Christianity

In the novel, you seem to be developing your own “pseudo-theology”, for lack of a better word: some type of Christian-based theology that certainly is fictitious, but is yet, well, orthodox.  Can you say more about this without giving away too much of the series’s secrets?

One of my underlying goals of writing the Birth Pangs series is to ‘re-imagine’ heaven.  The book of Revelation contains numerous images of heaven that I suspect would have resonated greatly with a first century Jew but bores our image rich, media saturated society.  It is to the point where I’ve heard people say that just about anything is preferable to heaven, even hell.  This is ignorance, but it is somewhat forgiveable.  The language in Revelation is symbolic:  whatever it symbolizes will be much greater than whatever we can imagine.  So, you might say that I have cautiously tried to insert some new symbols that I hope will resonate with a 21st century American (or Brit!).

This process of ‘re-imagining’ is not constrained to ‘heaven,’ though.  ‘Re-imagining’ is going on with the Nephilim and the Shadowmen, for example.  I wanted to take the concepts and doctrines that excite me and present them in a way that will excite and inspire others.   Basically, I get the idea that a lot of people think that Christianity is dull.  It isn’t so much that they find the evidence for it uncompelling as that even if it were true they wouldn’t be impressed.  Read the rest of this entry »

This is the seventh question posed to me in a now lost audio interview which I am answering now in text.  Many of these questions and answers apply to the whole series and this one in this entry does as well:

A large part of the last few years of your life have been devoted to exploring theological issues on your website sntjohnny.com. Have your experiences in that forum informed this novel?

There is no question that my Internet ministry has informed Fidelis and the entire Birth Pangs series.  The Birth Pangs series has many purposes and one of them is to provide a tool for me to communicate in story form what I have attempted to communicate elsewhere in argument and discussion.

It wouldn’t be fair to say that the series is entirely designed to reflect back on my apologetics experiences, though.  The series is equally informed by events in my life, events in history in general, and my overall way of looking at the world which is distinctly Christian.  While I think it would be fair to say that many characters and events in the BP series can be tied in some way to a forum discussion, or a particular musing about reality in my own life, I’d urge some caution in trying to interpret the whole book and everything in it in that way.

The reason for this is that one of the things I was particularly sensitive to was to make sure that the story was enjoyable on its own terms.  Readers have to be able to relate to the characters and events in the story.  That’s the whole point, really.  I want them to put themselves in the places of the people in the story going through what they’re going through and have them more or less compare what the characters do with what they would do.

The Christian overtones I think are hard to miss but it is my hope that they are not so overbearing as to turn off a secular or even atheistic reader.  In fact, I think readers like that will enjoy some of the fun I have in addressing some of their challenges.  

I was pleased to learn today that Jean Heimann at the Catholic Fire blog had reviewed my book, Fidelis and posted it to her site. Jean writes and reviews from a distinctly Christian point of view so it is no surprise that she caught onto many of the Christian themes in the book, as well as some that I thought I had reasonably well buried. That I am a Christian becomes obvious to anyone who knows me and that Fidelis has Christian overtones and undertones is clear to anyone that knows to look for them. And yet it pleases me that it can be read and enjoyed by non-Christians as well. As Jean says on her review, “Both Christians and non-Christians alike will find Fidelis enjoyable, as it focuses on man’s universal struggles of good vs. evil and truth vs. propaganda.” And a long time atheist friend of mine reviewed and enjoyed my book showing that Jean is right (to read his review, click here, but NOTE: there are SPOILERS).

I might ask my atheist friend how it comes that there are universal values that humans can mutually relate to…

This is the second reviewer that I’ve noted compared Fidelis to Harry Potter. Obviously, that makes me happy, because that puts me in good company. At least in Fidelis (what later books might be like, I won’t say) it seems to me that there are more affinities to the Lord of the Rings series than the Harry Potter ones, but one can certainly see both (Jean does).  The magic in Fidelis is of a different sort than that in Harry Potter, but certain themes certainly are shared: loyalty, courage, virtue, self-discipline, good is superior to evil- even if good ‘loses’ (which it never does!). It would be fair to say that Fidelis is not meant to be a knock off of Harry Potter, or the Lord of the Rings, or any other fantasy type series you might envision but that Fidelis is deeply inspired and influenced by such series is definitely true. In fact, the astute reader may see that the inspiration runs deeper then one might expect.

At any rate, for Christian readers out there who may have read my open letter to Christian Muggles, you can confident that when Ms. Heimann titles here review as an alternative to Harry Potter, she does so correctly. Feel free to buy my book instead of the Harry Potter books all you like.

In conclusion, Ms. Heimann makes this interesting comment: “There is a prophetic message presented in this first book of seven in the BirthPangs Series. …. Fidelis only hints at the possibilities, but it certainly poses a relevant concern for the future.”

Relevant, indeed. Boy, I can’t wait until I can talk freely about all of this!