1. As a Christian and a fanfiction writer, I’m so glad other Christians are doing this. Yes, it’s going to incur some wrath from other groups, but Salt & Light isn’t trying to force others to agree with them. They’re just making a place where those who already do can congregate and share stories.

    I’m adding this tag to my works right now.

  2. Kessie says:

    Dude, I am so joining this. I’m always wishing I had an easier way to find Christian fic writers, and for them to find me.

  3. El says:

    Hi, I’m a Christian fanfic writer and I personally know some of the people involved in this. One of the people you quoted said they were quoted without their consent. This violates one of the ethical rules of journalism in which you ask permission to quote people and use just a pseudonym if they decline. Using people’s usernames and linking to them can open them up to online harassment and put them in harm’s way.

    If you could reach out to them for permission and remove the links/use pseudonyms until they’ve replied please? I don’t believe it’s the heart of God to put people in harm’s way. I know this wasn’t intentional, but I hope that you will take the appropriate steps now that you do.

    • Hi, thanks for stopping by. We’ll reach out directly to the folks involved. Our intention is to share about a good development, not contribute to any of these ills you mentioned.

      We don’t know the real names of anyone involved, nor would we seek these out, certainly not without permission. Here we’ve only quoted the Tumblr user account names (which are already pseudonyms) and quotes from websites. This is all publicly available information. If anyone does not want to be quoted, even under the existing pseudonyms, we’ll remove that quote. I would also encourage anyone to make profiles private (if this is an option on Tumblr!), because right now it’s all publicly available.

  4. Lady Arin says:

    I heard about this on Tumblr and already started tagging my works with it. That said, to call my feelings on it optimism, even heavily tempered, sounds too strong. Its public presence on the Internet moves it pretty far away from the alluded-to historical fish symbol as a private code.

    That said, i don’t think it’s useless. I think its primary value is less as a collection of works to browse, and more as an indicator when you’re browsing a new or old fandom for something to read. Undoubtedly there will continue to be people looking to “own the homophobes” by posting garbage in the tag, but they’re unlikely to want to put much effort into it, so it will hopefully remain a sign that you can read a story without getting hit with (insert content here).

    And since you asked, i’d say it differs from “clean” and “family-friendly” in the same way that a wolf differs from a lap dog: there’s some connection there, and i can see how you might be a bit confused about the differences, but one is much more likely to bite your hand off if you aren’t careful.

  5. As the author of one of the several fics in the tag flagged for “graphic violence”, I just wanted to say that although the fics perhaps adhere to some definition of “clean”, they’re most certainly not all “family friendly”. The idea is to write something Christians can read without sin… not something that’s necessarily suitable for all audiences. So, if browsing the tag, be sure to keep a look at the warning labels.

    • Arguably, Scripture itself includes graphic violence. You can’t even understand the gospel without graphic violence—that is, the death of bulls and rams and other creatures, the shedding of blood for remission of sins, and Christ’s final sacrifice.

      “Salt and light” can certainly include some violence. To honor Jesus, in fact, it must.

  6. SaltyTheValient says:

    I write under this tag on Tumblr (and now ao3) and I desperately hope that it doesn’t get flooded. The point is for Christians to have a space to write, and now a bunch of crazys are booty-hurt over it being ‘exclusionary’. I’ve seen threats to flood the tag with explicit content and I seriously hope that doesn’t happen! Hollers and Brieviel make a good thing here.

  7. Holmes says:

    Hi there! Holmes here (one of the aforementioned Instigators)—your wife very kindly brought your article to my attention, and we were delighted to read your fair handling of the situation here. It’s been fun to see the tag so well-received by creators and readers alike who find themselves craving Christian fellowship in this specific area. Over 1,300 tagged fics on AO3 this morning.

    It’s also provided some good opportunities to sharpen up our Scriptural rhetoric in answering people’s concerns and objections. Your affirmations that direction in this article were very encouraging, thank you.

    -H

  8. EJH says:

    I don’t know, most of my fanfictions don’t mention Christianity directly. For example, many of the stories are about Danny Phantom who is a teen who fights ghosts. Even though my stories are family-friendly, I am not sure that a story about ghosts, however cartoonish the source material is, qualifies. I have put direct references to Christianity in my Spider-Man stories, but Marvel canon has done this in the past as well. Even so, I’d hesitate to call those Christian stories as it is more of that the story has inherited my Christian viewpoint, rather than it being written as a witnessing tool. But then, I’m also a Christian who doesn’t put a Christian bumper sticker on my car because I don’t speed and this makes people mad. So I worry if I used this tag Christianity might be blamed for my “average” writing skills.

What say you?