WWALD?

No, that doesn't stand for Where's Waldo. :-) It stands for "What Would Al Lacy Do?" And be forewarned, I am getting up on one of my favorite soapboxes again. :-) - so if you don't like my soapboxes, close this page - now.....

If you're not familair with Al Lacy, he is a Christian fiction author who writes stories mostly set in the Old West, and in the last few years has teamed up with his wife to write together. He is the only author that I have had the privelege of meeting, though Karen Kingsbury and Mike Dellosso are dropping by lather this week for tea and input on their next books...... yeah, right. :-)

Anyway, not sure why Al Lacy has been on my mind, but he did come to my mind recently for some reason - maybe brought on by a conversation with my sister, Vicki. I won a copy of Krisitin Heitzman's new book, Indivisble. She is one of Vicki's favorite authors, so I gave her the book. Vicki was commenting that she was a bit disappointed to find some cursing in the book - hell used as a curse word, and not sure if there were others, but she mentioned that one. Incidentally, I think this is the first book the author has done for Waterbrook Publishing, writing previously for Bethany House where she didn't use that type of language. So take from that what you will......

Anyway, it seems too many people aren't bothered by hell being used as a curse word - but what if your toddler talked like that? Your teen? What if your pastor used it in his messages? Sound absurd? Well, so does language like that in a Christian novel - which brings me to Al Lacy:

If you are not very familiar with him, you will not know this. I am familiar with him, and I do know this: for some years, he wrote secular Westerns under other names. He wrote some of the Stagecoach books among others. I read a series by him called "The Badge" series - Westerns about lawmen of the old West - really good books. For the most part, they were curse free, though a few of them did have some - and that, my friends is why Al Lacy quit writing on the secular market. He would turn in his manuscripts, curse-free - and they would come out on the market with curse words in. One of the worst in the Badge series, according to him, was one of the latter titles. I don't remember much about it, but I do remember hell being used as a curse word and the "d" word - both of which are in some Christian novels I have read.

I have always been impressed with him for his stand - its a pretty big thing to write for the secular market, and to turn from that to the smaller Christian market, with no guarantee of success - all because he wanted to write books without cursing in them. Too bad all of the authors in the Christian market don't have that depth of Christian integrity in them - no, some of them are adding them - and defending their use.

So WWALD? If his Christian publisher started slipping curse words in his books - what would he do? I would wager a guess that he would change publishers - and I would also wager that he will never add them on his own.

So, Mr. Al Lacy - my hat is off to you, and you have my admiration for your depth of Christian integrity. Great job.