The writer Bret Lott confesses the Christian faith but writes a different kind of literature from what is usually styled “Christian.” Lott quotes Flannery O’Conner, writing in 1955: “One of the awful things about writing when you are a Christian is that for you the ultimate reality is the Incarnation, and nobody believes in the Incarnation; that is nobody in your audience. My audience are the people who think God is dead.”

My own novels are more mainstream than “inspirational.” The characters live in a world where faith shares little space with the chaotic times they live in, one their parents could never imagine. This world is more likely to associate God and religion with hatred and brutal wars.

In the Old Testament book of Esther, one character asks Esther as she struggles with a difficult decision: “Who knows but you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” Esther is the only book in the Protestant Bible that doesn’t mention the name of God. Different times call for different narratives.