Religion and Spirituality

I was spending some time in R&S at Yahoo Answers until the 'do my homework questions' questions die down. It's a good place becausr the people there, no matter their beliefs or lack of them have something to say. Sharing information is always a good reason to write things down.

A search through the local libray and bookstore categories showed me that religious writings are not a specific genre. It is a category placed either by itself or under philosophy depending on what part of the country you are in.

For the purpose of writing though, you must know the genre. I found three. The fiction tends to be love stories so the barrier is one party is Christian and the other isn't, or a very few have two separate religions. I was unable to find anything with the protagonist being anything other than Christian. Any practising Muslims or Buddhists would find a wide open market, I should think.

In non fiction, I found two styles of writing. One is written by those with degrees explaining Bible escatology The origin and meaning of the wording of the Bible with rference to how it was used at the time of writing. There were a few works that published sermons and works aimed at spreading the Gospel message. There was not many of them because the target market (unbelievers) are unlikely to buy them. Again, I was unable to find very little from non Christian religions. I would avoid this type of writing if you don't have a degree or are fluent in Greek, Hebrew or Aramaic (a dead language)because you'll need to have something original to add to whatever is out there.

Another type is the daily living variety, such as the Chicken Soup for the Soul series or The Upper Room. This format is marked by giving a Bible verse and sharing a personal testimony relevant to the verse. Sometimes an event will remind the writer of a verse and sometime the daily reading will especially stand out because of something that happened that day. This is a good field to specialize in because it's more effective when written by layity persons. The focus should be on your daily walk with God.

One type I found exactly zero on was Contemporary Christian fiction that was not a love story. Nothing about anyone's conversion experience, nothing about how people share their story in the workplace without getting labeled as wierd, or even if they tried it, what the reaction of hte people you talked to were. And nothing about how your life changed for better (or worse?) after your conversion.

Libraries think they are up to date if they carry a copy of the Holy Quoran, but then I live in what is called the Bible Belt. There also may just not be anything out there. The bookstores had very little to offer, but tell me they can order anything if I have an ISBN number or the title and author.

Hope this gives someone ideas. Peace