One more thing, as a former Middle School literature teacher, I need to say there is a place for Christian romance, especially in the lives of girls of that age. Like all activities, that reading should be monitored by parents. Read what they are reading and discuss it with them. Much can be learned by discussing that with which we disagree.

I hope you won’t mind my adding a few words from our wise friend, Tony Esolen. When I think of chick flicks, what I’d rather see is something like his description of John Ford’s movies from an article he wrote a few months back:

“Men and women, in Ford’s movies, are titanic mysteries, kings and queens walking the earth in ordinary garb; endlessly fascinating to one another and so powerful in their masculinity and femininity that talk of equality misses the beauty and the danger altogether. How can you talk of equality when you encounter a whirlwind and an earthquake? The marriage of such creatures is always an unadulterated good, as it portends both creation and procreation: a farm, a village, a culture, and children.”

Now THAT’s my kinda movie.

Kamilla

Gimme Middlemarch. Wives and Daughters. Anna Karenina.

Anything but another Bridget Jones sequel. (though I did rather enjoy Under the Tuscan Sun).

Kamilla

I’m not sure how many Christian romance novels you’ve read but I’ve read four in my lifetime; three as a teen and one as an adult. Let me just say that the writing in these books panders to the lowest common denominator. Not only do most of them portray impotent christian men & women being led around by their emotions, pining for someone or something just out of their grasp, they are not intelligent and the lessons to be had are elementary at best. ‘Bubblegum for the brain’ best describes them.

I do not believe that books like these edify women. There is so much more out there to be read for pleasure that can be uplifting and edifying. For example: Tolstoy’s “War & Peace” (and no, I’m not joking. I just finished it this year and was enthralled.), Dostoyevsky, Dickens, etc… Books such as these address issues that are relevant today (”nothing new under the sun”). The language may be a little antiquated, but it is a wonderful challenge.

Your Frozen Chosen Sister,

Genoise

I found this artclie about chick flicks and the spirit of Christ very helpful and convicting. I think that alot of godly woman these days are very confussed about what love and realtionships should be. I Thank the Lord for Beth and her faithfulness to God’s word and teaching how we should think on biblical womanhood. Thank you for the post!

Allison Bradburn

I was listening to a local Christian radio station the other night, and the disc jockey was defending himself from a caller who was upset that he played a ‘normal’ love song on the station. The jockey argued that Christian recording artists should not be afraid to record old fashioned love songs on their albums, and radio stations should not be afraid to play them because the world needs to see a counter-cultural commentary on what romantic love is and is supposed to look like between a man and a woman. Seemed to be right on to me.

I think you’re rightly rejecting these worldly romance novels and warning against these movies on the grounds that they breed discontentment and covetousness. However, do you think there is any Christian place in romance fiction? Or any mode of Christian movie making that can highlight romance AND be glorifying to God? As you said above, you don’t make a fundamental distinction between the Fabios and the Rev. Fabios, so I’m having difficulty sifting out the Christian’s response to ‘romance’ in the public square.

Thanks,
BH