Historical fiction can be a marvelous medium for the Christian writer. So much that happened in history can be brought forward to help communicate the Christian story. But at the same time writing, or reading, historical fiction can lead to some dramatic lies.

When one writes about today's age, then one is stuck either going along with today's attitudes, today's opinions, or today's way of acting... or one is forced to try to stand against them in a way that makes the whole story into one long diatribe. If one tells a story where children obey their father, call everyone 'sir' or 'ma'am', and are seen but not heard... those behaviors can come out as a seamless part of that society... if that society is in 1880. But written in today's age and one would have to explain the weirdos.

This means that if you wish to teach honoring one's father, one can do it subtly when writing about the 1880's, but you have to shoe horn it in to a story about the 2020's.

But there lay dragons as well. Because the modern writer, if he is not very, very careful, may place his story in the 1880's, yet place the behavior and attitude of his characters in the 2020's! Or at least the 2000's somewhere. If one wishes to have a character that is in favor of treating handicapped people naturally, then one can either do it subtly in 2023, or make it the point of the whole book in 1790. But all too often we read historical fiction with feminists in 1452... and no one seems shocked by their feminism!

If one writes historical fiction but gets the history wrong, then one is not only not writing historical fiction, one is rewriting history! And for Christians this kind of untruth should be even more forbidden than it is for the general masses.

So by all means write historical fiction. And it's OK to get a couple of dates or places wrong. But don't rewrite history . "Whatsoever things are true..."