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. 

What they don’t realize is that Christian theology has been at the forefront of creative expression for centuries upon centuries.  Within the ‘confines’ of orthodoxy, there are numerous possibilities.  Just as having specific requirements for something to qualify as a haiku or a sonnet doesn’t constrain creativity, but frees it, so too does orthodoxy.

So yes, the Birth Pangs series is filled with fictitious explorations of orthodox Christian theology, but in theory, if my grasp of Christian theology is accurate (and Christian theology is true!) then everything that transpires in the Birth Pangs world could actually happen in our world.  And what a world it would be if they did!

I want my readers, especially those who are ‘turned off’ from Christianity, to consider that, and realize that perhaps God might have some surprises of his own- because whatever I imagine, what God actually does will blow it out of the water.

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.  

Political systems really represent individual beliefs, in particular how one’s beliefs impact how one should behave in the wider world and how you believe others ought to behave.  Ultimately, one cannot separate one’s politics from their worldview.  Since the Birth Pangs series is an exploration of worldviews, it follows that political musings will come, too.  A person who derives no political implications from their world view probably doesn’t even understand their world view or doesn’t really believe their world view.

Part of the problem in today’s culture is that many people have a worldview but then political beliefs that are inconsistent with planks in their worldview.  The latent idea is that one’s beliefs are private matters whereas how one feels about the government or governance is in a separate category.  Of course, one’s feelings about politics is in fact a belief, so even the attempt to compartmentalize fails in the end.  Somewhere, somehow, people’s politics relate back to a belief or two that they have.  Much of the heated discourse today arises because people from different political bents cannot trace their political ideas back to their core beliefs and then they present their political assertions as matters of self-evidently true, which of course they are not if you come from a different starting point.

Birth Pangs is very concerned about determining the best starting point.  It is not concerned because it has the goal of erecting a political system.  There certainly are deeper motivations than that!  But it does not pretend that there won’t be political implications.

Now, in the Birth Pangs series, set in the not so distant future in our own country, the various political systems that strive to fill the void have their historic roots in our own past and present.  Socialism and Communism get a special treatment rather than say, a Monarchy, because America has not had anyone advocating for a monarchy for a long time but socialism is constantly advanced under different guises.  There is also a long history with capitalism and a form of democracy, so it is natural that people will rise up who represent shades of that view.

In the Birth Pangs series, though, there is a ‘deeper reflection’ that permeates it all, and that is an analysis of the nature of humanity itself.  In a word, what the theologians call ‘original sin.’  Even those advocating for democracy in the Birth Pangs series tend to forget why there is a need for checks and balances.  Political systems reflect our views about the human race itself.  Do we believe that people are by nature ‘good’?  Do we think that people are in the main ignorant and untrustworthy, not fit for self-governance?  As an exploration of the facts about humanity, a discussion of the political consequences of one’s view on humanity is unavoidable.

Personally, I wouldn’t chalk any aspect of the Birth Pangs series as being merely incidental or superficial.  I wrote it with the idea that the series would be like an ocean… one can dive deep and explore the ocean and it is then filled with excitement and adventure, crushing sometimes, or one can stay in the shallows and have fun frolicing.  I wanted the series to be accessible and enjoyable in the shallows but open to those who wanted to dive deeper at just about any point.  Fidelis is a start to that and it will take the rest of the books to bring to completion.