Christian novelist Frank Peretti
The year was 1986 - I was still in middle school, and had not yet become a Christian myself, but a momentous event happened. That year, an Assemblies of God minister and author by the name of Frank Peretti authored a book and published it called This Present Darkness. A couple of years later, in 1989, he published its sequel, Piercing the Darkness, which was in some ways better, some worse, but definitely a distinct story. Although published while I was still in high school, it wasn't until my sophomore year of college that I first came across these books. However, they have become classics of Christian fiction, in the vein of Tolkien, and they managed to stay in that position until the late 1990's when Tim LaHaye's and Jerry Jenkins' series Left Behind succeeded the throne of classic Evangelical Christian fiction. I have been considering doing some sort of article about these books for some time now, being that I make it a point to re-read both of them every few years or so and I know the stories of both like the back of my hand now. So, today, we will do that as the first theological/philosophical/spiritual study of the new year.
Frank Peretti (born 1951) was born in Canada, but was raised in Seattle for most of his early life. His dad was an Assemblies of God preacher there, and after a stint with a bluegrass band playing banjo, he studied at UCLA and then served as an assistant minister to his father at a small church. However, pastoring doesn't pay the bills, and understandably the young man went into construction to make the necessary income to do that. I can identify with that to a degree too, as for years I have had to work in the corporate world although I have no real passion doing so, but the bills and those to whom those bills are owed could care less about your passion, as they just want money. It was in the mid-1980's that young Frank began to publish his own works, starting with a children's book in 1985 and then he published the landmark Christian fiction novel This Present Darkness the following year, which would be a life-changer for the young budding author. That set him on a course in which a series of novels followed for several years, and it established Peretti's place as an author. Just his story alone is inspiring, as it is not easy to pursue a passion such as writing, and he had to put a lot of hard work while just waiting for that open door to happen - we have all been there. But, his hard work paid off, and This Present Darkness ended up eventually being a best-seller, as did its sequel. So, what is the appeal of these books? I want to analyze that now.
Both This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness are riveting, well-written stories, and Peretti has a gift of grabbing the imagination with them for sure. I always enjoy reading them again every few years, and I practically know their stories by heart. There have been people that have taken a lot of exception with these books, and some critics have even accused Peretti of being an animist or a pantheist, but he is neither - for the most part, although his books are fiction any Christian doctrine they may manifest is fairly orthodox and consistent with Peretti's Assemblies of God faith tradition. And, as I am sure Peretti would readily affirm, his books are not meant to be theological tomes - they are Christian fiction, and therefore they are not to be held to the same accountability as a theological textbook, something many gung-ho Evangelicals often miss. And, honestly, they are just good stories - I love them! I want to now just give a summary plot of both books, and then we'll go from there.
The setting for This Present Darkness is in the fictional Midwestern US college town of Ashton, and
it is a composite setting for what typically such a town would probably look like. The main protagonists of the town are a career-hardened newspaper editor, Marshall Hogan, and a young but fervent pastor of a small (seeming Pentecostal of some sort, based on Peretti's own background) struggling church who both find themselves at the center of an attempted takeover of the town by a nasty cadre of New Age corporatists who are intent on implementing a "new world order" of sorts on the unsuspecting community. One of the antagonists, a stuck-up, aloof, and somewhat wacky college professor named Julene Langstrat, is attempting to do this by indoctrinating kids into some sort of New Age group that sounds eerily similar to the Theosophical movement of Helena Blavatsky. She has the rather rodentian town police chief, Alf Brummel, as well as the liberal pastor of the town's largest church - called Ashton United Christian, which probably mirrors the real-life United Church of Christ denomination, a theologically liberal Reformed denomination that could have been Peretti's inspiration for this - by the name of Rev. Oliver Young. Although these people appear to be the players on the proverbial chessboard, it turns out that under the surface is a more intense spiritual struggle for control of the town being played out by regiments of demons and angels. It is the angel/demon battle portrayed in the books that has drawn blowback from Peretti's critics, as it seems as if every demon is in control of specific negative emotions, while his angels have diverse racial qualities reflexive of their human charges. Of course, there is the whole demonic principality thing as well, which Peretti takes from Ephesians 6, and at the head of this demonic conspiracy is a global overlord called the Strongman (taken from Mark 3:22) who like a puppet master controls a corporate George Soros-like mogul called Alexander Kaseph. In their battle plans, the angels and demons use human charges to carry out their plans, and the "trump card" that the new demonic prince Rafar has is the manipulation of Hogan's daughter Sandy, who already has a rocky relationship with her dad, and this is used to its full advantage to bring down Hogan, who is proving to be resistant to the control of Langstrat and her demonic overlords. Let's talk about this Rafar guy for a moment. Peretti's story uses the old Semitic word "Ba'al" as the way subservient demons address their leaders, and Rafar is claimed to be the ancient "Prince of Babylon," which is referencing Revelation 13, as well as the historic fall of Belshazzar's empire to the Persians as recorded in the book of Daniel. Rafar was defeated by a long-time "Captain of the Host" named Tal, and they are the ones who prove to be the real opponents in the story. The story also indicates a link between New Age mysticism and outright occultism, and even shows that when desperate times demand, the followers of this New Age religion will resort to more sinister rituals and measures - often criminal, in reference to the emphasis many Evangelicals at the time these books were first published placed upon the reality of SRA (Satanic ritual abuse). We see this played out in the final chapters in the book, where a mysterious informant who apparently was led to Christ, Susan Jacobsen, is almost ritually sacrificed by Kaseph utilizing the services of a rogue Hindu priest, who by description could have been either a follower of the bloodthirsty Hindu goddess Kali, or possibly part of the aghori sadhu sect, which engages in some bizarre practices. The story in the sequel follows a similar plot, except that the community is smaller, and the protagonists are a Black Christian cop named Ben Cole and a local headmaster of a Christian school named Tom Harris, while the "wild card" character in that story is a hippie burnout who is trying to escape her past, but needs to confront it, but a demon-possessed little girl named Amber who manifests as a horse named Amethyst sort of "rats" her out. The New Age plot in Piercing the Darkness has a couple of distinct things from the first book, however - in it, the antagonists are part of a quasi-Masonic (which I note Peretti probably makes references to Rosicrucianism) group of powerful elites called the Sacred and Royal Order of the Nation, and they feel as if the Christian school as well as the burnout lady - Sally Roe - are a serious threat. Many of the members of the quasi-Masonic occult brotherhood are also big in so-called civil liberties activist groups, in particular, one Peretti patterns in his book after the ACLU, which seek to restrict Christian influence. However, when legal means don't work, they have no problem resorting to outright Satanist allies to carry out their dirty work, and what sparks the whole thing off is when one of that group attacks and tries to kill Sally at her home, but an angel intervenes and kills the female Satanist instead. The Satanist group, called Broken Birch in the group, is the real face of the conspiracy, as they have the same ultimate objectives as the more elitist occult brotherhood that hired them. Some of the same figures that were in the first book - most of the angel characters, as well as the elusive Strongman - reappear in the second book, as do Busche and Hogan, who are now beyond damage due to their victories in Ashton earlier. It is also a good chronicle of a journey of self-closure and redemption on the part of Sally Roe, who goes from burned-out hippie New Ager to born-again Christian, and that is seen as the key to prevailing over the forces of darkness. Sally Roe has a similar role to Susan Jacobsen in the first book, but Sally's character has more depth and intensity, as the real struggle is masterfully documented by Peretti. In short, the story will keep you on the edge of your seat.
When I read these books over again every so often, I think of how they would look as a motion picture, as they both would be darned good motion pictures. However recently when Peretti was approached about that possibility, he emphatically said that it was negligible that this would happen. While that is disappointing, I respect his conclusion, and he has his reasons. Often, when reading certain stories like this, you envision certain actors and actresses who would be perfect for the parts. For instance, I would see Marshall Hogan's role being perfectly filled by veteran actor (and fellow West Virginian) Paul Dooley. Susan Sarandon or Sigourney Weaver would make a good Sally Roe, and the guy who would make a great Alf Brummel is an actor I have seen in a number of roles over the years, but for the life of me his name escapes me - every time I read This Present Darkness though, I see that guy in the role (Note - since writing this, I found out the actor I was looking for is Sam Anderson - a perfect Alf Brummel!). Alexander Kaseph would be best played by an actor similar to either Glen Shaddix or Dom DeLuise, and the guy that comes to mind is Ricky Jay. Santinelli, from Piercing the Darkness, could be played masterfully by Frank Langella, and his cohort Steele would be best played by a Hollywood "bad guy" like Michael Ironside. Unfortunately, many of those actors are either dead or too old now for the roles, but these are just my ideas. Of course, Peretti may have other plans in mind if he were to change his mind and approve a movie based on these books, and his imagination is what created the characters, so he would know better who could play what. These are just my imagination playing around with the characters though.
In looking at the criticisms of Peretti's books, I want to analyze that a bit now. The first thing I will note from the Wikipedia article on This Present Darkness is that much of the criticism from Evangelical authorities comes from those who hold to a Calvinist theological position and are somewhat more cessationist when it comes to charismatic phenomena, etc. Peretti is not part of one of those positions, and much of what he portrays in his books comes from what the prevalent teachings were in Charismatic/Pentecostal circles at the time the books were written, and in that period (late 1980's and early 1990's) there was a significant interest in spiritual warfare and the supernatural, and also the New Age movement was seen as a real threat to Christian belief - Peretti's books were in sync with other popular non-fiction Christian literature at the time such as Johanna Michaelson's Beautiful Side of Evil, Constance Cumbey's Hidden Dangers of the Rainbow, as well as a more eccentric take on spiritual warfare at the time in the guise of a book entitled Pigs in the Parlor. While there are things in all of those books that can be both agreed with and also criticized, the prevailing sentiment among many Evangelicals at the time - in particular Charismatics and Pentecostals - was that a real spiritual struggle was taking place, and education about it was vital. Some did go to some ridiculous extremes, but looking ahead 30 years after the fact now, a lot of it is also very real as we are seeing it more so today after a period of relative dormancy. In recent years, we have witnessed a rise in both Satanism - including the erection of Satanic monuments in front of courthouses, etc. - and in other forms of occultism (such as vampirism) in our society, and there is a rather odd alliance between overt Satanists and the highly visible LGBT community now. However, the ones sounding off on these dangers are no longer necessarily Evangelicals and Pentecostals but are primarily more traditionally-minded Catholics. Many of those Evangelicals and Pentecostals who once warned of such things are now either passed away, or they have either toned down their emphasis or disavowed it totally. The recent "Pachamama" scandal in the Vatican has also served the purpose of galvanizing more orthodox Catholics against outright paganism in the guise of Christianity, and that is a positive. Often, it is the outright assaults of the enemy which serve as a wake-up call or "red pill" to the dormant faithful, and perhaps that is why God allows it. I see a similar message in Peretti's stories too.
Another thing one picks up on in Peretti's two particular books here is that this is more than just a mere "religious" issue. Despite the "guise" of certain "spiritual enlightenment" practices, the powers behind them know the real motivation, and it also manifests itself in some of their higher-level human pawns too. While the average run-of-the-mill seeker of spiritual enlightenment wants to be "one with the universe" or whatever, the demons promoting the deceptions driving these clueless people are looking for a bounty of souls, and their ultimate fate for their human pawns is eternal damnation and imprisonment. We see that in the closing chapters of This Present Darkness, where Marshall Hogan's daughter Sandy is told she would be "unlocking her higher consciousness" by being initiated into a "special group," but then right before it's too late, they are leading her to basically kill herself, and she quickly learns that things were not what they seem. There are overtones of Ecclesiastes here that I believe Peretti is drawing on, in that the vanity of worldly glory and even some self-serving "spiritual enlightenment" more than often leads to doom, because the wrong thing is being sought. This is where the evangelistic aspect of Peretti's story comes into play too - true happiness is found in the true God, not in running after things which sound good but are ultimately destructive. In that, I see no dualism or animism in his writing, as ultimately it is God who is glorified and who has the ultimate victory in spiritual battles as long as the people on the right side stay focused and not get distracted by things meant by the enemy to get them out of the way of his agenda. It's, in reality, a good lesson.
More could be said about these books, but I think I have hit upon the highlights. If you haven't done so yet and are into captivating Christian fiction, be sure to read these two books - as mentioned, they are hard to put down and will keep you on the edge of your seat, as Peretti is a gifted writer who knows how to create a powerful story. However, they are not meant to be theological, but can challenge us spiritually - if the reader is not a Christian, it also can serve as an evangelistic tool to reach them as well. Thank you, and will see you next time.
