“God, Todd, and the Conflicting Discourse of Christy Miller.”
The following is an excerpt from my undergraduate thesis. In this essay, I analyze the "Christy Miller" books, an evangelical romance series, in light of feminist theology and recent studies on evangelical culture and discourse. I argue that there are two competing discourses operating within the Christy Miller Series: the first attempts to illustrate spiritual validity and independence in women’s lives, while the second portrays women as the inferior, dependent gender. This conflict creates unstable themes in the novels, ultimately teaching the target audience of teenage girls that they can only access Christian salvation by fulfilling specific gender norms and becoming a wife to a Christian man.
This essay was submitted in May 2018 as part of the requirements for the Bachelor of Arts Degree in English at Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, N.C.
This essay was submitted in May 2018 as part of the requirements for the Bachelor of Arts Degree in English at Gardner-Webb University in Boiling Springs, N.C.
“He’ll Never Turn His Back on You:” Divine Savior vs. Male Savior-Figure
Because of their evangelical nature, Christian romance books like the Christy Miller series employ a discourse of salvation—specifically, salvation from sin and eternal condemnation through the divine figure of Jesus Christ. In her list of characteristics of the Christian romance genre, Lynn S. Neal observes that authors often include climactic scenes in which the female protagonist experiences divine salvation by converting to Christianity, which involves accepting Jesus Christ as a personal savior (106). Some authors even hope that these pivotal scenes will encourage their readers to convert or experience religious renewal in their own lives. Neal quotes Robin Jones Gunn (author of Christy Miller) specifically in this discussion. According to Neal, Gunn hopes that “unsuspecting readers… will be surprised and transformed when they pick up a romance novel that they do not know contains a Christian message” (Neal 111). As the female protagonist in the novel accepts and draws near to Christ, experiencing the love of a divine savior, readers have the opportunity to learn about salvation through Christ and, potentially, convert to Christianity themselves.
However, these romance novels often pair a female character’s religious conversion and her subsequent spiritual growth with the onset of a romantic relationship and subsequent romantic growth. This popular narrative trope presents Christian salvation and a picture-perfect romantic relationship as a package deal. However, this trend is not limited to the realms of Christian romance novels. It reflects the evangelical tendency to see men as spiritual saviors and leaders who are necessarily more Christ-like than women. As Julie Zaloudek explains, Christians often reverse the “Christ-groom/Church-bride” metaphor found in the Bible, which describes God’s love for his people like the passionate, joyous love of a groom for his bride (624). Rather than comparing God’s love for humanity to the love that a groom might experience on his wedding day, Christians flip this metaphor and assert that within a marriage, a husband’s love for his wife is necessarily like God’s flawless and unconditional love for humanity. This flipped metaphor positions husbands as Christ-like saviors, pinning wives as sinful, lost people who must be pursued and rescued. Zaldouek notes that couples who apply this reversed metaphor to their marriages put unrealistic expectations on both husband and wife (639). When women start to see their husbands as inherently holier than themselves, they begin to see their relationship with their husbands and their relationship with God as one in the same, often pushing Jesus to the background as “a proxy for when [their] husband is not serving in the role of provider and companion” (634).
In her comparative study of Christian and secular romance novels, Laura Clawson states that “the most striking area of difference” between the two genres is the male hero and the “form of fantasy he represents” (475). In Christian romances, she observes, the male hero “occupies the categorically dominant position of maleness, so he does not need to be a drop-dead, gorgeous, multimillionaire cowboy doctor” (469). In other words, the implication in Christian romances is that men are inherently perfect simply because they are men. Christian romance authors do not have to spend time elaborating on what makes the man in their book attractive because the fact that he is male in itself is enough to imply perfection, strength, and dominance (although, as I have mentioned before, Gunn spends significant sections of her novels elaborating on Todd’s physical attractiveness anyway). I would add to Clawson’s observation that perhaps there is such a difference between Christian and secular romance heroes because in Christian novels the male hero represents not only a knight in shining armor, but Jesus Christ himself. The male characters of Christian romance novels take on a much greater role than lover, boyfriend, and husband. They take on the role of a divine savior who will lead a sinful woman back to Christ and make way for her salvation. This discourse of male-hero-as-Jesus-proxy conflicts with the Christian message that salvation comes through Christ alone, not relationships with other people.
Gunn employs the reversed Christ-groom/ church-bride metaphor in Christy’s narrative, positioning Todd as a spiritual leader who pursues and saves the heroine. Moments in which Christy should “encounter the divine,” as Neal writes, are disrupted by the presence of Todd, making God and Todd inseparable in Christy’s life (112). While Gunn does not blatantly say so, she strongly suggests that if Christy had never met Todd and never developed a relationship with him, she never would have become a Christian. The night before Christy first meets Todd, she has a dream in which she is “lying on the beach, when all of a sudden a big wave came up on shore, crashed on top of her, and pulled her out to sea” (Summer Promise 33). Later on, just before she converts to Christianity by accepting Jesus as her savior, she remembers the dream, “facing that terrifying moment all over again” (162). Christy suddenly sees this dream as a metaphor for what her life would be like without God: the crashing waves represent sin and the struggles of life. Christy realizes that Jesus also fits into this ocean metaphor: he is like a safe boat that will pull her up out of the waves and carry her safely to shore, which represents heaven. However, Gunn complicates this metaphor by introducing Todd. The day after the initial nightmare, Christy hangs out with her friends on the beach and is literally overtaken by a wave when she tries to go surfing. Gunn writes, “the terror of her dream the night before rushed up, causing her to fight something greater than the ocean” (39-40). Since Christy later makes a connection between the terrifying waves and her life without Christ, this moment should serve to symbolize Christy’s need for a divine savior. Yet Gunn chooses this moment to introduce Todd and present him not only as “the cutest guy [Christy] had ever seen,” but as the perfect male savior-figure who helps her stand up and brush off the seaweed when all her other friends are laughing at her (40). Here, Gunn mixes Christ and Todd into the same metaphor, creating a conflicting discourse surrounding Christy’s salvation.
Gunn adds to the confusion by describing Todd with language that reflects descriptions of God and/or Jesus from the Bible. Christians are, of course, called to “be imitators… of Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1). In the narrative context of Christy Miller, however, where Todd is established as a necessary character for Christy’s salvation, this language goes beyond characterizing Todd as simply a follower of Jesus. Instead, these descriptions further solidify Todd’s position as a proxy for Jesus in Christy’s life. A friend tells Christy that “Todd kind of talks everybody’s language. He has his surfer friends, but then he hangs out with all the straight kids too,” reflecting the idea that God speaks all languages and communicates with all people (Summer Promise 85). This description also reflects Jesus’ practice of befriending social outcasts like the “sinners and tax collectors” (Mark 2.16). Another character mimics scripture in her description of Todd by saying, “Todd doesn’t give up on any of his friends, ever. He’ll never turn his back on you” (A Heart Full of Hope 377). This not only presents Todd as a flawless human, but it also reflects scriptures such as Deuteronomy 31:6, “for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”
Teaching readers to look for a perfect, Todd-like boyfriend to lead them to Christ sends the message that young girls and women cannot “participate fully in their faith,” or even fully experience salvation, without the guidance of a male savior-figure (Moore 100). In addition, the reversed Christ-groom/Church-bride metaphor can have extremely negative effects on women’s spiritual lives. In Neal’s work, which is meant to defend the Christian romance genre, Neal briefly glosses over the story of one woman who read the popular Christian romance novel by Francine Rivers, Redeeming Love. In this novel, much like in Christy Miller, a male savior-figure demonstrates God’s unconditional and perfect love to a flawed heroine and thereby leads her to Christ. Rather than finding encouragement in this story, the reader experienced depression because her own husband was abusive and did not live up to that male savior-figure ideal (165). Instead of teaching readers to find hope in Christ, this popular Christian romance plotline teaches women to look for the hope of Christ in men. When Christian novels place Christ and husbands on equal platforms, the implication is that the main way for women to experience God’s love is through her husband. If her husband does not live up to those standards, or if she has no husband at all, the overwhelming message is that she is excluded from salvation and the relationship that God offers “for everyone who believes” (Rom. 1:16).
In the convicting essay, “Ever to Be Reformed According to the Word of God,” Dawn Devries writes that “the conscious or unconscious omission of women’s experience [from Christianity] led to distorted and fundamentally inadequate theological expressions that did not represent at least half of the human race” (40). Indeed, Gunn’s novels represent a “distorted” and “fundamentally inadequate” theological model in which Christy’s salvation is dependent upon her relationship with Todd. While some Christian readers may still adhere to a traditional model of marriage in which the husband is the spiritual and household leader, Gunn’s discourse suggests much more: that Todd is equal to, or even more important than, God as a savior in Christy’s life. The discourse of the male savior-figure blocks Christy Miller from sending an evangelical message of salvation to readers, teaching instead that women are saved first by men and second by Christ.
Because of their evangelical nature, Christian romance books like the Christy Miller series employ a discourse of salvation—specifically, salvation from sin and eternal condemnation through the divine figure of Jesus Christ. In her list of characteristics of the Christian romance genre, Lynn S. Neal observes that authors often include climactic scenes in which the female protagonist experiences divine salvation by converting to Christianity, which involves accepting Jesus Christ as a personal savior (106). Some authors even hope that these pivotal scenes will encourage their readers to convert or experience religious renewal in their own lives. Neal quotes Robin Jones Gunn (author of Christy Miller) specifically in this discussion. According to Neal, Gunn hopes that “unsuspecting readers… will be surprised and transformed when they pick up a romance novel that they do not know contains a Christian message” (Neal 111). As the female protagonist in the novel accepts and draws near to Christ, experiencing the love of a divine savior, readers have the opportunity to learn about salvation through Christ and, potentially, convert to Christianity themselves.
However, these romance novels often pair a female character’s religious conversion and her subsequent spiritual growth with the onset of a romantic relationship and subsequent romantic growth. This popular narrative trope presents Christian salvation and a picture-perfect romantic relationship as a package deal. However, this trend is not limited to the realms of Christian romance novels. It reflects the evangelical tendency to see men as spiritual saviors and leaders who are necessarily more Christ-like than women. As Julie Zaloudek explains, Christians often reverse the “Christ-groom/Church-bride” metaphor found in the Bible, which describes God’s love for his people like the passionate, joyous love of a groom for his bride (624). Rather than comparing God’s love for humanity to the love that a groom might experience on his wedding day, Christians flip this metaphor and assert that within a marriage, a husband’s love for his wife is necessarily like God’s flawless and unconditional love for humanity. This flipped metaphor positions husbands as Christ-like saviors, pinning wives as sinful, lost people who must be pursued and rescued. Zaldouek notes that couples who apply this reversed metaphor to their marriages put unrealistic expectations on both husband and wife (639). When women start to see their husbands as inherently holier than themselves, they begin to see their relationship with their husbands and their relationship with God as one in the same, often pushing Jesus to the background as “a proxy for when [their] husband is not serving in the role of provider and companion” (634).
In her comparative study of Christian and secular romance novels, Laura Clawson states that “the most striking area of difference” between the two genres is the male hero and the “form of fantasy he represents” (475). In Christian romances, she observes, the male hero “occupies the categorically dominant position of maleness, so he does not need to be a drop-dead, gorgeous, multimillionaire cowboy doctor” (469). In other words, the implication in Christian romances is that men are inherently perfect simply because they are men. Christian romance authors do not have to spend time elaborating on what makes the man in their book attractive because the fact that he is male in itself is enough to imply perfection, strength, and dominance (although, as I have mentioned before, Gunn spends significant sections of her novels elaborating on Todd’s physical attractiveness anyway). I would add to Clawson’s observation that perhaps there is such a difference between Christian and secular romance heroes because in Christian novels the male hero represents not only a knight in shining armor, but Jesus Christ himself. The male characters of Christian romance novels take on a much greater role than lover, boyfriend, and husband. They take on the role of a divine savior who will lead a sinful woman back to Christ and make way for her salvation. This discourse of male-hero-as-Jesus-proxy conflicts with the Christian message that salvation comes through Christ alone, not relationships with other people.
Gunn employs the reversed Christ-groom/ church-bride metaphor in Christy’s narrative, positioning Todd as a spiritual leader who pursues and saves the heroine. Moments in which Christy should “encounter the divine,” as Neal writes, are disrupted by the presence of Todd, making God and Todd inseparable in Christy’s life (112). While Gunn does not blatantly say so, she strongly suggests that if Christy had never met Todd and never developed a relationship with him, she never would have become a Christian. The night before Christy first meets Todd, she has a dream in which she is “lying on the beach, when all of a sudden a big wave came up on shore, crashed on top of her, and pulled her out to sea” (Summer Promise 33). Later on, just before she converts to Christianity by accepting Jesus as her savior, she remembers the dream, “facing that terrifying moment all over again” (162). Christy suddenly sees this dream as a metaphor for what her life would be like without God: the crashing waves represent sin and the struggles of life. Christy realizes that Jesus also fits into this ocean metaphor: he is like a safe boat that will pull her up out of the waves and carry her safely to shore, which represents heaven. However, Gunn complicates this metaphor by introducing Todd. The day after the initial nightmare, Christy hangs out with her friends on the beach and is literally overtaken by a wave when she tries to go surfing. Gunn writes, “the terror of her dream the night before rushed up, causing her to fight something greater than the ocean” (39-40). Since Christy later makes a connection between the terrifying waves and her life without Christ, this moment should serve to symbolize Christy’s need for a divine savior. Yet Gunn chooses this moment to introduce Todd and present him not only as “the cutest guy [Christy] had ever seen,” but as the perfect male savior-figure who helps her stand up and brush off the seaweed when all her other friends are laughing at her (40). Here, Gunn mixes Christ and Todd into the same metaphor, creating a conflicting discourse surrounding Christy’s salvation.
Gunn adds to the confusion by describing Todd with language that reflects descriptions of God and/or Jesus from the Bible. Christians are, of course, called to “be imitators… of Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1). In the narrative context of Christy Miller, however, where Todd is established as a necessary character for Christy’s salvation, this language goes beyond characterizing Todd as simply a follower of Jesus. Instead, these descriptions further solidify Todd’s position as a proxy for Jesus in Christy’s life. A friend tells Christy that “Todd kind of talks everybody’s language. He has his surfer friends, but then he hangs out with all the straight kids too,” reflecting the idea that God speaks all languages and communicates with all people (Summer Promise 85). This description also reflects Jesus’ practice of befriending social outcasts like the “sinners and tax collectors” (Mark 2.16). Another character mimics scripture in her description of Todd by saying, “Todd doesn’t give up on any of his friends, ever. He’ll never turn his back on you” (A Heart Full of Hope 377). This not only presents Todd as a flawless human, but it also reflects scriptures such as Deuteronomy 31:6, “for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”
Teaching readers to look for a perfect, Todd-like boyfriend to lead them to Christ sends the message that young girls and women cannot “participate fully in their faith,” or even fully experience salvation, without the guidance of a male savior-figure (Moore 100). In addition, the reversed Christ-groom/Church-bride metaphor can have extremely negative effects on women’s spiritual lives. In Neal’s work, which is meant to defend the Christian romance genre, Neal briefly glosses over the story of one woman who read the popular Christian romance novel by Francine Rivers, Redeeming Love. In this novel, much like in Christy Miller, a male savior-figure demonstrates God’s unconditional and perfect love to a flawed heroine and thereby leads her to Christ. Rather than finding encouragement in this story, the reader experienced depression because her own husband was abusive and did not live up to that male savior-figure ideal (165). Instead of teaching readers to find hope in Christ, this popular Christian romance plotline teaches women to look for the hope of Christ in men. When Christian novels place Christ and husbands on equal platforms, the implication is that the main way for women to experience God’s love is through her husband. If her husband does not live up to those standards, or if she has no husband at all, the overwhelming message is that she is excluded from salvation and the relationship that God offers “for everyone who believes” (Rom. 1:16).
In the convicting essay, “Ever to Be Reformed According to the Word of God,” Dawn Devries writes that “the conscious or unconscious omission of women’s experience [from Christianity] led to distorted and fundamentally inadequate theological expressions that did not represent at least half of the human race” (40). Indeed, Gunn’s novels represent a “distorted” and “fundamentally inadequate” theological model in which Christy’s salvation is dependent upon her relationship with Todd. While some Christian readers may still adhere to a traditional model of marriage in which the husband is the spiritual and household leader, Gunn’s discourse suggests much more: that Todd is equal to, or even more important than, God as a savior in Christy’s life. The discourse of the male savior-figure blocks Christy Miller from sending an evangelical message of salvation to readers, teaching instead that women are saved first by men and second by Christ.
Works Cited
Clawson, Laura. "Cowboys and Schoolteachers: Gender in Romance Novels, Secular and Christian." Sociological Perspectives, vol. 48, no. 4, 2005, pp. 461-479. EBSCOhost.
Devries, Dawn. “Ever to Be Reformed According to the Word of God: Can the Scripture Principle Be Redeemed for Feminist Theology?” Feminist and Womanist Essays in Reformed Dogmatics, edited by Amy Plantinga Pauw and Serene Jones, Westminster Knox Press, 2006, pp. 40-57. Columbia Series in Reformed Theology.
Gunn, Robin Jones. A Heart Full of Hope. 1992. Chirsty Miller Collection, vol. 2, Multnomah Books, pp. 337-483.
---. Summer Promise. 1988. Christy Miller Collection, vol. 1, Multnomah Books, 2006, pp. 9-178.
Holy Bible, New International Version. Zondervan, 2011.
Moore, Ellen E. "Braveheart, Sacred Heart: Exploring Resistance to Patriarchal Discourses in Mainstream Media and Faith in the American Spiritual Marketplace." Women's Studies Quarterly, vol. 38, no. 3, 2010, pp. 94-115. ProQuest Central.
Neal, Lynn S. Romancing God:Evangelical Women and Inspirational Fiction. University of North Carolina Press, 2006. EBSCOhost eBook Collection.
Zaloudek, Julie A. "Evangelicals' Sanctification of Marriage through the Metaphor of Jesus as a Husband." Religions, vol. 5, no. 3, 2014, pp. 623-647. Religion Database.
