Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!wuarchive!sdd.hp.com!caen!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!lll-winken!iggy.GW.Vitalink.COM!widener!dsinc!bagate!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: nlt@gboro.glassboro.edu (Nancy L. Tinkham) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: This Present Darkness (review) Message-ID: Date: 18 May 91 06:21:16 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Lines: 64 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu I too have just finished Peretti's _This_Present_Darkness_. The book is a fairly good "whodunit" story, with two of the central characters hunting down clues to uncover and stop a sinister plot. It was suspenseful enough to keep me reading to the end and to interest me in the sequel. I have, however, some complaints about the book. I will list three of them, two minor and one more significant. First, the book too easily identifies the members of some groups as good and other groups as bad: all the conservative Christians are good guys, and all the liberal Christians and the members of the fictitious new age religion are bad guys. None of the liberals say "I don't believe in devils, but what so-and-so is doing is wrong, so I'll help stop him," and none of the new-agers say "I don't believe in the Christian God or Devil, but I can tell that some of the spirits here are doing good and some are doing evil, so I'll help the good ones." Those few "evil" people in "good" groups or "good" people in "evil" groups eventually switch their group allegiances; evidently, it is not possible to be a liberal or a pagan and still work for good. Alas. Second, I am somewhat concerned about the effect that some of Peretti's plot choices may have on his readers, in that he reinforces some widely-held, harmful beliefs. The book centers around a "new age" conspiracy to take over the world -- and neo-pagans already have a hard enough time convincing people that no, they aren't devil-worshippers and no, they aren't coming to get us in our sleep, without Peretti reinforcing that image. The book also contains several instances of women or girls falsely accusing someone of rape, and this similarly bothers me: I fear that Peretti's book may strengthen the notion that women who have been raped either "wanted it" or are inventing the whole story. I hope Peretti's readers are wise enough not to generalize from a few incidents in a work of fiction to real life; I wish Peretti had been wise enough to make better choices. A third and more serious complaint is that _This_Present_Darkness_ does not succeed for me as a *religious* book. His Christians live well and try to do what is right, and they even seem to stumble onto some of the tricks of spirit-battle, but I'm not persuaded that they strongly perceive God's presence or that they truly understand the "battle" of good and evil. Worse yet, his angels are not holy enough and his demons are not evil enough. The demons keep referring to "the living God" and "the heavenly host" -- they're awfully reverent for evil monsters. And the angels are mere warriors -- they do battle in response to orders, but the orders could be from any reasonably sane emperor without changing the story much. Further, the struggle between angels and demons over the humans does not have enough of the strength and subtlety of good and evil in it: angels inspire their wards merely to shrewd strategy, not to love, and demons clumsily attack their victims in physical horror-movie fashion, rather than tempting and seducing them. Lest this review seem completely negative, I will repeat my overall summary: while _This_Present_Darkness_ does not have the religious insights of a C.S. Lewis or Charles Williams novel, it is an entertaining story, it did make me think, and I look forward to reading the sequel. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- "That's right," shouted Vroomfondel, "we demand Nancy Tinkham rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!" nlt@gboro.glassboro.edu