In last week's blog post, I wrote last weekabout attempts to dilute Superman's character and moral goodness to make him more relatable.

Perhaps, this shouldn't surprise us. After all, it seems like we're all being asked to spin ourselves whether it's from book marketing to getting ahead on the job.

Some times, strategies to market or sell a product are warranted, wise, and necessary.. Yet, I can't help but notice that there are times when advice to market yourself end up eliminating the self you're supposed to be marketing.

There are many examples of this but some of the best ones come to Christians. Christian Writers in particular are often advised to do things that force works not to be who they are.

There are so many debates within the Christian Author Community that add up to some people telling some other people to do things in a sort of cookie cutter way that's not true to who they are.

Some think it's practically immoral and a sin to target books to a specifically Christian audience. That there needs to be an evangelistic focus for the book, particularly for novels. And if your book is deemed as too Christian and too narrowcast, you're not doing your job as an author, you're failing to reach the world, and are both a publishing failure and a bad Christian. (implied)

The truth is that there is a large market of readers for many types of work and many Christian readers that are willing to read stuff that's more explicitly Christian. And writers should write what they are called to write.

Imagine Ted Dekker sitting down to write prairie romances or Janette Oke having written a Cyberpunk thriller. It'd be just as absurd as imagining Superman as a post-modern angsty blogger.

Of course, authors aren't the only ones under pressure. Many a church has undergone radical changes that don't look right. When a pastor says dude or dresses casual on Sunday service and is really not comfortable with it, it shows and man is it awkward.

This is, I fear, the result of many Church growth books whose well-meaning authors end up communicating that they have the way to "do Church" and offer their patterns as if they got them engraved in stone off a mountain.

So, we're seeing a lot of copying and imitation. Before I had my GPS, there was one part of town I got lost in all the time because I'd be confused because there were several recently built churches that looked practically identical and I'd think it was another landmark and make wrong turns.

Rather than trying to copy someone's mechanics, I think what ultimately matters in Christians is love and genuineness. There are churches where people are called by their first name (or even dude) and there are churches where people are called "brother or sister." There are churches with all sorts of talent and all sorts of styles of worship. What ultimately matters is love and being genuine, and if we can get that right, it will do more than all the cookie cutter designs in the world.