So, I'm writing a novel where my protagonist is christian. However, I'm not christian myself...

In the states at least most Catholics were brought into the church from an early age and know fuck all about the Bible. This would be mostly Midwesterners. The further south you go the more you get Protestantism and especially evangelicalism with the snake handlers and all the stereotypes fundamental Christianity traditionally has.

Some Catholics read Aquinas and Augustine, most protestants know the Bible pretty well or the writings of at Paul at least. I've never met a Protestant who's read Hegel for what it's worth.

t. Midwestern catholic

Thank.

Church Fathers is like 15 authors, you can pick up Ratzinger on them and read those that you like after you see which seems interesting.
As for Augustine, Confessions at least. His other stuff won't mean nearly as much for a novel. Everything else is of course great, but not as impactful for most people.
Aquinas is a beast, don't even think about him unless you want to read 20 books of preparation to understand him. O'Connor can certainly be understood without st. Thomas.
I personally think st. Faustina will be an amazing inspiration for what you want to write because she's the least intellectual from these books, she was barely literate and eccentric (years of visions do this to some people).

You're amazing, user.

It's the new new evangelisation.

Eventually I'll be able to talk to the Cool Catholic Leftists (TM) on twitter without looking like an ass

Tradical has mastered Catholic shitposting. Look there for the peak of traditionalist shitposting.

Will do sir.

>Catechism
He means the catechism of the Catholic Church. It's a big book of things to learn before you're twelve.

He also seems to have learnt Catholicism mostly from the internet/books/google. Just a heads up that's a weird list and perspective to come from a Catholic.

The Catholic novelists he mentions are probably more help. Chesterton, O'Connor and Greene would give you a good breadth of the range of adherence, but you should probably pick up later Waugh if you want to complete the spectrum.

I was raised and still am a very devout Catholic, but you are absolutely correct. I got most knowledge about Catholicism from books and pages like World Catholic Report and First Things. The education we get now is completely useless and the church has failed as a teacher of the faith, so your claim about the catechism is, at least here false, because Catholics don't know shit about Catholicism. But when writing a book he'd need to know what our brothers twist or don't twist, depending on their level of interest.

As for Chesterton, I've read The Man Who Was Thursday and felt that it was very similar to Veeky Forums for some reason. I should probably go for his essays, though, if I'm to learn about religion?
And as for Greene and Endo, what do you rec?

>my protagonist is christian
>The themes of the novel are sexuality

It's going to be really hard not to sound cliché. Try to avoid any mention of guilt.

What else do you suggest?

His essays are a very good place to start, Everlasting Man, Orthodoxy and Heretics. His best novel imo is The Napoleon of Nothinghill. For Greene Heart of the Matter, Power and Glory, End of the Affair. For Endo Silence and The Samurai.

Coming from the best Catholic novelists, sexuality is almost never the main theme. Only Greene comes to mind, honestly.

>Help Veeky Forums I want to write about Christianity but know nothing about it

Then don't, you dumb fucking faggot

They still quiz every kid on catechism before confirmation here, and it's several hours religious tuition a week.
>But when writing a book
surely he'd want a more normie Catholic, like one that can't list the gifts of the spirit rather than minor cults?
Lots of Catholic writers are like Veeky Forums. His essays are good (his one on Nietzsche not so much).

Greene's writing has that 4chanish feel too at times, and is less specifically and more atmospherically Catholic. If you want his edgy stuff with a moral still, Travels with My Aunt might drive you to a monastery.

Endo's probably because of Silence, which is about Jesuit missionaries in Japan, but there's a wide range of Jesuit explorers' primary sources of their travels, from being the first in Tibet, to Peru. Reading Jesuit founders and saints would give you a primer for launching into those diaries, but you'd want your character to be a Jesuit or Jap for it to be of much use.

You should work out what kind of Christian you want him to be, and why you even want him to be Christian if you don't know what that does. Christians in Voltarie, Matthew Lewis, and Dumas Pere are different to each other, though any of them would be obsolete if you don't want to set your novel back a few centuries. Catholics in Brideshead Revisited cause different problems than Catholics in The Ball and the Cross, but both are concerned with honour. All the ones in this paragraph except the last (i.e. Candide, The Monk, anything by Dumas, Brideshead) all concern sexuality as well as Catholicism.

pasta from another thread

We didn't get quized and, really, considering the importance and size of the subject, it's incredibly insufficient.
And if you are writing a normie Catholic, today, you wouldn't need much knowledge at all, especially if he'd write a liberal one. Any misconceptions he'd have exist in just about every one of those.
So it's a question of what kind of a character he'd want to write I guess.

>We didn't get quized and, really, considering the importance and size of the subject, it's incredibly insufficient.
How? The Bishop has to quiz you afaik. And random questioning is a pretty good test, since it could be any question on catechism you're asked, and if you're not inordinately lucky or right, you get quizzed more.

>You should work out what kind of Christian you want him to be, and why you even want him to be Christian if you don't know what that does.

One anchored in modernity, however, somewhat superstitious, comfortable with technology, (unlike her father) but at the same time feels alienated by it. Fiercely protective of her secrets, because as everyone knows everything about everyone else, secrets are an extremely valuable social commodity. Has no crisis of faith insofar as she doesn't ever consider atheism, but does struggle to reconcile herself with Christ.
I want her to be christian because christian aesthetics and morality are fascinating to me, but also that they wield atavistic power (that I've been told is known as Trad).

Honestly, you don't need to read much if your protagonist is a Christian. Unless he's a priest or a saint, he probably doesn't know too much about his faith. I say that as someone who's probably a Christian.

But if you want a good overview of Christian philosophy I would suggest pic related. It's a bit dense. But you'll probably only need to read the first half of it really.

>no Padre António Vieira
Shit list

Hm, Waugh hates modern tech (it's not terribly apparent in his work, but he was a quill pen user when typewriters were the norm if not a fountain pen) but he is good for secrets as commodities, even before his conversion.

You might want to look into folk Catholicism and patron saints etc. There're things like people will tell you to "pray to St Anthony" if you can't find something (patron saint of lost things), or never praying to St Jude except in extreme need in case you get Judas by accident. Depending on the region, there're different everyday practices which hold sway and different cults and saints that appeal. So you might pray to St Raymond Nonnatus (Unborn) to keep secrets, which carries connotations of child birth alongside it as he's also a patron of midwives and children, and also has connotations that she's doing priestly work like keeping the seal of a confessional because that's where he got his patronage from keeping secrets. Or she might keep a medal of Isidore of Saville, who got named the patron of the Internet and programmers. Those are both Spanish, but if she's American and Black/Hispanic, then it might be more useful to look into things near Santeria. Which kind of myticism she takes up can spin the story a different way for you, but you'll find a wealth of aesthetics to go along with any of them. You could make it less attached to her job, and more attached to her character- Joan of Arc and Marian fixations are common. It's definitely a needs more research one, but you can put in really subtle hints that tell a wealth about her to Catholics if that's your audience- the problem with that is praying to St Anthony has obvious meaning to any Catholic but is incomprehensible to other Christians, let alone someone who picked up the book as an atheist with no religious interests or from another faith.

The character comes from rural England.
>JoA and Marian
Any particularly great books about these ones?
>Saints in general
What would a good Saint Primer? I made a list of saints that seemed aesthetically sensible while I was doing research for an earlier version of it: St Theresa, St Vitus, St Barbara, St Olga of Kiev, St Brigid of Kildare, St Christina the Astonishing, Lucretia

I should mention Catholics are harsh critics so you'd want to run things by a few of them and check their objections (We like to play devil's advocate)

And
>Trad
Traditional Christians are people who wanted to keep head coverings for women in Mass, to keep the Latin rite, and keep receiving the Eucharist on the tongue instead of on their palm. It's like a regressive sect now, and probably going to become less common as people die off. There were enough of them at Vatican II to get them declared legit, but it was by a whisker they got to keep doing those things.

In a later edition of my novel, I think I'll send it to a bunch of christian pals, to gauge their reaction.

If she's in England, you probably don't want her to be a Catholic Joan of Arc fanatic: the English considered her a witch for leading the French against them, so you'll bring that history with it. If you want her to be against the state and morally ambiguous it could work; Joan was famous for stumping her English inquisitors when they asked her if she thought she was in God's grace or not, which was a trick question to make her claim to know God's grace and hang her as a false prophet, so she answered "If I am in His Graces may He keep me there, and if I am not, may He put me there"

She's more likely a different denomination or a very cut off Catholic if she's in rural England. There aren't many Catholics in general in England.

The Lives of Saints is the standard primer. I think the Catholic Encyclopedia has a list of them too, but Lives of Saints is the kind of thing you give to kids despite it having gore pictures throughout and lots of deaths.

>St Barbara
Does shit blow up? or does this combine with St Vitus for a storm? Some of these make sense, but some also seem just pulling in whatever saint you can think of, erring on female. Lots of people have a favoured saint who they adopt throughout life, but people who pray to lots of different saints tend to have a desperation around them like a hoarder does around throwing out newspapers, and she'd have to devote a lot of her time to worship to have too many saints. You can do a lot with a little if you keep her as Catholic, because major saints become bywords for their intercession, so things like someone's internal reaction to being asked to get married being "St Brigid protect me" means to the audience that she'd rather take out her own eye than marry that guy, who is probably rich and assumes that buys everything. Praying to St Barbara when your life is at risk is like saying "I hope I live to regret my sins"; praying to St Jude is like saying "I don't care if God or the Devil answers me right now".

I don't know if it would be easier to make her a more common kind of Christian in the UK, but I suspect they're less likely to notice if you get it wrong.

>Catholic or not
I was considering making her part of a group that has recently budded off from Catholicism, that, or the member of a new denomination entirely.

>Does shit blow up
It does indeed.

>Lives of Saints
Can you give me an amazon link or an author or date?

>Can you give me an amazon link or an author or date?
lol Alban Butler. I just assume everyone has one because it's that common. It's like a saint a day type thing.
>I was considering making her part of a group that has recently budded off from Catholicism, that, or the member of a new denomination entirely.
You have a lot of latitude with Catholicism. There's no such thing as a good Catholic, so even atheism doesn't get you kicked out necessarily. Lots of lapsed Catholics still keep some practices too. (I heard a lot of Mormons keep their special underwear to protect from fire even when they're banned from the temple and no longer believe in Mormonism, because superstitions like that stick with you from a religion)

>It does indeed.
Shit blowing up is always good.

You're wonderful, user. Thanks for helping my dumb ass out.

You are actually completely wrong. The average Trad parish has mostly young people with large families, both the priest and the average attendant will be 35-40 and there will be lots of kids. "Regressive" is a strange word to use for people who simply want the age old dogmatic liturgy.