Month of February 2022: Christian Fiction

Part 2 of This Present Darkness; although, it can definitely be read as an independent read alone novel. It’s much of the same except evil spirits are attacking the hearts and minds of grammar school instead of college. The same heavenly angels are used in this book as in the last. There was more talk and courtroom than anything. I found it to be slow. I was bored most of the time.

Boredness aside, this book does show how evil slowly overtakes our education system and shapes the hearts and minds of our youth at very early ages.

Just like today, if you follow the money and start connecting the dots (or the moles that keep popping up as reporter Hogan calls it in the book), you will undoubtedly start to find one common denominator, a common belief, organization or club, and possibly some kind of cult ( or even one major socialist ideology) down the line that someone, or many could be involved in.

The following quote from the book was regards to the bogus lawsuit brought against a Christian school and one pastor and teacher, in particular, Tom Harris, who they claimed abused his power with one spiritually possessed four year old. They trumped up some charges against him…

“…the real object of that lawsuit is not the awarding of damages to the plaintiff, but legal precedent, the molding and shaping of law, even the rewriting of law, through an ideal test case.” (p. 376)

Behind the scenes in the book, since this is all a spiritual battle, Ango was the scrawny demon in charge of the local schools in this small farming town called Bacon’s End. It had taken him years to get things set up…the right Principal and Superintendent in place, implant the sympathizers, and blind parents to what was happening to their kids, sneaking in curriculums such as “Sexual Understanding and Family Life, Fourth Grade” and “Finding the Real Me-Self-Esteem and Personal Fulfillment Studies for Fourth-Graders” produced by the Omega Center for Educational Studies.

The American Citizen’s Freedom Association’s (ACFA) intent was to give the government power to control religion and religious schools. Omega’s intent was to raise generations up free of Judeo-Christian values, which they considered bigotry.

Amber, in fourth grade, was caught up in all this because her mother was involved with some kind of local cult that was involved in heightened spiritual out-of-body awareness. They met regularly for seances. She didn’t realize it was evil, and Amber was taught to practice mind control as well. But, she developed a split personality and this other personality was pure evil. Her mother enrolled Amber into this little Christian school, hoping it might help. But, when Tom Harris disciplines her and then tries to remove the demonic spirit through prayer, the bait is taken, and next thing they know, the Christian school finds themselves up against a lawsuit, and CPS even came and took Tom’s own kids away from him.

They would soon discover that this evil was imbedded in their small little farming town of Bacon’s End. ( )

Een goed boek en toonpunt van de waarheid prijs de Heer! AMEN ( )

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This novel is the second Christian thriller by Frank Peretti, and sort of a sequel to This Present Darkness. It portrays problems in small-town America which are mirrored in the spiritual realm with angels and demons battling for lives and souls. It's exciting enough that it would probably be enjoyed by anyone who likes action-packed thrilling novels although it probably makes more sense to Christians.

As encouragement for Christians to stand up for what they believe, and to keep praying, it's probably quite successful. However the book IS fiction, and it's important to remember that Peretti's spiritual battles are only his interpretation of a possible scenario. Some critics complain that his theology is off-beam, but I don't think that's really fair: he's not teaching theology, he's writing a novel.

It's a good read which was almost as gripping the third time I read it as it was the first time, about 12 years previously. ( )