Understanding an Unchanging God

One concept shared by many of the world's major religions - Christian, Muslim, Jew, at least - is that of God, eternal, unchanging, creator of the universe (in the Bible, for example, in Psalm 90, v 2; or Isaiah ch 40 v 28). Instinctively, we accept the basic forces of the universe - gravity, motion, heat, light, etc. - as dependably stable and unchanging. Such things, as best we can learn, always behave the same, day after day, year after year.

There are some sincere Christians who believe that the Bible is word-for-word [in the original language] direct dictation from God, not subject to interpretation: "The Bible says it, I believe it, that settles it!"

This raises some questions: Have they ever read the whole Bible themselves? And for those who have, do they ever think about what they have read? And do they take into consideration how much the meaning of words change from generation to generation, let alone century to century?

A Pharisee asked Jesus what is the greatest commandment in the law; Jesus readily replied (in Mt 22: 37 - 40 NRSV): "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind." It is okay to use your mind, to think about what you read, and ask questions about interpretation.

Consider the story of Creation in Genesis Chapter 1: "the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while the spirit of God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, 'Let there be light'; and there was light." Modern scientists would agree with the beginning of the creation story; they would envision a plasma of subatomic particles, but in ancient times "waters" would be the closest word in human vocabulary, and the "big bang" certainly produced an instantaneous, massive burst of light.

The Bible itself modifies the concept of all creation taking place in six days: (Psalm 90 v 4: For a thousand years in your [God's] sight are like yesterday when it is past, or like a watch in the night.

Some of Moses' laws in the Old Testament have changes even by the time of the New Testament:

Exodus 21, the next chapter after the Ten Commandments: the laws about slave ownership. The history of slavery goes from "anything is permitted" to "owner and slave both have the same master . . ." And nowadays, slavery is not permitted at all in most nations.

In Leviticus ch 11: the laws about food declare many animals unclean and not to be eaten. Has God changed his mind about these? In Mark 7:19, Jesus declared all foods clean.

Deuteronomy 21 v 18 - 21: The law for a disobedient son: Stone him to death. Not legal nowadays in any country that I know of.

Deuteronomy 22 v 28 - 29 - The law about rape victims. The rapist shall pay the girl's father a fine; The rapist shall then marry her, and cannot ever divorce her. But where is justice for her?

Slavery was justified for centuries by quoting Genesis 9, where one of Noah's sons, Ham, somehow offended his father, and his descendents were cursed to forever be the slaves of the descendents of Noah's other two sons. Did Noah's curse justify slavery, thousands of years later? Southern Baptists, many of whom are descendents of slave owners, finally issued an official apology 120 years after slavery was abolished in America.

The history of vengeance, from maximum force, through eye-for-an-eye, to forgiveness and loving your enemy: Is the world ready yet for peace? Can we handle it? There are many such questions that could be discussed.

But the central question is, Does God change?

Is not the Bible a history, rather, of the changing human understanding of the eternal unchanging God, down through the ages? (and also, perhaps, the history of God eternally reaching out to humans, waiting for them to trust and obey?)

And on into the future? There is a hymn sung by some Christians; not a quotation from the Bible, but a thought worth pondering, nevertheless. Written by poet James Russell Lowell, one verse goes:

By the light of burning martyrs, Christ, Thy bleeding feet we track,

Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that turns not back;

New occasions teach new duties, time makes ancient good uncouth;

They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of truth.

When you can't get a doctor's appointment soon

Although I am retired from medical practice now, friends often complain to me that their doctor's office can't work them in until six weeks from now.

"But I'm sick now! The pain just started Friday, and it's getting worse! His office clerk told me to go to the hospital emergency room, but the doctor there just gave me a prescription for hydrocodone and told me if it didn't work, to see my doctor Monday. When I told the ER doc that I'd already tried get an appointment and the first opening wasn't till six weeks from now, he acted like that wasn't his problem. And the ER visit cost me $160."

It's true, most doctors keep busy. There may be several reasons for difficulty getting an appointment. Office appointment secretaries often book the schedule full for days in advance, instead of leaving room for walk-ins. Sometime in the year, the doctor will take vacation time, or maybe update his knowledge at a medical conference, or maybe need some sick-time himself. And there may be times when he has a big emergency at the hospital or office that wipes out several appointments and delays everyone.

That being said, the doctor can remedy long waits by using a different appointment policy, and here it is. I used it for fifteen years of solo office practice, and I know it works. It should work even easier when several doctors share an office (if they don't all demand the same day off.)

Doctors: Leave space open for the walk-ins, and make life easier for yourself, your staff, and your patients.

Walk-ins happen. Half the patients you see only got sick or injured a day or two ago. So leave time for them. Here's how it works:

Figure out how long it takes you to see the average return visit, or minor new complaint. In my case, it averaged around 15 minutes - 4 patient appointments each hour, If my secretary knew it would be a new OB or a diagnostic workup, she scheduled it for 2 or more time slots. I was dependably in my office from 10 to 5 Mon-Tues-Thurs-Fri, + Wed and Sat from 10 till noon. An hour off for lunch. I did hospital rounds and/or minor surgery from 8-10. Work out your own schedule as you choose, then stick to it and let your patients know it.

Now, I told the front office to fill two of those four slots each hour ahead of the day. If those fill up six weeks in advance, so be it; they are only routine return checkups. That leaves two slots for each hour when each day begins. The secretary knows she can fill one of those for each hour for anybody who phones in that morning - Mrs. Jones' kid, who developed a fever in the night; or Mr. Smith with a cold that now has cough and chest pain, whatever. That leaves one opening each hour for emergency walk-ins, and they do happen. But done this way, it doesn't mean making your other patients wait past their appointment time. Sometimes there will still be waits. But your patients will be more likely to accept that because they know they can usually get in on the same day they phone in. If you're in surgery or the delivery room, or going to be away next week, the secretary makes sure the patients know that right away, and she offers to reschedule those who wish.

Sometimes a slot never filled. No problem; I used that time to catch up on my medical journals or correspondence. And I usually was able to accept new patients at their first call. It requires a doctor to stick to his office hours and start on time - read the newspaper later. It requires a knowledgeable person on the front desk, and you need to pay her wages accordingly, and instruct her how to handle calls. A good helper rarely has to call you out of an examining room, but be sure to answer your phone messages or e-mails promptly.

Readers: You can help make the visit easier, too, by doing some preparation before seeing the doctor: (1) If there is any question of fever, take your temperature (preferably in the evening, when it's likely to be highest) before you see the doc. It doesn't help him for you to say, "well I felt my forehead and it didn't feel hot."

(2) Write down a brief list of whatever problems you need to talk to your doc about. The reason you are coming, of course, with the major symptoms; and perhaps some ongoing problems you want to be sure to remind him of. Don't hit your doc with an "Oh, and by the way . . ." as he or you are going out the door. Take time to communicate - no essays or orations are necessary - just so long as he is aware of your major problem(s) of the day. Let him get to the next sick person on time, if you can.

(3) have a list of your allergies and medications written down, in case the doc or the nurse asks."I take a white pill and a green one," is not adequate. Spell the medicine's name and dose.

(4) It helps to let the doctor know you appreciate the pleasant surprise of getting an appointment the same day you called.

Who Can Afford American Drug Prices

Who Can Afford American Drug Prices?

Last night I watched 60 Minutes with my daughter, who manages the Critical Care Unit of a large hospital. The topic was prices pharmaceutical companies are charging for their products. Some cancer drugs now cost more than eight thousand dollars a month (and must be taken for months or years.)

How did this ever get started? Somehow, Congress enacted a law that forbade the VA, Medicare, etc. from negotiating prices, leaving the drug companies free to charge as much as they liked. In other nations the drugs cost about one tenth the price, even though they come from USA. And it doesn't affect only cancer drugs. I get the same story many times from with former patients (I am retired.)

A chapter from my 2008 book Access to Medical Care seems worth repeating here:

Chapter Four: The Medicine She Never Took

"My doctor gave me a new medicine for my stomach pain," a friend answered when I expressed hope that she was feeling well. "It works fine, but I can't take it."
"I'm sorry to hear that," I said. "Too many side effects?"
"No, the free samples he gave me helped a lot. But when I took his prescription to the pharmacy, a month's supply was four hundred dollars. That's almost half my Social Security check! How am I going to pay my utility bills and buy my groceries? So I'll just keep on with the antacids."
"Did you tell your doctor you couldn't pay that kind of price?"
"I phoned him, and he said he had no idea it was that high."
"Did you ask him about any of the over-the-counter medicines? Some of them are about one-tenth that price, or less."
"No, I didn't know anything about that. He had his nurse make me an appointment for two weeks from now for follow-up. But I never had the prescription filled when I found out the cost."
If you think that's an isolated example, another patient had had at least six back surgeries over the years (laminectomy) and no surgeon would now touch his scarred back. His local doctor was trying to manage the pain with various pills and patches, some of which eased his steady pain, but not the "lightning spasms" that struck when he moved wrong. Additonally, over the years, he had developed unacceptable reactions to some of the medicines, and the doctor was trying a new one. His medical insurance refused to pay for it. The doctor's office clerk said she would try and straighten the matter out, and would call him back. She never did, nor even to let him know the problem. He finally called his pharmacist to see if he could afford to pay for it himself, and found to his horror that a month's supply was $525.00, half his entire monthy income. Presumably, the doctor's clerk could have found that out, but if she did, she never let him know.

These illustrate a basic flaw in the American way of marketing medicines. The manufacturers have well-paid "detail persons" who make regular calls at each and every doctor's office to inform him/her about their company's latest and most advanced product. They sometimes used to appear around noon, with enough pizza for the whole office staff. Friendly people, well trained and informed in their field, they are a principle source of information for busy doctors who don't spend as much time as they might with medical journals and Internet search. The pharmaceutical rep has free samples to leave with the doctor, along with note pads or pens bearing the product's name.
Sometimes the reps really do have valuable updates for the doctor, but they rarely mention the price of their product, or that the older remedies still work as well as they always did. And the doctor will try the samples on his patients because (a) he doesn't want them to buy a whole month's supply of any medicine unless he knows it works for them, and/or (b) he may want to help a patient he knows is having difficulty affording care.

Most doctors don't keep up with the present-day price of what they prescribe. But they could. Every doctor gets an annual free update of Physician's Desk Reference listing all prescription medicines with their uses, side effects, and precautions (about 4,000+ pages—old copies make good doorstops), and a supplement with all the non-prescription medicines is available as well. Plus an annual update of Redbook (not the women's fashions one, but current drug retail prices) with the option of subscribing to monthly updates.
So - here's what a patient can do. Don't be afraid to ask what a new prescription will cost, and if necessary, ask if there is a less expensive generic that will be adequate. Sometimes there will be, sometimes not.
And Doctors, here's what you can do. Be aware that the latest drug is pushed by the drug rep because that's what he/she is hired to do. It's good to keep that product in mind, but ask yourself, "Is this what this patient sitting here in front of me really needs, or will an older, less expensive drug be effective?" And stay away from reps who want to buy you meals or pay for a vacation trip. Your patients have to pay for that in the cost of their medicine.
And all you readers in the general public, pressure your reps in Congress to reasonably regulate the charges for medicines. Why should a drug that has been on the market fifteen years now cost thirty dollars per pill when the company was raking in high profits at the original price of ten dollars per pill? Why should an injection aimed at mass use be selling for thirty-five dollars, when it originally wholesaled forty years ago at one dollar? Or why should a drug, manufactured in USA, sell for less in Canada or Europe than it does here where it was made?
Even in a free market economy, the customer should get as much consideration as the company's stock holders get.

Returning to the Sixty Minutes report, I asked my daughter how her hospital handles these exorbitant costs. "Often we talk with the doctor, especially in cases where the drug is likely to prolong life only a month or two. More and more, hospitals are buying out the doctor's practice [that is, it's the same doctor, but now employed by the hospital.] Medicare can't negotiate the price, but we can, and we can buy in bulk, getting a much lower price."

Granted, new medicines sometimes do cost a lot to develop, but that ill-advised law forbidding federal agencies to negotiate the price should be repealed. Or perhaps USA should go to a single payer system like most other countries have. As things stand now, even insured patients are going bankrupt.

"But How Many Souls Did You Save, Doctor?"

Sometimes, I hear that question aggressively asked when I speak about medical missions to American audiences.

The answer is, “How many did I save? None. Jesus saves souls. But I hope I sometimes helped him.”

American Christians who have never been outside their homeland often assume that the missionary is the star performer on the foreign field. For the pioneer in an area never before touched by the Christian message, that may have been true. There are few more heroic tales than those of William Carey in India. Or of Adoniram and Ann Judson in Burma, who labored for seven years before even one person believed their message, but who lived to see thousands accept Christ.

But even then, the goal was to teach people of the country to tell the Gospel story in their own language and cultural view. That is even truer now, when in Burma, for example, there are over one million Christians—Baptist, Roman Catholic, and others.

There are still foreigners who become expert communicators. Among my close colleagues, Paul Clasper and Emily Ballard stand out, each completely fluent in conversational Burmese; Paul and Elaine Lewis in the Lahu and Akha languages, and Don and Janet Schlatter in Lawa. But they are far outnumbered by citizens of the land who have given their whole life and effort to telling their neighbors about Christ.

Sala Ai Pun, headmaster of the Lahu high school at Pangwai, felt called to resign his post and devote the rest of his life to the leprosy villages. (I had nothing to do with this decision; I was as dubious about the idea as anyone else.) The Lahus were aghast, protesting that he was needed at the school and, moreover, he was in his sixties, diabetic and almost blind. He replied that this was what God wanted him to do. He and Yakop (the young man who had visited the villages for years) made an unlikely pair, walking the mountain trails. The younger man limped with a deformed hip and had a defective heart; the elder was too blind to see the single-log bridges clearly that spanned rushing mountain streams. He had to crawl across them on his hands and knees, guided by his wife.

For the next several years Ai Pun visited leprosy villages, giving them the personal attention and spiritual guidance that no one had offered them in twenty years. At first I was concerned about his diabetes, because he never had any refrigeration for his insulin. But for him, the insulin always seemed to work. He and his wife are long gone now, but today most of their eight children are college-educated leaders in the Lahu community.

Sala Yawtha Chang was my next-door neighbor in Kengtung, and a leader of another group of Lahu Christians. I differed with several of his theological and medical beliefs, but I’ll never forget that, even though he believed blood once lost is gone forever, he still gave a pint of his own blood three times to help a man I was treating for recurrent internal bleeding.

The pastor of the Shan church at Kangna once came to me with a sore eye. I diagnosed dendritic keratitis, a viral infection that never responds to bacterial antibiotics, and that can destroy the eye. I painted his corneal ulcers with a special iodine compound repeatedly, with eventual success. The Kangna congregation, fifty or a hundred people in the l960s, now is reported to number around a thousand. The pastor must have continued to do good work. And the pastor in 2001 is a former hospital night watchman, on whom I performed an emergency appendectomy forty years ago. So even though I am not a prolific preacher, God has enabled me to be instrumental in other ways, as he can with each of us.

Some of God's servants are cultivators, some are harvesters. I perceived my work as preparing the ground. Or, if you prefer, I am the salesman with a foot in the door, offering a product (medical care) to which the householder could relate, until he saw that God had something even greater to offer.

Lois and I were sometimes parental surrogates to some of the nurses whose own families lived hundreds of miles away. Inevitably, these young ladies attracted suitors, and marriages took place. Fascinated by Western wedding customs, and seeking an exotic touch to the ceremony, they would ask me to give the bride away, or Lois to make a wedding cake, or blonde Susie to be one of the flower girls.

Lois was also able to assist others in bringing God’s word to those who had never heard it. For about a year, she went weekly with a Shan friend to Wan Mai, a village of new Christians, to teach reading and Bible. When a group of armed insurgents demanded a ride to a village farther on, her Shan friend told them, “We are women, we can’t do that.” This was apparently an acceptable answer. For a couple more weeks, I went with them, once passing a truckload of young men with rifles sticking out of the vehicle at all angles. Soon after, the Burma army shut down local travel outside the city. Lois often drove the hospital jeep truck to pick up market supplies or to drive a patient home. Even with no overt evangelism, small-town girls saw a woman actually driving a truck, and perhaps caught a vision of what might be possible for them some day.

Clinics Beyond the End of the Road

Dr. Gunter Kittel's account (PNG Attitude's blog, 'Bush Clinic at Nankina', 07/Sept/2014) is an excellent account of difficulties in bringing medical care to remote areas . His team went by air to the village of Nankina, Papua New Guinea, where the clinic had been closed for years, depriving 6,000 people of any medical care. The plane landed them all right, but when it came time to leave, heavy rain prevented air transport and the team had a three-day walk through deep mud to reach the coast. Frequent return visits are thus impossible.

This same problem was addressed for hill tribes along the Burma/Thai border in medical work with American Baptist Foreign Ministries in 1965:

The road had barely reached Maesariang district of Thailand's Maehongson province that year. Private air service and two-way radio were not permitted back then. Walking, or in a few cases riding an elephant, was the only way to contact most villages. Because hill villagers trusted their traditional medicine men, the Karen tribe members of our 10-bed hospital's board proposed reaching the villagers by offering to train their medicine men.

The board sent invitations to villages one or two days walk from Maesariang, suggesting that each choose two people to attend a three-day course. Each village would get a free box of medicines, with refills at cost. I chose the contents, mostly simple remedies for fever, diarrhea, pain, malaria, anemia, etc., including one or two simple type antibiotics.

Eleven villages responded. Each night after clinic hours, I taught how to use the medicines; other staff during the daytime taught sanitation, nutrition, maternal and child care.

Most students had only two three years schooling and knew nothing about bacteria. I introduced the topic by briefly mentioning familiar forest dangers like tigers and snakes. Then I scaled it down to mosquitoes, lice and other small critters they recognized as nuisances. Finally, I taught about still smaller "germs" that could enter the body and cause some of the diseases in their villages. I had our lab tech set up a microscope slide with a drop of swamp water, teeming with live organisms, for them to see.

The talks also covered a few simple rules for treating fevers, cough, etc., and when to send a patient to the hospital despite the distance. Some of them asked intelligent questions and taught me a lot about their traditional ways of treatment, especially childbirth. Others just sat there, and we had to hope that they would at least do little harm."
I learned to listen as well as speak. Not to tell them, "No, not that way", but 'Yes, and . . ," building on what they were already doing correctly. Karens traditionally encourage bleeding after the baby is delivered, placing a warmed stone on the mother's belly to get the "bad blood" out. I agreed that the womb should be emptied of clots, and showed them the way to massage the womb through the relaxed abdominal wall, to get it to contract. That way blood stays in the blood vessels, where it is "good blood".

We encouraged them to let diarrhea patients drink water, rather than to limit it. We explained the danger of applying cow dung to a burn. One Karen leader pointed out to the students that several green plants they regard as weeds are actually a good source of vitamin A, that would prevent one common type of childhood blindness. We encouraged proper prevention of measles, which killed so many children, despite the traditional Karen treatment of giving them pig urine.

By far the most popular session was two nurses teaching about family planning. The students stayed a full hour overtime to ask questions about ovulation, anatomy, and safe methods of preventing conception, all new topics to the Karens.

Altogether, everyone thought the conference a success. In following years, the hospital repeated it once or twice a year, with special conferences for village midwives, or for seminary students going out into hill villages.

In the 1990's the government in next-door Myanmar closed its civilian universities (for political reasons) and then realized that they had no new medical students to graduate. They invited my wife and me back to Myanmar as consultants to a medical group in the Kachin State. At the time we last went into Myitkyina and Putao in 1998, the group had trained 500 village health workers. each caring for about 30 households in their home village.

Villagers with a week's training are certainly not as good as university-trained nurses and doctors. But they are better than nothing, in the rainy season or beyond mountain airstrips.

Balloons

Balloons fail to excite me. They are irritating, boring, trite. They are very politically correct nowadays, a popular way to urge joy and sensitivity on people, who may or may not be receptive at the moment.

Purveyors of new cars, party supplies, or political candidates are among those who dispense large numbers of balloons, and whole shops have sprung up in most cities, offering balloons as a substitute for saying it with flowers. Balloons rival T-shirts and coffee mugs as a way of expressing sentiment. Many of us may not fully agree with these sentiments, but we don't like to create a public scene by refusing the dam’ thing, so we allow ourselves to be bullied into accepting a balloon from some sad-eyed woman in a garish clown costume, or from an aggressive public relations agent blocking the aisle in an exhibit hall.

I have always been puzzled by ecology groups that celebrate the pristine purity of nature by getting the people at rallies to release a thousand balloons bearing, for example, the inscription Save the Ducks. The cloud of color soaring upward is very impressive. Up, up they go, carried eastward on the wind to disappear high over the horizon, invisible when they finally burst and send a thousand pieces of rubber-litter down on some forest glade or lake. Perhaps the ducks will think they are something to eat, and choke on them.

But returning closer to home, bouquets of balloons and other happiness icons are not so bad when delivered to the privacy of the home. Usually a van with some logo such as Giggles and Smiles, or Daisy's Bloomers and Balloons (one hopes that this is a florist shop) will stop at my door, and a bouncy delivery person will ring the doorbell and thrust a large artistic creation into my hands. The delivery person's smile is only semi-spontaneous; she does this all day long, and probably knows that I am thinking now what am I going to do with this? But she is just doing her job, so I thank her, close the door, put the creation on the table and search for a card of explanation. At least I can be grateful she didn't deliver a singing telegram along with it.

Here's the card: "Happy seventeenth anniversary from Bill and Barb!" or "Congratulations on whatever!" will mean sending a thank-you note (that's assuming that Bill and Barb have at some time past given me their last name and address). But at least I am in the privacy of my own home, and don't have to walk six blocks to where I parked the car, towing a balloon on a string.

In the latter instance, if I am lucky, I have a kid with me, and can pass the string to him/her, tying it to a wrist so it won't go sailing upwards accompanied by anguished wails. Or maybe you have already experienced the anguished wails when some grimacing clown has bent down with a latex bag of gas twisted into some ill-defined animal shape, to offer it directly in the little tot's face. Never mind; hide the creation in the crook of your arm. The kid can get used to it later. Try not to let it explode in his face. Unless, of course, he keeps rubbing his hand on it, making a sound like fingernails on a school blackboard.

Once the balloon is home, there are several things you can do with it. The first is, let it float up to the ceiling, safely out of the way. It can stay there for several days, requiring no further comment, and showing everyone that you are not such an old curmudgeon after all. In about a week, enough helium will have slowly leaked out to make it lose buoyancy and sink to lie restlessly on the floor. Now is the time to carefully clip off short sections of the string, or maybe trim the edges on those shiny metallic balloons, to where it is exactly light enough to float in mid-air. There will be enough imperceptible air currents in the house to waft it almost anywhere. Tonight it may silently drift up to hover over your mother-in-law's left shoulder, causing her to sense a presence there, turn, and shriek. (Maybe it's a balloon with a smiley face. So much the better in the semi-darkness).

When all the string and other non-essentials have been clipped, and the balloon has finally lost enough of its gas to sink to the floor, never to rise again, there is yet one more function it can serve. A lungful of helium does odd things to your voice; ordinary conversation sounds like a comment by Donald Duck. Choosing your moment carefully, you can inhale the remainder of the helium and make a conversational remark two octaves higher than your usual voice to some unsuspecting person. Perhaps the phone has just rung, or a solicitor for Save the Ducks is at the door.

Or, with suitable warnings about the dangers of more than one low-oxygen breath of helium, maybe you can amaze and amuse a medium-size grandson or niece with your new voice. The possibilities are endless.

How I Write

I am a reluctant public speaker, but I enjoy telling stories through the printed page; and have published three novels, plus non-fiction biography and memoirs. I write for enjoyment, both mine and the reader's (I hope.) If there is such a genre as "faith-based fiction founded on fact", that describes what I try to do. My target audience is not "religious" people, but the reader who has minimal or no interest in religion because he/she has never thought about it much. Some people term the genre "inspirational".

My writing falls into a gap between "Christian" publishers (for not being evangelistic enough) and many mainstream publishers (for even suggesting that God might be relevant to ethics or human behavior.)

Another Idaho author, Carrie Stuart Parks ("A Cry from the Dust") reports that publishers have strict boundaries on Christian writing: "No profanity, no sex, but you may kill as many people as you like." I hadn't crystallized it so concisely myself, but realized that's exactly the kind of block I have met in my own writing. Secular publishers reject my work for not being lurid enough to hold the reader; Christian publishers red-pencil some of my best lines. I respect God's name; I even omit the thoughtless abbreviation of surprise, OMG. But when ordinary people are insulted, assaulted, or otherwise given cause to express anger or distress, they often employ language that might not be appropriate in Sunday school, and it is unrealistic to portray them otherwise.

When searching for like-minded writers, there is, of course C. S. Lewis, whose "Out of the Silent Planet" trilogy, his "Screwtape Letters", and "The Great Divorce", among others, are classics far beyond my amateur talents. There is also Kimberla Lawson Roby, whose well-written novels about an immoral clergyman, she describes as faith based, but which I found overly explicit (in the one I read.)

I have tried to solve this conundrum by writing the way I hear the English language being used. If the result has social or ethical merit I will still offer my work to Christian bookstores, successfully in some cases. But I may loan a review copy for them to read first. ("But if you spill coffee on it, you've bought it.") I respect the manager who doesn't think it will be accepted by her clients, but some will see the story as a worthwhile contribution to understanding the world's conflicts.
There are other values besides financial.