Christian cringe is real.
As Lorehaven’s Fantastical Truth podcast explored in episode 126, Christian fiction shares plenty of campy conversion scenes, bad parodies, and simplistic Christ-figures to poke fun of.
There’s a reason many of these tropes come off as cringy: they don’t feel true-to-life. We know cringey events can only work in a fictional world. And so many readers rightly want more in the fiction they read.
But some Christians may be concerned with calls for honest or realistic fiction. In some circles, this “honesty” means bringing more darkness and sin into stories. And that raises ethical questions. Should we really desire more depictions of sin in fiction? And does honest fiction mainly mean “depicting more sin”? Or does honesty call us to something more?
