Post History

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/43792
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

## Christianity is enormously broad and most Christians know little about it.

Christianity is so broad that unless your character is meant to hold a special position within a specific Church that it is hard to write in the wrong voice. There are people that call themselves Christian that hold an enormously broad system of beliefs. Even merely looking at the major groupings The Catholic Church holds very different beliefs from the Church of Christ of Latter Day Saints who in turn have marked differences from the Southern Baptists (the largest Protestant denomination in the US) who are markedly different from the Greek Orthodox Church. They all will call themselves Christian.

And those are just looking at the reasonably mainstream groupings. There are numerous smaller denominations and even cults that call themselves Christian with an enormous variety of beliefs, some of which could be considered so far beyond the pale that more mainstream Christians may deny that those small denominations are Christians at all.

Also, most adherents choose their church based on convenience rather than carefully scrutinizing the beliefs of their church, and even the ones that carefully scrutinize the doctrine may elect to ignore some minor differences in choosing their church. I am an active believer (though a bad one) and I attend a church (occasionally) where I have minor but genuine disagreements with my pastor.

With this enormous variety, you almost have to actively try to write in a voice that is clearly and absolutely non-Christian. It would be hard to even say that a statement that most Christians would vociferously deny is even truly outside a Christian voice. A plausible argument could be made that the [Baha'i](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bah%C3%A1'%C3%AD_Faith) Faith is a type of Christianity for instance and they also believe that Muhammad was a prophet.

Also, most Christians do not know much about their faith. Many Christians do not know what transubstantiation is, much less have an opinion about it.

In short, many people may disagree on whether something is in a Christian voice or not because it does not match their view of Christianity, not because it is truly outside of a Christian Voice. What falls within Christianity though is tremendously broad.

## If you want to write about an expert in a certain denomination, consult with experts in that denomination and read specific material about it.

Things change when your main character is supposed to be an expert within a certain denomination. A Baptist Preacher will know precisely what transubstantiation is and have strong opinions on it along with a host of other things like what would constitute a miracle and a Catholic Priest will have different opinions on those topics. At that point you are not writing about a generic Christian voice, but about someone knowledgeable in a specific branch of Christianity.

The best answer there is to seek the opinion of someone who is an expert in that branch, or at least a serious practitioner of that particular branch, rather than just a Christian that chose that church out of convenience. If you cannot do that for some reason, then read the writings of that branch and get a feeling through that about what your chosen branch believes and how they discuss it.

Original score: 3