up for my seemingly complete lack of cartograpic ability. Is cartographic a word? Anyway, I think most of the people who were planning on coming out got there. At least I hope so and tomorrow I won't be whaled on too much. Maybe Andy should have kept the directions. (longer story, will update tomorrow with illustrations.) 

Update: So Heather posted up the above pic on our PowerPoint show, and Andy, being the rascal that he is, cracked us all up by coming over and taking the directions! Ok, so maybe it's not a long story. You had to be there, it was much funnier, really. 

Afterwards we all ended up at Yann Martel's speak, and they tell me it was pretty good. Due to an unfortunate communication mix-up, I was the only Relief team member who got there just about time for him to finish up. Strike two for Coach. I was just not swinging at the right pitches it seems. 

Kimberly and I headed back to Calvin to hear one of my favorite teachers, Rob Bell. Rob's one of those guys that energizes the room. After listening to his talk on writing, I wanted to go back and actually finish the 80,000 word novel that's been lying around like a sick dog on my hard drive. One of these days when I either get time or figure out how to order a set of IV bags so I can just mainline caffeine, I might actually get around to writing the ending. (Sorry Andy, no zombies in that one.)

We headed down to Wealthy Street for a little mixer we were honored to be invited to (thanks Lisa, Lisa Beth, and Laura!) and grabbed a quick drink and a s'more. Kim and I so wanted to stay longer and visit with so many cool people we had met in these last two days, but we were just cashed out. Realizing we had somehow both completely skipped dinner, we grabbed a to-go box from Friday's and headed back here to the hotel to chow and crash.  

So here I am, blogging when I should be in bed, again. But once again, I had to get some thoughts down real quick. If you're reading this before I put up pictures, come back around 10AM Michigan time Saturday and I'll post up pics from the camera that I left in the car. 

So here's to another great day of meeting great people like Marlena Graves, Renee and Vanessa Matheny (cousins, it turns out!) David Landrum, and a bunch of other folks that my tired brain will recall after I've slept at least some. More tomorrow! 

Update: Hit the Read More link for pics from Day 2 and the Relief Mixer at the One Trick Pony!

An Overview behind the Project:

You’ve seen this happen before . . . people working for organizations with low funds become so engrossed with their work that they forget or fail to realize there’s a world outside their organization. I’ve seen it happen to many a literary journal or literary magazine, and I’ve certainly seen it happen a lot (and I mean a lot) within churches.

Once my blog “The Price of Inspiration ” hit cyberspace I began to realize that that particular blog would never have happened if I hadn’t been working, thinking, breathing, and sleeping Relief. And although I do feel the blog was beneficial and necessary (yes, there are some people who think we’re stapling paper together like some pamphlet—we’re not. It’s a book), I can’t help but feel that I’ve forgotten what it feels like to work outside of a journal.

And so I introduce to you Operation Blog-About-More-Stuff.

About the Project:

The goal here is to not only write more consistently, but to offer a broader perspective of what it means to be Christian in today’s society. We’ve posted a few ads on some freelance writing sites, and on Chicago’s Craigslist, and we are now reviewing applications to broaden our staff writers. All because I feel we are in danger of narrowfocusness (yeah, that’s right . . . I made up a word). So, none of our staff writers will have anything to do with the journal. That’s right! If they volunteer to help (which would be really really tempting right before a deadline) we’re not going to let them. We don’t want to taint their wonderful and refreshing outside perspective.

We’re looking for people who like to write, who are spiritually and/or literarily inclined, and who want to work for free (sorry about that last part). If you’d like to apply, send a résumé and/or bio along with a writing sample to me, Heather (assistanteditor[at] you know the extension).

Steps of the Project:

1. Review applications

2. Interact with/pray about (or for) applicants

3. Hire applicants and discuss goals, expectations, and to make a blog schedule

4. Develop topics and an initial blog series (three or four blogs loosely related)

5. Edit Blogs

6. Post Blogs

With that schedule in mind, it might be a little while before the Relief community gets to know these new bloggers. But in the meantime, we at Relief are hoping to do more meaningful blogs and interviews. We’ve just found out that Paul and Susie Wirth of Relevant Church have agreed to do an interview with us as a follow-up to their controversial series called “The 30 Day Sex Challenge.” We’re also working on a lot of cool things for writers who can’t quite figure out how to use Microsoft Word. I’ve also been working on a video to act as a tutorial in how to format submissions. Those are just a few things we have in the works. So check back soon, or subscribe to our RSS feed to stay updated on all the cool happenings here at Relief and in the world of God (and of course literature).

See ya around,

Heather von Doehren