The Trigger 01: Overview

Yes, it's our old friend the three-part review, only with some tweaks. The Trigger: A Novel on the Revelation by Hon Hoh, is not the usual End Times novel, and it has some peculiar strengths and weaknesses. Since these are often complementary (a strength in one area becomes a weakness in another area), my usual format of separating positives and negatives won't work. Also, since the story is more theologically motivated than most, the theology needs more of a look.

Anyway...

Properly beginning in 2032, the story concerns a rather different take on the Tribulation period and stars mostly Pastor Josh McGuire and his friends and family, though we quickly pick up a highly placed Chinese couple who, along with a senator in Pastor McGuire's congregation, gives us our mandatory VIP characters. This is one of the few genre clichés Hoh follows. (As a rule, in this genre the main characters are international figures: diplomats, politicians, and invariably journalists. Hoh doesn't follow this rule at all closely, which gives the story a certain freshness.) The pastor has been divinely chosen to evangelize the last unreached people group on the planet, thus triggering the return of Christ. According to Satan (though the point is echoed by more godly beings as well), if this effort is stymied, the Tribulation can go into major overtime (i.e., a diabolical version of the Millennium).

BWA-HA-Huh?

Matthew 24:22 and Mark 13:20 both quote Jesus as saying that the Tribulation would be shortened, not lengthened. So there are some exegetical and theological problems here, though probably not as many as these stories usually have. I'll dedicate a post or so to the more troubling ones.

Anyway again, the Antichrist pops up from an unexpected (and vaguely amusing) quarter, and Nasty Things Begin to Happen, in particular persecution and the occasional Apocalyptic plague. And throughout the piece we keep getting scenes of angelic and infernal plotting in Perettivision, which actually isn't a bad innovation. In fact, this is a more explicitly spiritual tale than any others I'm aware of in the genre.

Will the Antichrist obliterate the Christians before the final converts can come in?

Read The Trigger: A Novel on the Revelation.

As for me, I'll address some non-theological quirks of the story next time.

The Rapture: All or Nothing

I mentioned before that "prophetic fiction" of the Left Behind variety features sort-of Christians who didn't go in the Rapture but somehow go from spiritual couch potatoes to spiritual supermen just because the Antichrist is running around.

It wouldn't happen, of course. One of the things we learn from reading about the Exodus and the journey to the Promised Land is how quickly and easily real people go from declaring devotion to God after a miracle to chucking him for an idol. Human nature hasn't changed. Technically, there would be a lot of panic conversions, perhaps, but we're too adaptable for our own good, and the new "believers" would quickly settle down and cool down and even rationalize taking the Mark.

Still, the fact that this nonsense is regularly and vividly portrayed presents the equivalent of telling people they will have a second chance at salvation after they die. It's a damnable and damning doctrine, yet people who would never dream of committing the more obvious heresy still believe in the eschatological second chance.

Now, on one level this is simply another example of the humanism so common in evangelical Christianity: we confuse truth (a spiritual thing) with fact (an intellectual thing) and suppose that running into a Fact (zillions of people disappearing in the Rapture) will have the effect of a revealed Truth (turning people from sin to God).

It doesn't work. Paul said (2 Thes 2:9-12) that the Antichrist would bring a deluding influence that would suck in anyone who has received the love of the truth. (People who have received that love are saved.) It seems to me, then, that anyone who enters the Tribulation rejecting God is not at all likely to change his mind. Those saved during the Tribulation will therefore be those who had not been evangelized and thus had no chance to accept or reject Jesus.

But let's prove that there is no second chance. Look at Matt 25:1-12 (The Wise and Foolish Virgins). The fact that they're virgins means, in the imagery of the time, that they at least have a form of godliness: these are churchgoers. Yet the foolish virgins, who in effect miss the Rapture, get no second chance. They get their spiritual act together (buying the oil) only to find themselves locked out. In fact, they hear the thing you never want to hear from God: "I don't know you" (v. 12). So apparently Rayford Steele and his friends are actually damned. Oops.

But there's another side to this. It is harder to get Left Behind than a lot of pop eschatology wonks say: if you truly are saved, you go. Look at 1 Thes 5, where Paul talks about staying awake, which he contrasts with not paying attention spiritually. Sleepers party; the wakeful godly watch and pray. But then see what he says in v. 10: "[Jesus] died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him." That means that the party dudes, if they are truly saved at all to begin with, go too. (If they didn't, they'd be locked out like the foolish virgins.)

Wow! Party on, Dude!

Not so fast. John gives the consequence: And now, dear children, continue in him, so that when he appears we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming. (1 John 2:28) Apparently it's possible to be ashamed in the midst of the Rapture itself. That's a major buzzkill, and it will change any amount of partying and fun into horror and disgust. Serve God fully; it's easier in the long run.

The Proper Role of Prophecy

The annoying thing about prophecy is that it's generally all or nothing. Either you get practically no real teaching or you get way too much--and in the latter case, it's generally over-hyped and under-researched. It's a popcorn or even cotton-candy topic, and I can understand why less entertainment-driven churches shy away from it. But I think we can learn something really important by considering something basic and unifying that history has to teach us.

Have you noticed that there is generally an eschatological thrust to revivals and waves of evangelism? Seriously, look at the Bible, especially in Acts: how often is evangelism rooted in the idea of the Last Judgment? Pretty much always, at least when the gist of the message is presented. Was it an accident that Jonathan Edwards was best known for "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"? (And yes, that's eschatological in focus.)

So eschatology matters.

But consider this: when eschatology is used for evangelism, it is what we may call "Common Eschatology"--the eschatology that is common to all truly Christian denominations. There's no reference to the Rapture or the Antichrist or the Millennium. The reference is simply to the Last Judgment: someday, whether we miss the Tribulation through Rapture or just death, or even if we go through it, we shall all stand before God and give account for our lives and deeds. The graveyards of the world are full of people who never encountered a literal Antichrist or Tribulation period, and it may be that we will be there ourselves someday without facing any of them. Comparatively few will come to the brink of the Tribulation, but everyone who has not turned to God shall die--and most Christians, too. So it's reasonable to pitch our sermons to the certainties of death and judgment.

What about the more Hollywood doctrines--the sort that go into making books and movies of the Left Behind variety? Well, I'd say it's more important to know God and the Scriptures than the doctrine. That won't happen, of course, and neither will the respectable alternative: just say that your denomination holds such-and-such a view, while others hold other views. If you have the guts and godliness, explain the other views without putting them down. (Yes, maybe you're right and they're wrong, but even then it's worth understanding them. And who knows? Maybe you're wrong after all!)

It's also worth noting that while prophecy of this sort was clearly taught to new believers, it doesn't seem to have been used in evangelism--only the Judgment was. The modern business of scaring people with the Rapture or Tribulation cannot be found in Scripture, and if you read the early Christian writers, they tended to reserve it for those already saved, not for evangelizing the unsaved. Coincidence?

Let's be honest: we like certain topics because they're titillating and sensational, not because they do any actual good. Discussions of prophecy should be limited to Christians, and they should be dealt with briefly (yet thoroughly), so we can spend more time on the more important issues, such as loving others and living holy lives.

Introduction to Eschatology: Views of the Rapture

I'll give these in the order of the Rapture, that is, pre-, mid-, prewrath, and post-. Note that the strengths and weaknesses, though obvious and typical, can be argued against by anyone with any wit.

Pre-trib View
The Tribulation is a seven-year period of divine wrath, during which God brings Israel back to Himself. As Christians are not appointed to wrath and as Israel is God’s focus, the Church cannot be here.
Strengths: The Rapture is unexpected and unpredictable; incentive for godly life.
Weaknesses: Produces fear of being left behind; indeed, devotion is based on fear, not love.

Mid-trib View
Oddly, mid-tribs often consider themselves pre-tribs—they just don’t think the Rapture is imminent. Instead, they suppose that the Antichrist must appear first by breaking his seven-year covenant (Dan. 9:27, 2 Thes 2:3). The Rapture follows, then the Tribulation proper—a three-and-half-year period of wrath much like the pre-tribs expect. (The first three and a half years of the covenant are considered too mild to be part of the Tribulation.) Thus mid-tribs believe in a pre-tribulational Rapture, but not an imminent one.
Strengths: Accounts for the frequent references to three-and-a-half-year periods in prophecy (Dan. 7:25, 9:27, 12:7, 11; Rev. 11:2, 3, 12:14, 13:5).
Weaknesses: Though trying to combine the strengths of pre-trib and post-trib views while minimizing their weaknesses, mid-tribulationism often seems to accomplish the opposite.

Prewrath View
Just as mid-tribs are technically pre-tribulational, prewraths are technically post-tribulational. Unfortunately, the prewrath view is rather complex. It divides the last seven years into “the Beginning of Sorrows” (Matt. 24:8—the first three and a half years and the first four Seals of Revelation), “the Great Tribulation” (Matt.24:21—the Fifth and Sixth Seals, followed by the Rapture), and the “Day of the Lord” (Luke 17:30–31--but compare Matt. 15:16–21--which extends from the Seventh Seal until the Second Coming). The Seals are taken to represent the wrath of man, the Trumpets the wrath of God on Jew and Gentile alike, and the Bowls the wrath of God against those who persecute the Jews, who have been saved following the Trumpets.
Strengths: Harmonizes the unexpectedness of the Rapture (Matt. 24:36, 42, 44) with the expectedness of the Rapture (1 Thes 5:4—the “thief” metaphor refers to unexpectedness).
Weaknesses: Complex; based on hairsplitting terminological distinctions that are hard to support.

Post-trib View
Post-tribs are the only premills who are not concerned with wrath. They generally suppose that God is a very good shot, who can strike all around us without hitting us (Psa. 91, especially vv. 7–8). Given that tribulation or oppression is said to be the lot of Christians (John 16:33; Acts 14:22; Col. 1:24; 1 Thes. 3:3–4), post-tribs see no reason why we should be spared the final period of tribulation, which probably will differ from that experienced today in communist and Muslim countries only in extent. There has always been tribulation, that is, persecution, but there have always been refuges from it as well, such as the New World once furnished. The final tribulation will lack such havens and be marked by extreme delusion among the ungodly.
Since post-tribs do not consider the Rapture an escape, they instead take it to represent the glorification and empowerment of believers, so that we may rise to meet our Lord as He returns. We shall then escort him to earth (this meeting and escort is the proper meaning of the word translated “meeting” in 1 Thes. 4:17), where he shall punish and destroy those who have taken the mark of the Beast.
Strengths: Probably the oldest view of the Rapture, and the least complicated.
Weaknesses: Predictability of the Second Coming/Rapture; lack of people to enter the Millennium.

Get to know your neighbors! You're going to spend eternity with these people, and it may turn out that some of them are right, not you.

And next up we'll consider the role of the Rapture and eschatology in general in preaching and teaching.

Introduction to Eschatology: The Rapture in Context

Let's start off by considering the eschatological and theological context of the Rapture.

For most of Church history, the big question was not, When does the Rapture occur? but What is the Millennium? There were three main answers:

Amillennialism. This view takes the Millennium figuratively, usually as a reference to the triumphal aspect of the Church Age. The counterbalance is the Tribulation, which represents the persecution during the Church Age. Note that most Christians throughout history and practically all scholars have been in this group, and it has no "pre-trib" position. The Rapture is what happens to Christians when Jesus returns at the end of the age. Typical amills are older denominations other than Reformed groups: Catholics, Episcopalians, Lutherans, etc.

Postmillenialism. The Millenium is a golden age that will arise when the Church fulfills its mission to disciple all nations. During this time, evil will be restrained and the Gospel generally recognized as true. Postmills sometimes say that Jesus will come though the Church before he comes for the Church. The great evangelic and missionary movements of the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries were usually postmill in origin. This view is seldom found outside Reformed denominations.

Premillenialism. This is the confusing one. Although all premills believe that Jesus' return to the earth (generally said to occur at the end of the Tribulation) ushers in a kind of golden age similar to that of postmills, but with Jesus and the resurrected Christians ruling the world, they differ on the timing and purpose of the Rapture. Premills are generally in newer, evangelical denominations, though the idea itself goes back quite a way. Baptists, Pentecostals, and some generic groups are typically premills, though there are several varieties of Baptist.

Note that only premills tend to talk about the Rapture at all: for amills and postmills, it's simply what happens at the return of Christ. And among premills, post-tribs would agree with this. And that gives us an important reality check: a number of great and godly Christians didn't believe in the idea, and they were still used by God. That should indicate that, whatever the truth about the Rapture, it is a comparatively minor doctrine. (The big doctrines are that Jesus will return to resurrect and judge all and sundry, leading to eternal reward or punishment.)

It also follows that disagreement about the Rapture is disagreement over trivia. There have been cases of people being treated as though they were dangerous heretics or purveyors of immorality simply because they held an unpopular view of the Rapture. That's unacceptable. I acknowledge the salvation and blessedness of a lot of people I disagree with, and sometimes on far weightier issues. I will not reject anyone based solely on his view of the Rapture.

But it's worth understanding other views. Next I'll explain the different ideas of the Rapture found among premills and why they matter.

Introduction to Eschatology: "They all...fell asleep"

To recap: prophecy isn't about figuring things out in advance; it's about recognizing the hand of God when he acts, or at least soon afterward.

But if that's so, why bother with prophecy?

The simple answer is that recognizing God at work can stabilize you in the midst of chaos. What is a horror to someone else is a sign to you, and that's especially useful if you're already under fire.

Have you ever considered the contrast, nearly the contradiction, between the wise virgins of Matt 25:1-13 and the frequent warning to watch (Matt 26:41, 1 Thess 5:4-8, etc.)? Matt 25:5 says "they all [wise virgins included] became drowsy and fell asleep." I think the contexts are different: when we are called on to stay awake in Matt 26, it's literal wakefulness to allow prayer; in Thessalonians, the idea is that we will fall asleep morally and become like the unsaved people around us, unprepared for the coming judgment.

And it's preparation that constitutes wisdom in the parable: all fell asleep, but only the wise were ready to act the moment they came to. The foolish strike me as being those people who claim they'll get serious about serving God when the Antichrist shows up. They won't, of course: if they can't be bothered to serve God in comparatively easy times, they certainly won't turn into super saints when the persecution starts. They're more likely to take the Mark.

(Personal nag: this is another reason I despise most books like the Left Behind series: they encourage the view that you can be a worldly "Christian" and still be saved in the end by transforming from couch potato to Olympic athlete under the pressure of the Tribulation. It doesn't work, and many may wind up in Hell because of such nonsense.)

So what's the use of studying prophecy? Well, if you really are studying prophecy itself--what God says, not what some expert says he says--the Holy Spirit will help you see the sign and recognize the encouragement. But if all you know is what someone says about the Bible, that won't get you anywhere. Knowing the Bible is more important than knowing about the Bible, just as knowing God is more important than knowing about God. But these days most Christians know prophecy second-hand at best.

Next time I'll look at a few problems the modern prophecy industry (for it certainly isn't a ministry) has created. We might as well start with the timing of the Rapture and why it should not be the big deal prophecy pundits say it is.

Introduction to Eschatology: Forewarned?

Last time I said that prophecy doesn't typically forewarn us. In fact, the goal of prophecy is not prospective but retrospective: you don't truly appreciate it until after the fact. Let's review a scripture from last time:

John 14:29 "I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe."

See the point? He doesn't forewarn them so they will prepare, much less to satisfy their curiosity. He tells them so that when it catches them napping and they finally wake up, they will be encouraged to believe.

This is also why Jesus predicted Peter's denial: not to forewarn him, because it was going to happen anyway, but to encourage him after the fact with the knowledge that Jesus had known about it all along. Let's get the context:

Luke 22:31-32 "Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you [all of you--the disciples] as wheat. But I have prayed for you [individually], Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers."

Then Peter says he won't fail Jesus and gets the denial prophecy. But the idea was that when he had failed, he could look back at this and realize that Jesus had known and prayed for him, so he could turn back and strengthen the others. This is the typical pattern.

I sometimes call Luke "the hidden Gospel" because it consistently presents the hiddenness of prophecy: prophecy usually is not meant to be understood beforehand. Thus, we may wonder why the disciples didn't understand about Jesus' death and resurrection when he kept predicting it, but Luke explains:

Luke 9:45 But they did not understand what this meant. It was hidden from them, so that they did not grasp it, and they were afraid to ask him about it.

Luke 18:34 The disciples did not understand any of this. Its meaning was hidden from them, and they did not know what he was talking about.

Similarly, the disciples going to Emmaus met Jesus after his resurrection,

Luke 24:16 but they were kept from recognizing him.

And when the disciples helped blatantly fulfill prophecy, they didn't get it at the time. We read in John 12:16,

At first his disciples did not understand all this [=the triumphal entry]. Only after Jesus was glorified did they realize that these things had been written about him and that they had done these things to him.

I've heard a lot of people claim that the disciples knew their actions in getting the donkey, etc., fulfilled prophecy. Untrue: you don't get prophecy in advance. This is why the modern End-times Prophecy industry is dead wrong. It hasn't happened yet, so we don't get it. God won't let us understand beforehand, just as he kept the disciples from figuring it out before the fact.

Bear in mind that the prophecy experts of Jesus' time knew all about the coming of the Messiah, and they still thought Jesus was a fake! Why? Because they already had all the answers, so they weren't really trusting God:

Proverbs 3:5 Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding...

Next time we'll look at why it's reasonable to study prophecy even though we know we won't get it in advance.

Introduction to Eschatology: What Prophecy Is

Warning: the point of this brief series isn't to tell you what's going to happen--how Biblical prophecies are going to play out. In fact, that's where we begin: the goal of Biblical prophecy is not simply to be a more accurate version of newspaper horoscopes. Prophecy has little predictive force from that standpoint. Rather, the goal of prophecy is to glorify God--and secondarily to encourage his people to believe. Let's begin by looking at those two in order.

Glorifying God. Prophecy is a way that God verifies his credentials. After all, he's omniscient, so he must be prescient as well. You'll find this idea a lot in the Old Testament prophets, but the clearest statement is probably in Isaiah.

41:22-23 "Bring in your idols to tell us what is going to happen. Tell us what the former things were, so that we may consider them and know their final outcome. Or declare to us the things to come, tell us what the future holds, so we may know that you are gods. Do something, whether good or bad, so that we will be dismayed and filled with fear."

...

41:26 "Who told of this from the beginning, so we could know, or beforehand, so we could say, 'He was right'? No one told of this, no one foretold it, no one heard any words from you."

This is echoed in Rev 19:10--At this I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, "Do not do it! I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers who hold to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy." The spirit or essence of prophecy is witnessing to Jesus.


However, modern prophecy experts tend to focus on themselves and how clever they are to have figured out all the items on their amazing charts. But again, prediction as such isn't the goal. We glorify God when we realize that he knew all along what would happen, and we are comforted by his knowledge and power: God is in control.

Encouraging belief. This is the second goal. In John 14:29, Jesus said, "I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe." Note that this had nothing to do with satisfying curiosity, which apparently has little or no importance to God. But the modern approach to prophecy assumes that satisfying curiosity is a big concern, perhaps the biggest concern.

I'll revisit this verse next time to explore why prophecy has little or no predictive power in the modern sense of forewarning.

Asulon 4: Weak points

There aren't that many problems in William McGrath's Asulon.

Topical harangues. Preachiness isn't a real problem. Concentrating too much on the topics of the moment is. We have nods to term limits and something like the Fair Tax early on, for example. That's all very clever, but an author should focus better and remember that topical references get old fast.

Info dumps. These are hard to avoid, but some of them are a bit long. I generally find that dialog is better than pulling out a book and beginning to read, which actually occurs twice. Also, since this uses an omniscient viewpoint, we could simply watch some of the events unfold free of charge.

Abrupt ending. It's a bad sign when you reach the end and turn the page expecting at least another few paragraphs. The ending here is as sudden as an invisible brick wall on a freeway.

Editing. The editing could be better. Unfortunately, these days that's true of practically anything in print.

Sidebar: "Etruscan." I considered mentioning this yesterday, but only a language geek would notice. The "Etruscan" is in fact mangled Latin. I don't consider this a problem, however, for a couple reasons:

1. Although Etruscan wasn't even related to Latin, the Etruscan civilization dominated the area where Rome and Latin eventually came to power. The goal is evidently to invoke Rome indirectly. I can live with that.

2. The author clearly likes playing with words anyway. Toward the end of the story, he conflates "Nephilim" and "Rephaim" into "Rephalim," for example. Again, it's tolerable.

Conclusion
The positives strongly outweigh the negatives, and I look forward to the remaining two books. There are some good points here, and perhaps getting a fresh perspective on what has become a stale genre will provoke people to think about alternatives to the opinions they've been taught to consider practically on a par with Scripture.

Participating Blog links:
The Christian Fiction Review Blog
A Frank Review
Susan Kirkland
Melissa Meeks @ Bibliophile's Retreat
Geralyn Beauchamp @ The Time Mistress
Cathi Hassan @ Cathi's Chatter
Caprice Hokstad @ Queen of Convolution

Asulon 3: False Negatives

This is normally the point where I'd mention any negatives in William McGrath's Asulon. However, because it's an unusual book, I think it's likely to generate some faulty criticisms--more than most books. So I'll take a few moments to deal with some false negatives.

Head hopping. Expect this from the dysfunctionally illiterate. McGrath doesn't really head-hop; he's using an omniscient viewpoint. That puts him a bit out of step with the received wisdom of writers' groups, which is likely a good thing.

Preachiness. It's surprising how many people preach against preachiness. I've already dealt with this in the past [1] [2] [3], but here I'll just point out that practically all modern speculative fiction is preachy. Matrix? Star Wars? Star Trek? Preachy, all of them. In fact, the big difference between them and Asulon is what (or Who) is preached. Now, some of the topical stuff is problematic; I'll get to that tomorrow. But preaching as such is not the issue.

Magic. The bad guys use it, which is the way that works. Simon the priest doesn't. In fact, he gives a very beautiful, moving, and accurate explanation of the difference at the end of the book.

Eschatology. Yes, the eschatology is a little unusual. But while I don't agree with all the interpretations, it's probably nearer right than the usual "Left Behind" view. As anyone who follows my reviews knows, I don't require authors to agree with my views; I just want them to be consistent and scripturally plausible. That's why I, as a premill, endorse the postmill The Shadow and Night. It's a good idea to know what other Christians think. If you're average, you're spending more time--way too much--absorbing non-Christian views anyway.

Production Values. Yes, it could look a little better. But if you're more interested in looking at pictures than in reading, you should probably skip Asulon and check out The Pokey Little Puppy instead. The text is definitely good.

Tomorrow we'll look at some actual (minor) issues, and I'll put in a final plug for the book.

Participating Blog links:
The Christian Fiction Review Blog
A Frank Review
Susan Kirkland
Melissa Meeks @ Bibliophile's Retreat
Geralyn Beauchamp @ The Time Mistress
Cathi Hassan @ Cathi's Chatter
Caprice Hokstad @ Queen of Convolution

Asulon 2: The Good Stuff

So why does William McGrath's Asulon succeed? There are a number of reasons; I'll touch on a few.

Myth. It turns out that McGrath was right about the compatibility of biblical prophecy and myth. It shouldn't be a surprise: in the Old Testament especially, images are sometimes drawn from pagan myths. And as the Chronicles of Narnia show, mythology on a fairy-tale level can not only enrich a fantasy but ease up the expectations. In Asulon, for example, there's a running gag of sorts about an angel turned mortal siring children with angelic blood in their veins. Ordinarily I'd ding McGrath for that, but since he uses much the same concept to set up dwarves, unicorns, etc., I accept it as mythology and let it pass. If he had gone for a realistic, modern setting, I would've nailed him.

Character Balance. I see a lot of plot/character problems. On the one hand, sometimes a character does something for no apparent reason except that the author says so. On the other hand, sometimes a character is so cliché-ridden that you can predict his every move. The characters in Asulon, however, are strongly typed without becoming stereotypes. You can predict their general responses, but not very precisely. With a few characters on stage at any given moment, that produces reasonable surprises rather than rabbits out of a hat.

Also, the balance between Simon the priest and Moor the warrior works well. Moor is not a Christian, so while he is physically very competent and has considerable cunning, he has no spiritual insight. He goes by appearances, but he isn't stupid. Simon, meanwhile, is spiritually adept. He's a good fighter as well, but not at Moor's level. Together they provide humanistic and spiritual depths that make the story far more interesting. Most authors would have had one or the other, or at least would have emphasized one over the other.

Authority. Never let your readers suspect you don't know what you're talking about. Asulon is awash with combat-related notes, and McGrath does handle action scenes better than most. He is generally informative without being pedantic, which helps his credibility and readability.

He does get "preachy" on occasion, but that's not a major problem for me. In fact, tomorrow I'll deal with that and some other complaints I suspect will be leveled at Asulon and why they're bogus.

Participating Blog links:
The Christian Fiction Review Blog
A Frank Review
Susan Kirkland
Melissa Meeks @ Bibliophile's Retreat
Geralyn Beauchamp @ The Time Mistress
Cathi Hassan @ Cathi's Chatter
Caprice Hokstad @ Queen of Convolution

Asulon 1: Back to the Future

It would be tempting to describe William McGrath's Asulon as a sword-and-sorcery version of Left Behind. It would also give a seriously wrong impression: Asulon is far better than Left Behind. (On the other hand, I did enjoy the numerous silly errors in LB. Asulon lacks them.)

Anyway... Asulon is the first installment of a three-part series ("The Sword of Fire") presenting McGrath's interpretations of End-Times prophecy in the form of a fantasy story with a prince and his friends caught up in events of Apocalyptic dimensions.

Hands up, everyone who thinks that sounds stupid.

To be honest, I thought it sounded stupid too. But somehow it works. In fact, the further you go in the book, the better it works. (This means you should not read the book backwards: you won't like it, and all the subliminal messages about the Beatles are annoying.)

Anyway, Part II: the story is a geopolitical roman à clef, so some of the people and most of the places are thinly veiled versions of their real-world cunterparts. Sometimes the veil is so thin it's practically indecent, but the story remains family friendly for teens and up. (There are lot of action scenes and moderate violence, but I'd give it a PG at most. Star Wars was at least as violent.)

As usual in this type of fantasy, we wind up with a boy, a girl, and a couple of mentor characters beginning a journey that turns out to have an unknown destination. We also have an odd mix of topical references and vaguely Narnian mythological material. Thus "Asulon" itself (presumably from a Greek word meaning "asylum, refuge") is the USA, Logres (from a Celtic root) is England, and so on. (In other cases, if you get stuck on a country name, remove the -ia suffix, if any, and read it backwards. That usually works.) Again, it all sounds odd, but the story really does work. I'll explore some of the reasons for this tomorrow.

Participating Blog links:
The Christian Fiction Review Blog
A Frank Review
Susan Kirkland
Melissa Meeks @ Bibliophile's Retreat
Geralyn Beauchamp @ The Time Mistress
Cathi Hassan @ Cathi's Chatter
Caprice Hokstad @ Queen of Convolution

The Shadow and Night 4: The Postmill Setting

I've had a few postmill characters, and in one of my stories--the only "End-Times" novel I've written--there's even a postmill movement called Millennium Now. Unfortunately, MN was split: the ordinary people who went around evangelizing in its name had a very silly, simplistic view of its teachings, while the actual teaching tended to be known only to the more scholarly. I liked the real version, though only the silly version actually cropped up much in the story. (The token brain stated clearly that the zealots were ill-informed and easy to beat in an argument, while the real MN people were far better informed and much more formidable in debate.)
Similarly, a proposed alternative history series features a postmill inventor in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

But in general we don't have characters who are that far removed from our own theology. In my upcoming series "The League of Superheroes," I do have a couple Catholic characters and an Episcopalian who are all amill, but eschatology doesn't really come into the stories much. The theological differences are somewhat important--the Catholics see things in a way that most Protestants wouldn't, for example, and a Baptist character is likewise fairly typical for that group except that he gets on well with the Catholics and doesn't serously try to convert them.

But having characters from other denominations and doctrinal positions is one thing; do we actually represent another view as fact, at least within a story world? I did so in my short story "One Taken, the Other Left" in the anthology Light at the Edge of Darkness, where I posit an odd twist to the usual pre-trib Rapture scenario. (One reviewer accused me of putting "bad theology" in the Lord's mouth, but he couldn't be bothered to explain what was bad about it. From my knowledge of the reviewer in question, I would put my knowledge of theology and the Bible up against his any time. And for the record, the points attributed to the Lord in the story are actually quite standard theology; I just applied them where most others would for some reason make an exception.)

But the question remains: do our settings have to reflect our doctrinal positions? I don't see that they must, so long as the views are either standard doctrine (as postmillennialism is in some circles) or minor tweaks on them. This is speculative fiction, after all, and weirder matters arise. (It's worth noting that Chris Walley's The Shadow and Night doesn't have any alien races, which at least eliminates that problem.)

The Shadow and Night 2: The Horror We SHOULD Feel

A while back I got involved in a discussion about the place of sex and violence in Christian fiction. I never really understood the viewpoint of the one who started the thread, but he asserted that a writer has to go into gory details about violence in particular (and perhaps sex). Otherwise, the reader wouldn't have the full impact of the evil.

Now, I've seen a lot of stories about serial killers and other sensational objects, and my question is, how relevant is that? How many serial killers do you actually know? C. S. Lewis said that the horrors of the Nazi death camps originated in clean, modern offices staffed by ordinary people. It's a diversion to point people toward horror-movie psychos, because we can shudder and say, "But I'm not like that." We are then turned away from the horrible creature in the mirror.

So I replied that it would take more skill and better serve the cause of Christ to reveal the full horror of a white lie than to titillate readers with sensational gore. Don't pursue the uncommon evil; portray the vileness of commonplace sin!

But it's one thing to say that and another to do it. Chris Walley does it in The Shadow and Night.

Do you know what the book's first unimaginable act of wickedness is?

It's a lie--a silly, trivial untruth that most of us would forget immediately. But here, it is an unthinkable breach of God's peace. It's followed closely by another departure that most of us wouldn't think wrong at all, though Walley's case against it is sound. Is it any wonder that in losing our horror of the small sins, it takes more and more sensational ones to stir us?

This is why, personal theology aside, Walley needed the postmill setting. Only after millennia of righteousness could there be enough innocence to show us the proper response to sin.

I hope I'm wrong, but I expect many to disagree with and dismiss the idea of forbidding certain types of research and development. Some of the things banned under the story's Technology Protocols are common in sci-fi, and many Christians will see nothing wrong with them. They will even demonize opponents of such technology as medievals and Luddites. But while Walley doesn't present a full argument against such things as human-level artificial intelligence or genetic tinkering to create new people or species, such arguments exist. (I take a similar view in my upcoming series "The League of Superheroes.") We tend to assume that "inevitable" technologies are good or at least neutral. If The Shadow and Night helps dispell that illusion and restore a proper judgment of good and evil to the Church, it will have proved itself more worthy than most Christian fiction of the last few decades.

Other blogs on the CSFF tour:
Brandon Barr
Jim Black
Justin Boyer
Grace Bridges
Jackie Castle
Carol Bruce Collett
Valerie Comer
CSFF Blog Tour
Gene Curtis
D. G. D. Davidson
Chris Deanne
Janey DeMeo
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Marcus Goodyear
Rebecca Grabill
Jill Hart
Katie Hart
Michael Heald
Timothy Hicks
Christopher Hopper
Heather R. Hunt
Jason Joyner
Kait
Carol Keen
Mike Lynch
Margaret
Rachel Marks
Shannon McNear
Melissa Meeks
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Mirtika or Mir's Here
Pamela Morrisson
Eve Nielsen
John W. Otte
John Ottinger
Deena Peterson
Rachelle
Steve Rice
Ashley Rutherford
Chawna Schroeder
James Somers
Rachelle Sperling
Donna Swanson
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Robert Treskillard
Jason Waguespac
Laura Williams
Timothy Wise

The Shadow and Night 1: The Horror!

For those who followed last month's posts on Jeffrey Overstreet's Auralia's Colors, I have posted a follow-up.

Chris Walley's The Shadow and Night, published by Tyndale, is ambitious in more ways than one. Perhaps most astonishing, it does not follow the typical pre-tribulation scenario in which the end of the world is near. Instead, it draws on the postmillennial view that God will someday grant a golden age of restrained sinfulness and a general triumph of the Gospel--somewhat like the premillennial view of the Millennium, only without the return of Christ beforehand or his personal, visible reign.

Obviously all concerned should be burned at the stake.

Okay, no, they should be commended for not mindlessly following the crowd, and I hope that there's no barking about heresy. Postmillennialism has been around for quite a while, and great and godly men have espoused it--Jonathan Edwards, for example, and more recently the late Dr. D. James Kennedy. I was startled to find a letter from the author included with the book, presenting an explanation and brief defense of the postmill setting. I am horrified to think the letter's probably necessary. (Then again, my own observation and experience is that most pew-sitters have no clue about theology, and most Christian readers couldn't tell an actual heresy from a hole in the ground. They'll still form an angry mob quickly enough if Someone Important yells "Heresy!" Most of these important people are pretty ignorant too.)

If it accomplished nothing else, this book would be important simply for letting ignorant Christians know that the lands beyond Leftbehindia are not God-forsaken wastes teeming with dragons. There are Christians out there, and you might as well stop by for a visit.

It is far more important than that, however. There's also the fact that it is thoroughly, openly Christian without being preachy. For all those who think that's impossible--and I have encountered many--I dare you to read this with an open mind. Yet even that is not its major strength. In my next post, I'll try to explain and defend what I think is its greatest achievement; for now, I'll present a summary of the story itself.

The Shadow and Night was originally published in two parts as The Shadow at Evening and The Power of the Night. The current book is the first of three parts; the other two are The Dark Foundations (already in print!) and The Infinite Day (due in June 2008). Together they constitute "The Lamb Among the Stars." This is how the story begins:

Listen!

This is the tale of how, at last, evil returned to the Assembly of Worlds, and how one man, Merral Stefan D'Avanos, became caught up against it.

The story begins in A.D. 13851 on Farholme, which began to undergo terraforming more than ten thousand years earlier. Earlier still, midway through the twenty-first century, the Great Intervention occurred, and God sovereignly moved upon mankind to convict the world of sin. Although evil has still cropped up, it is uncommon, and most people find it almost inconceivable. A kind of star gate technology was developed soon after, and the push to colonize the galaxy began and continued through thousands of years of peace and righteousness.

But now that has been shattered on the most distant and isolated colony world, and Merral and his friends must struggle against evil for the first time in millennia. The enemy is invading not only their world but their hearts.

I'll be posting on this book and its ramifications beyond the tour, in case anyone's interested.

Other links on the tour:
Brandon Barr
Jim Black
Justin Boyer
Grace Bridges
Jackie Castle
Carol Bruce Collett
Valerie Comer
CSFF Blog Tour
Gene Curtis
D. G. D. Davidson
Chris Deanne
Janey DeMeo
Jeff Draper
April Erwin
Marcus Goodyear
Rebecca Grabill
Jill Hart
Katie Hart
Michael Heald
Timothy Hicks
Christopher Hopper
Heather R. Hunt
Jason Joyner
Kait
Carol Keen
Mike Lynch
Margaret
Rachel Marks
Shannon McNear
Melissa Meeks
Rebecca LuElla Miller
Mirtika or Mir's Here
Pamela Morrisson
Eve Nielsen
John W. Otte
John Ottinger
Deena Peterson
Rachelle
Steve Rice
Ashley Rutherford
Chawna Schroeder
James Somers
Rachelle Sperling
Donna Swanson
Steve Trower
Speculative Faith
Robert Treskillard
Jason Waguespac
Laura Williams
Timothy Wise

No Neutrality Allowed?

I once thought I was going to be tossed out of a church for heresy. It didn't actually go beyond odd looks, but it was uncomfortable.

Some friends were teaching a Sunday school class, and they had a spare session because they finished the book early. (Actually, they thought they had two.) Since there was a lot of talk about eschatology, they asked me to explain the different views. I decided to start small and build: the first session was about different premill views, and the second was supposed to be on different views of the Millennium. The second was pre-empted by an all-church function, which was just as well: it might've caused brain hemorrhages.

So what shocking thing did I do for the premills? I simply took the first part of 1 Thess 2 and explained how different groups interpreted it: pretribs, midtribs, pre-wraths, and posttribs, in that order. I wasn't playing favorites; I gave strengths and weaknesses for each view. But that was seen as proselyting for some view or other. I'm still not sure which one I was supposedly promoting.

Part of the problem was that the assistant pastor's wife was there for some reason. (Yes, I know: I always wondered why the pastor needed an assistant wife too.) She was Not Pleased, and it spread. The worst problem came when she flat-out denied that pretribs have anxiety about finding themselves alone unexpectedly. (This is the "Left Behind" syndrome, where you think everyone else has gone in the Rapture and you didn't get called out.) I know for a fact that this anxiety exists, having experienced it myself and having heard other pretribs allude to it.

I decided not to defend the point. It turned out I didn't have to: an elderly lady laughed and said that she had been there personally and knew many others who did too. Oops!

Could I be blamed for that? Could be and was.

So what's the lesson here? In some areas neutrality is impossible. You're either One of Us or One of Them, and One of Us wouldn't go talking about Them as if they were anything but wrong-headed idiots. The real downside is that by being neutral you wind up being One of Them to everyone, which is a lonely position.

It's still worth it.

A Vision of the Last Day

Yes! H. C. Andersen meets Left Behind!

Okay, no, it's not that kind of last day, but "A Vision of the Last Day" is still a good read. It's another example of what some people will call "preachy" without realizing that "preachy," if properly done, is good. Why? I suppose in this spin-sick world, people like the idea that someone actually believes something and will state it without hedging. I keep seeing "Christian" downgraded to "Inspirational" downgraded "Warm Fuzzies" downgraded to "Tepid Fluff." If you aren't securely anchored, you will drift, and the flow is always downhill. Scared of chasing people off? Don't be. The real power involved is from the Holy Spirit, who will draw people. Let him handle the PR. Our job is to present Christ faithfully.

Does that seem so horrible? It shouldn't. If you love someone, you will tend to talk about your beloved all the time. If you love Jesus, if he's your center, he will naturally come into everything you do. I wouldn't want to do a story that doesn't somehow lead to Christ, because only the story that connect to him have eternal value. Why work on a story that will burn up like dung before the saints and angels someday? Go for the gold!