Sadly, I was asked this when there was very little time left to explain as this takes quite a bit of explaining ever since the Christian Booksellers Association (fee-based affiliation formed in 1950 by a group of Baptist bookstores) and the Evangelical Christian Publishers Association (CBA publishers affiliation formed in the seventies) came along.
Before CBA and ECPA, publishers whose writers wrote with any sort of religious slant to their work were simply put on stores shelves and categorized by the usual genres. Yes. There was Christian Horror then, if you will, there just wasn't any REAL reason to separate it out and create a "genre" for it.
Neither CBA nor ECPA affiliated publishers recognize the horror genre though they do call some of the work produced by some of their authors Christian horror (as they tag the label "Christian" onto everything they put out even though their work is very targeted and their affiliation is fee-based and denominationally restrictive.) But technically the work isn't horror at all. I know this because the affiliated publishers I contacted, Thomas Nelson, Waterbrook/Multnomah and quite a few others, explained that they would never stray into producing work that would fit into the classic "horror" genre as their core market readers wouldn't stand for it.
Yet both CBA and ECPA affiliated publishers apply the label Christian Horror to their work thus confusing and creating great chaos and forcing writers like me to explain just what Christian Horror is and more importantly, what it isn't.
On another note, publishers are allowed to put their book in whatever genre they feel it fits into without regard as to whether it fits or not which is really fine since bookstores can change this at will. To prove this point I will tell you that my first title was initially marked by my publisher as young adult (that's actually a genre believe it or not.) And even though this publisher did not pay to belong to CBA or ECPA but called themselves a Christian publisher my title (about a vampire and a werewolf, first showed up, when it did show up, next to Chicken Soup for the Soul in a non-fiction section at B&N.
Why? Because that's where B&N decided it needed to go. And I was through a small publisher so they didn't really care.
Do keep in mind that there is a ginormous difference between books approved for distribution to the Christian market by Spring Arbor and books put out by the fee-based CBA with the biggest one being that no publisher not affiliated with CBA or ECPA will ever show up in larger Christian bookstores on-line or otherwise because these stores are all supplied with books by CBA. They can order books approved by Spring Arbor but they won't carry them as a rule. There's an affiliated Lifeway Bookstore a stones throw from my house. When my books were approved for distribution to the Christian market I went back to tell the manager. He happily called Michael Robbins, (book buyer for all Lifeway stores at the time and I believe he still is) and was told by Mr. Robbins that Lifeway had not plans of carrying my work.
Wow! Just wow!
Calling my work Christian Horror for the most part is harmless so long as you keep in mind what I just wrote above. ;)
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