A recent article by Jimmy Akin about serious theological errors in Bram Stoker's Dracula made me think about the responsibilities the writer of fiction has when dealing with faith communities not one's own. Obviously, we do not want to deliberately slander or malign someone else's faith by repeating things we know to be false.
However, it is not enough to merely avoid deliberate slander. As Jimmy Akin demonstrates so ably, it is possible for a well-meaning writer who knows a little about another religion's practices and beliefs, but doesn't really understand them or the theology that underlies them, to produce scenes that are profoundly offensive to members of that faith. It is a perfect example of the old adage "a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing."
How then can we as writers avoid such gaffes? Obviously extensive, careful research is essential -- but because we are not members of the faith community in question, we may well lack the knowledge necessary to distinguish authoritative sources from those that are perpetuating misconceptions or outright falsehoods. Even when working with authoritative sources, we may miss nuances, or get the sense of a term wrong when trying to understand it from context -- and it can easily come back to bite us in a story.
Often it comes down to being able to ask someone who has first-hand knowledge about the faith in question. Even then, one often may not know what questions to ask, since certain kinds of misunderstandings are often invisible because they deal with things assumed to be universal, when they are in fact peculiar to one's own religious background. If one's expert is willing, having them actually vet the entire manuscript with an eye to such blunders might be the best solution, although this is often more easily obtained with a short story than a novel.
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