Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!apple!fernwood!uupsi!njin!paul.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: credmond@watmath.waterloo.edu (Chris Redmond) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Piercing the Darkness Message-ID: Date: 3 May 91 06:47:21 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: University of Waterloo Lines: 54 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu I have just finished reading PIERCING THE DARKNESS by Frank Peretti, the sequel to his immensely popular novel THIS PRESENT DARKNESS. There was some discussion of the earlier novel on this newsgroup a few months ago, and one mention of it just this week; I would now like to make a comment or two about the sequel. I have to say that I enjoyed reading it, but that it distressed me in certain ways. It was entertaining; his drama of angels and demons, in particular, is as exciting as the Ninja Turtles, even though I take it as the work of an imagination, not an accurate description of how matters really are in the unseen realms. But let me list some things that bothered me about this book. (Note that I am not talking about its literary quality -- for example, how convincing the characters are. That's a subject for discussion in some other context.) -- The story centres on the members of a small, unaffiliated church in a small American town. It is connected to no denomination, and the entire novel contains only one (derogatory) reference to the existence of an organized national church. Peretti appears to be suggesting either that Methodists, Presbyterians, Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and Baptists do not exist, or that they are not Christian. -- The local church in question appears to conduct no charitable, service or missionary activity whatever. Its sole purpose is to provide a place where the local Christians commune with God and one another. It does operate a school, but apparently only to reinforce that local belief and activity. It does nothing to feed the hungry, bring peace and justice to the world, or otherwise advance God's kingdom. -- A number of institutions and activities that are either neutral or positively good (and often associated with Christians) are portrayed as satanic. Prominent in this category is the American Civil Liberties Union (thinly disguised in the book as the ACFA). Even more prominent, here as in the previous novel, is higher education. It is as if Peretti is not aware that the single largest force in creating American colleges and universities has been the Christian church, and that great good is done by Christians through those institutions. (I might add that in many details, he betrays his lack of knowledge of what colleges and universities are really like. Calculate, for example, how many students it would take to fill the lecture halls in the psychology building he describes in This Present Darkness, compared to the ostensible size of the college. It is hard to resist the conclusion that he is attacking out of utter ignorance.) In summary: I enjoyed PIERCING THE DARKNESS. I enjoy science fiction too, and in about the same way. But some people might think that this book is an accurate picture of (a) Christianity, or (b) the way Christians view the world. I am sure that /a/ is not true, and I certainly hope that /b/ is not true -- if it is, Christians are pretty paranoid people. Chris Redmond credmond@watmath