[ SECRET POST #5206 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5206 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 16 secrets from Secret Submission Post #745.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Um, white Christian Evangelicals that consider themselves conservative republicans and probably listen to Focus on the Family or at least know of James Dobson's organization and get all their "approved" books from CBD or the local church library.

(Yes, I err... got out of that life.)

There is a very strong romancing of the "Good old days" and "the simple life" with these types of "historical" romances. The well educated/rich young woman teacher ends up in small rural town and learns life lessons is one of the BIGGER tropes. Christie, anyone? This one is Janette Oke, and Lori Wick's version was "The Californians." The other huge, and I do mean huge subset of this genre is AMISH stories. (I got out JUST as the Amish stuff was becoming popular thank god.)

So, a lot anti-feminism dressed up in "Independent woman" b/c usually the teacher is forced to marry (and possibly give up teaching b/c she is married) and anti-sex, lots of "Sex is only okay with your husband and then you can enjoy it" and um... this version tends to ignore gay people entirely. But if gay people existed it'd be bad, so homophobic as well. Very toxic. I mean super toxic.

Bethany House and Harvest House are probably the BIGGEST publishers of this... nonsense. And they have very strict submitting rules about language, sex, and violence in their books. There HAS to be a moral. And everything is black and white. Anyways, Something like When Calls the Heart is going to fit in well with the "Hallmark" family friendly brand. And this gives churches something outside of Christie and Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman and the other "christian oriented" shows they can recommend to their congregations to watch!

Like a love triangle might not even occur to them because of their inner bias. I dunno. I didn't read that series. I was a Gilbert Morris and Jane Peart and Lori Wick reader... and then I found Star Wars, Mercedes Lackey, and Anne McCaffery. Not 100% sure I was better off.

[(Anonymous)]

Librarian anon here.

Nailed it! Those are the people I have in my area, and that's the type of media they like to consume.

[(Anonymous)]

SA

It's so limiting. I mean Janette Oke, Lori Wick, Gilbert Morris have made entire careers out of writing the same... thing honestly... over and over dressed up in different time periods and places. (The Amish authors, I don't know. I just... I stopped paying attention.) It is literally the harlequin CLEAN YA romance of the Christian World. Like, um, I don't know how many times violence against women was used as a plot trope. Or just the blatant ignorance of certain time periods.

I remember reading once christian fantasy novel which had some really COOL ideas but suddenly we had an entire "eating meat is bad" plot line. It was insane! (And how they work Christianity into scifi/fantasy settings is insane btw. Lewis at least had his "what if God made different realities" thing. And Tolkien is okay b/c they don't actually READ that deeply into it to even GET the Norse influences. Tolkien is Christian so LotR HAS to be okay. Okay, sure...)

These types of books, in my experience, lead to a distinct lack of critical thinking because they are so heavily sanitized, white washed, and SIMPLY written you don't even have to think.

So, yeah, that is like the tip of my iceberg rant. Apparently a christian author recently created a pseudonym to try and make a Christian YA Dystopia novel have more of a "broader" appeal by not being associated with her blantant anti sex, anti-feminism, homophobic views... and couldn't even come up with a new backstory and picture so was immediately outed complete with rivaling videos about how/why she came up with idea and err... published by Tynsdale House the same publisher that does Bibles and Francine Rivers. So, she'd be put in Christian rather than YA anyways. It is insane the lengths they'll go to LIE to try and "spread" their toxic views.

I'm sorry. I just... can't. Like take the rest of publishing and dial it up to eleven and you've got Christian publishing.

[(Anonymous)]

nayrt but this is fascinating, thanks for typing it up.

[(Anonymous)]

SA

You're welcome. White Evangelical Christian "Culture" (if you can call it that given how many rip offs it can do) is so baffling and I lived in it!

OP

[(Anonymous)]

No see, I completely understand the genre. I've read a LOT of it, lmao. I don't understand the love triangle in this genre, where two of the anchors are married to different people (and two are just married). That's where I'm confused. It flirts with adultery and that makes NO sense to me.