The Question of God in Young Adult Fiction

by First Mate Keira

One of the saddest things for me in fiction today is how God is treated. If you’re not a Christian fiction novel you’re an atheist. It comes up unexpectedly in text and it really bugs me because it always seems to me like evangelizing others to not believe in God too. It’s in more books than I care for and it really irks me.

Why is being an atheist cool but believing in God is not cool?

Why is it okay to preach God doesn’t exist, and not that He does exist?

Why is this anti-religion movement so prevalent? Why cater to a small minority of readers? Is it because authors/publishers think being an atheist isn’t offensive? Is it because they are atheists themselves?

Do authors/publishers think kids don’t believe in God? How is this possible? Or that the ones who do, shouldn’t?

Can’t authors at least have the characters agnostic? That way they avoid the denomination conundrum. Believing in God doesn’t automatically make you a religious nutcase or an evangelical psycho.

Why does Christian fiction have the connotation of being preachy when the plethora of anti-religious viewpoints gets away without comment?

I think the constant bombardment of this anti-God mentality needs to stop. If you can’t bring God up in the novel without:

a) having a character scoff at His existence

b) having a faux logical conversation between characters as proof He doesn’t exist

OR

c) having a character say they used to until X happened to them

Please don’t bring up God at all.

Over half of the time it’s a pointless bit of dialogue or mental narration. It adds nothing to the story, and doesn’t do anything but make the character more inaccessible.

Even atheists shout curses and sing praises. They might not know it, but they do. It’s part of English vernacular and culture. It’s too engrained to give up cursing a stubbed toe or saying hallelujah the light at the intersection finally turned green. Who are they talking to if not to God?

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