A Christian Perspective on Slash Fiction

Meta
Title:	A Christian Perspective on Slash Fiction
Creator:	Marnie
Date(s):	January 21, 2005 (Slash Philosophy), January 26, 2005 (Fanfic Symposium)
Medium:	online
Fandom:
Topic:	Fanfiction, Slash
External Links:	A Christian Perspective on Slash Fiction, Archived version
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A Christian Perspective on Slash Fiction is a very long essay by Marnie, an Anglican.

The essay was first posted to the LiveJournal community Slash Philosophy on January 21, 2005, where it had 304 comments. See at the slashphilosophy LJ comm, ^{Archived version}.

It is part of the Fanfic Symposium series and was posted there on January 26, 2005 where it has 33 comments. See at the ffsymposium LJ comm, ^{Archived version}.

Excerpts

I wrote this because I am a Christian woman who enjoys slash fiction, and I don't see anything wrong in that. But it took me much soul searching, prayer, reading the Bible and commentaries, and discussion to get to that position, and I would like to share my conclusions with other slash-reading Christians, in order to spare them the months of struggle, self-doubt and self-hatred that I've gone through.

So, you're a Christian, and that is very important to you. You love God and want to do his will. You want to obey him, but you can't stop reading slash... You want to stop, because you believe it's wrong. The Bible says that homosexuality is a sin, and it is therefore wrong to vicariously enjoy it.

You've tried to stop, but it's like an addiction - you keep coming back, and even if you can keep away from the stories, your own fantasy life is full of slash, and you can't get away from that. You're tired of fighting, tired of losing, afraid that God will condemn you, afraid that God hates you, because you are repugnant in his sight. You cry out to Him to free you from this sin. But he doesn't.

Perhaps you've tried to talk about it to your Christian friends, and you have suddenly experienced the full force of the condemnation which the Church can inflict; 'how could you do this? how could you betray your principles like this? this is a crisis of faith - you must stop the fantasizing, or lose your faith. God will disown you. God hates this.' And you're in despair, because only you know how hard you've tried to stop, but you can't.

I know, I've been there.

Or perhaps you come from the other side. Perhaps you're a Christian who cannot believe how vile this slash fiction is, how perverted and Godless the people must be who read and enjoy it - let alone those who write it. You feel it's your moral duty to speak up against it, to protect people from another of the evils of this permissive society of ours.

I hope this essay will help you too. I offer it in praise of God, whom I now understand to be far better, far kinder, far more accepting and loving than I had ever imagined. What truth is in it, He showed me. He rescued me from despair and in the process taught me to love him more, to detest a great injustice in society which previously I had ignored, and to resist the narrow legalism of the Church, which has turned into an instrument of hatred, where God intended us to be instruments of his love.

Reactions and Reviews

• at the ffsymposium LJ comm, ^{Archived version} (33 comments)
• at the slashphilosophy LJ comm, ^{Archived version} (304 comments)