Pantser Writer Tackles Taboo Subject: by Jo Wanmer

 

MY EXPERIENCE TELLS ME  there are some topics that good Christians don’t discuss after church or even over coffee. These topics don’t tend to turn books into Christian best sellers. But they can become literature that pulls important ideas into the open and challenges readers to consider a different point of view. It can also put God in the middle of the mess, not seated high above controversy, unwillling to view the unclean parts of real life.

Francine Rivers wrote about abortion in ‘The Atonement Child'. I appreciate that book because it acknowledges that rape is real. It looks at the cost of not having an abortion, facing the fact that we may be opposed to abortion until it is the only way to save the family’s reputation. Challenging stuff and a great read.

 I began to write books because I wanted to tell of the amazing things God has done in our life. That story, Though the Bud be Bruised, included sexual abuse, christian witchcraft and religious superiority, as well as God’s incredible grace and mercy. What I didn’t know was that a series of books would follow, with the same theme, showing a wonderful personal God.

(Pic showing the books where my writing is published)

 A few years ago, as I asked God what He wanted me to write next, I felt He asked me to write about pornography. I was unimpressed and suggested He give me a different topic. But there weren’t any other ideas in the heavens! I summoned my courage.  After all there was no harm writing it. Publishing would be the challenge and that was unlikely to happen. I mean who wants to read a book on a taboo subject?

It was NaNoWriMo time. I started. This discipline leaves no time to question anything. Just 50,000 words on the screen in the month. And so began another pantser adventure. I asked the Spirit to write with me and looked forward to the journey. When I finished, I loved the story, the adventure, and the God-revealed truth. And yes, it exposes pornography and brings hope.

Time has passed. Since then, I’ve published El Shaddai and El Roi thanks to Anne Hamilton, of Armour Books. In the back of mymind I knew the next book is the one about porn. I was excited because it’s a great book, but nervous because it could upset many and may negatively affect my reputation. However obedience is my highest value.

All nervousness pushed aside, it is now in the final phrase of editing. I sweat over many passages. Is it too graphic? Is it not shown well enough? Why don’t I write books that are fun and comfortable, and not controversial? As God has said in other circumstances, He chose a different path for me. By definition His path is a good path… the best one for me to follow. So, it seems I write about taboo subjects.

How do I know God is in this? Simple things like writing revelation that I’d never thought of before. And when I re-read, I see things at the beginning of the story that become important in the end… not that I knew!

In checking the structure of the book, it is close to right…as If someone (not me) knew what they were doing. This book has two stories running parallel.  They need to be the same length so I checked. The book has about 240 pages. The stories have only two pages difference. Not plotted. Not planned. Just Holy Spirit keeping balance!

The story has a new name in keeping with other books of the series. It’s called El Gibbor, which means Mighty God… the One who does the impossible. It’s this character of God that brings these protagonists to the fulness of restoration.

 I have one more book waiting in the wings and then it will time to write a new one. I wonder what adventures God has in store for me next.

Tell me… 

• How do you pick your topics? 
• Are you dealing with other taboo topics? 
• Would you read El Gibbor, knowing it deals with pornography?

Jo Wanmer is a story teller, that has learnt how to turn those stories into acceptable prose. She writes with the help of the Holy Spirit. Without His inspiration, there would be no books. Though the Bud be Bruised was published thirteen years ago. Late in 2024 El Shaddai was released and its prequel, El Roi, was released late last year. She lives, with her husband of  fifty-five years, just north of Brisbane. Family, God and writing are her three passions. Eleven great-grandchildren now fill their home with love and chaos.

Me Too

Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net/FrameAngel

Well, me too. How ‘bout that?

It’s a subject I notice Christians seem to be skirting around, not addressing from any aspect, let alone a scriptural one.

So…me too. I’m one of tens of millions, probably more. For women in this lucky country…Australia…the figure sits at a disturbing one in five women. Look around you. Yes, you! In Church. Look around you. One in five females has been a victim of sexual violence. That’s not counting every-day, garden-variety sexual harassment. If we factor that in, I reckon the figure is more like one in one. That’s all of us. Married. Single. Engaged. Divorced. It doesn’t matter. We’re all ‘fair game.’

The ‘Me Too’ campaign has erupted in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein expose. In case you haven’t caught up on the news this fortnight and don’t know who Weinstein is, I’ll briefly recap.

Harvey Weinstein is a vastly successful, renowned and widely lauded movie producer. He is, of course, also immensely wealthy. That goes with the territory.

So too, it seems, does an enormous sense of entitlement that underpins the ugly underbelly of the current climate of rampant narcissistic machismo that sets the tone for our entertainment industry. He has, seemingly without reservation, propositioned, touched, threatened and downright sexually assaulted (let’s call it for what it is…raped!) huge numbers of actresses…sorry ‘actor is now the politically correct term. But the ‘actors’ he targets are all female. So far he’s been accused by around 50 women and that figure is escalating by the day.

Some of his targets have tried to report his actions. Others have been cowed. The overwhelming complicity from other men in the industry is, possibly, even more disturbing (and I’ll never watch another Matt Damon movie again. And then there’s Tarantino, not so much of a surprise but a bigger disappointment, given the sway he holds in the industry. He’s sorry now, but hey, too late). They knew. They observed. They were told. But they did nothing. It would compromise their careers if they did. Actually, I have that wrong. They did more than nothing. They actively worked to cover up Weinstein’s sexual abuse and harassment. And so, these women were left unprotected…un-championed. Disbelieved. And so they were shut up.

The real ‘shock’, however, (not to me) is that women the world over…ordinary women with ordinary jobs and lives and families, experience the same humiliation and degradation that well-known actresses are only just now feeling safe enough to expose. Think about that. Wealthy, ’perfect’ women in privileged positions, living fairy-tale lives, are only just now gaining the fortitude and courage to tell the sordid stories that are part and parcel of their daily existence.

Their stories have been enormously triggering for women and girls the world over. Add to that the widespread lack of empowerment the average woman experiences, even in this so-called enlightened age, where women are supposedly valued and equal…and you have a seething, boiling, wave of anger and resentment that is gaining momentum with every ‘me too’ posted on social media. Many of us don’t know what to do with the pain that is rising to the surface; pain we bury deep in order to survive just being female in this world. We desperately hope the whole thing doesn’t just fizzle and die, and yet, it may well do.

I have absolutely no idea how I would navigate life with its everyday experiences that include, for me as for so many, the degradation and humiliation of being reduced to an object of little value; something to be judged, sentenced, tortured and humiliated by the very beings God put on this earth to protect me and provide for me - I do not know how I would have survived so far without Jesus. I truly don’t.

I’ve worked in a Christian counselling environment wherein I was entrusted with the files and stories of hundreds of people, right here where I live, in this small, conservative, and overwhelmingly Christian city. If you’re under the illusion things are vastly different in Christian communities, please think again. The complicity of the Christian hierarchy mirrors that of the secular world. In many ways, it’s worse. There’s more than just a cover up. There is enablement through lack of condemnation for the perpetrators’ actions, a noticeable absence of any consequences and a widespread hushing up of victims.

Overall, there’s still a distressing tendency for the blame to be placed on ‘Eve’. Where there is seduction, she (the woman), is all-too-often deemed the temptress, even if she has rebuffed the advances. If sexual harassment has taken place and is made public, it’s overwhelmingly the woman who loses face, support and fellowship within the Church. She is far too often cast out of the community…while ‘he’ remains in leadership and worship positions. He is forgiven and allowed to continue his spiritual life, without missing a beat. She is left floundering, wandering alone in the desert…to pick up the threads…start a new life…somewhere else where she hopes they know nothing of her past.

Yes, I have witnessed it. Yes, I have experienced it. Not just harassment (as if that’s a trivial thing?) but sexual abuse and rape. I’m here. I’m raw. I’m telling it like it is.

I’ve experienced it first hand, and through the stories of hundreds of others.

So, yes. Me too. I have a tender saviour, who holds me so gently, and yet with such power and strength. In the final analysis, I’m okay.

But the Body of Christ has the distraught and damaged spirits of many of its women to answer for. We cry out for understanding and help. We reach out, mostly, to each other – other women who feel our feminine pain.

And yet…it is not yet enough.

I don’t propose to have the answers or the expertise to suggest a course of action but I do feel compelled to bring this issue before you all; to ask the question; to open the dialogue. We have an opportunity to be part of a massive wave of change and healing that will benefit the entire Christian community. Half the body of Christ is deeply wounded…and floundering.

Let’s go to Jesus with that, shall we? Men and women alike.