I recently noticed that a successful (i.e., New York Times Bestselling) author of SF and Vampire stories linked to Coach's Midnight Diner.
It was interesting, though--after quoting Coach's Blurb and giving a pretty accurate picture of the Diner, she followed with the comment:
"...we rarely see a Christian-slanted antho like this, so I thought it would be of interest to the unconventional/inspirational writers out there."
On the first account, props to Coach and all contributors (including, er, me) for the fortune of having the link, and if anyone wants to check out the relatively good industry-insider blog, it's worth a visit at http://pbackwriter.blogspot.com/. (Lynn Veihl's books are also quite good, though I'd caution any potential readers that I haven't read a book of hers that didn't involve at least one sex scene.)
That said, one word stood out to me: "inspirational." Now, certainly many of the stories in Coach's Midnight Diner seem to be encouraging, heart-warming pieces. Yet many of the pieces were anything but inspirational, questioning (rather than comforting) the reader and digging into the dark side of life.
I think there's a call for both sides, even if I tend to drift towards the "questioning" rather than "comforting" side. Certainly almost any writer can point to at least a dozen books that have simply made them happy, made them want to live more intensely and warm-heartedly. Yet that's certainly not the entirety of the Psalms, much less the entirety of Scriptures.
My question (for those who have read this far): What is it that leads an author to assume a Christian anthology is "inspirational," and in what ways is this a good/bad thing?
(Or perhaps a better question: what would the "man on the street" in 33 AD have to say in answer to the question "what kind of a speaker is Jesus?" My suspicion is that answers would vary, but at least as many would respond "revolutionary," "strange" or "idiotic" as "inspirational.")
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Meaning of Inspirational
For something to truly be "inspirational" in the pure sense of the word, it must inspire someone to DO something. That could be nothing more than think about something, I suppose, or to act. Ted Dekker's RED (that's the first one, right?) was a unique and interesting novel, but not sure it was able to "inspire" people to do anything (maybe go swimming or see bats in a whole new way). In most cases, I think, "inspirational" means to make one see the world, from the way an apple looks on your counter in the morning to something as big as how the US government works within other countries, in a different light. In the Christian sense, perhaps allow the reader to see these (in a very, very filtered way) through God's eyes, or at the very least the eyes of a believer.
To be honest, I think most
To be honest, I think most categorize any Christian anthology as "inspirational" due to lack of ability to find another adjective. People feel a need to categorize things, keep them nice and neat in their own little boxes. As an automatic, knee-jerk, response to the word "Christian", people place it in the "inspirational" box. They're happy that way.
Is it good/bad? Perhaps both. Depends on the purpose for said piece of literature. It also depends on one's definition of "inspirational". As you've stated, much of the Diner leads to questioning, makes people uncomfortable, but this can be described as inspirational. To inspire does not wholly mean to lead one to a "pure and holy" life, or to make one feel "warm-hearted". To inspire simply can be to invoke any kind of feeling or thought that causes one to act. Hitler inspired people, and it wasn't for warm fuzziness. Anyway, just some thoughts.
Actually, I have a feeling
Actually, I have a feeling that Hitler gave a lot of people the warm-fuzzies. I think he really did convince them they were headed to a more "pure" world, with strong family values and peace and prosperity for all Arians. That's part of what made him so effectively evil.
I guess I was just thinking of "inspirational" in the sense it has been used in most film or book reviews I've read--in which warm-fuzzies and obvious hopefulness are the things that people refer to as "inspirational." Even if it's a dark movie, "inspirational" films always have happy endings, or at least immediately uplifting and fulfilling ones.
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