End Times Philosophies? False Vs. True Prophets?

[mongoose]

I'm exploring these questions in a research project, but I'm sure there's fodder for speculative fiction as well.

On vacation in Chicago, my host played the radio show, "Coast to Coast" each night. They talked about all kinds of paranormal things, focusing on UFO sightings and abductions, and on prophesy. Their discussions of prophesy included everything from logical predictions of economic trends, to the Mayan Calendar, numerology, and astrology. They even used out of context Scriptures when it suited them.

Currently, these people strike me as confused fringe people. But what if they went mainstream and gained power, prominence, prestige, or whatever?

Has anyone read any books focused on just the lives of the two prophets spoken of in Revelation? Not as part of a series based on pre-tribulation rapture eschatology, but just as a stand alone story about those two? We have power encounters with those possessed by demons, witches and false prophets and such on a daily basis throughout the world wide church. How would it be different with these two prophets vs. the forces of the beast, the anti-christ, or whatever's in power at the time?

I've encountered a few prophets in my time, most of which just told us words of encouragement, comfort, or exhortation regarding our own walks with God. Those are, after all, the purposes of prophesy. But what about those who, like Elijah, call down fire? What about those who cast out demons and raise the dead as a matter of course? I'd like to read fiction about them. Dekker has published a few books of this nature including "the Blessed Child," and "A Man Called Blessed," as I recall. "Blink" was similar in some ways, in that the character could predict the future, as it turned out, as a gift God had given him.

If anyone knows of others that are any good, I'd like to read them.

[scintor]

I've considered writing a book based on spiritual warfare, but everything else I've read in the genre so far has been so "campy" that it was a bit discouraging.

I've encountered demonic forces on occasion, and let me tell you, it's nothing like the movies or books I have read. How to do this in a reasonable ans realistic manner is somthing I might tackle in the future after I finish my current WIP.

Scincerely,

[e-mail]

[mongoose]

Campy? I'm not sure what you mean, but to the extent I do understand the term I think it results from the authors trying to hard to accomplish some higher goal with their writing. To make a point. Someone once told me to write what I know. If I take that a step farther and write what I know, as I know it, it won't be "campy," right? So I just put myself in the POV Character's mind, and see what happens when he/she engages in spiritual warfare. Given that some of us have some experience in this area, we don't have to do a whole lot of imagining. It's not like writing a murder scene, when you've never murdered anyone. You don't have to guess what it would feel like. You can even write about your own experience, just giving it to the POV character.

I really think my best writing has resulted just from putting myself in the situation, and writing my perceptions, thoughts, words, actions therein given that I am now my POV Character.

"What in the world!?" Had that man really just . . . George was aghast for a moment, almost in shock. Then the rage set in, and he almost lept forward to intervene, to shout back at the man, to correct the situation, to do something. It took a supreme effort, but he restrained himself, knowing it wasn't his place. This was the other guy's problem. He probably didn't even know him, or spare him a second thought. George might have been just a target of opportunity for the expression of the other man's pre-existing angst. Who knew? Still, it hurt. It pushed one of those buttons he must have developed long before he could remember. George stopped, took a deep breath, and prayed quickly as he wrestled with the hurt and anger. "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner." He closed his eyes and repeated the exercise several times, focusing on who Christ was, what it meant that He was Lord, that He would give George his mercy. And then, as it always did, the peace of the presence of God descended to him, and he was able to look up at the back of the retreating stranger and smile, bemused at the man's outburst. "Thank you Jesus" he muttered, meaning it with all his heart. He blessed the man quickly, under his breath, and turned back to what he'd been doing, another victory won.

That was just here as I was posting, so no doubt it's rough. But if we can do that in our first rough drafts, and then clean them up and incorporate them into our larger stories, I don't think the results would be as campy as what you've read in the past. That is, of course, assuming that I understand what you mean by the term, "Campy."

Also, as always, I'll recommend Ted Dekker as a fiction author who deals with spiritual warfare, if you haven't already read his stuff. "House" dealt with spiritual warfare "Adam" attacked spiritual warfare directly.

[scintor]

By campy, I menat a bit silly and contrived. In the book I am thinking of, whenever the heros were facing demonic forces, they would call all of their friends for "prayer cover" and of course all of the demon worshipers were in league with the local televangelist.

Scincerely,

[e-mail]

[Spokane Flyboy]

Campy is when it's trying to be serious, but comes of kind of like a kids show. "Quick everyone! Carebear stare him to death!"

[seraphim]

The problem with spiritual warfare series to date is that it is essentially a 1960s comic book without pictures. Its a universe where people can safely play superhero on a bubblewraped playground Ned Flander's style. As such it is very difficult for anyone to take seriously, though it does have its own audience. In short, its bumper sticker theology in novel form. (Granted I'm painting in broad strokes). Part of the problem, I think lie with such stories foregone conclusions, its requiset ideological garden gnomes and pink flamingos. It has to lecture, sermonize underneath the skin of its narrative. To actually theologically wrestle...have a story that is a genuine multipart conversation/argument that could be "won" by any of those sides, that is missing. For example it is not likely the CBA will publish a book where Joe Devout Baptist confronts the powers of evil in all his earnestness, and packing a gunny sack of memory verses will get eyeballed and dismissed with a "Jesus I know and Paul I know but who are you?"...and has to go running half naked from a thorough thrashing to seek out a local Catholic priest to get a handle on the situation....though you might swing a formerly confident LDS member running for help to the Joe D. Baptist to get his spiritual universe straighted out. If cliche prayers were muscles there would be flexing and posing all over the page.

There is an engrained banality to it that is just shy of a fictionalized version of a D&D campaign. Its a romp and it can be an enjoyable light diversion, but it is hard to imagine it being anything more than that until it figures out how to escape the box of a number of its elementary assumptions, its own hyper important sense of "mission"...the message that just has to be shared....which in my book is more often than not authorial ego posing in a tinsel halo.

[mongoose]

So, like I said, the author is trying to hard to accomplish something or make a point through the story of spiritual warfare, whereas if they were honest with it, it would make better reading.

But, also as I said, Ted Dekker managed to avoid those pitfalls in his books that addressed spiritual warfare (all of them to some extent?) In one, the athiest actually goes running, half dead and thrashed, to the local catholic priest for help to sort out his spiritual situation.

But what's wrong with Baptists, when it comes to spiritual warfare, other than that they don't believe in the power of the Holy Spirit flowing through people to cast out demons in the modern age? Or Pentecostals? Or methodists? or anyone else filled with the Spirit of God and power? What does the Bible say about our authority, vs. the strongholds of demons? What does it say about how to wage spiritual warfare, and what our chances are?

Sure, a story is better when there's a credible struggle, and the hero seems to be in real danger. But there's no need for him/her to lose and get thrashed before realizing the truth and coming back with vengeance to triumph over all evil. That, too, is cliche.

I appreciated the movie Equilibrium for breaking free of that. The hero rawked, and though he had his own internal struggle to find truth, and the conflicting values between his own interests and those of the people in general, he was still the best fighter and thrashed everyone in his way, throughout the movie. And why not?

But again, when it comes to Spiritual warfare, I'm convinced that Ted Dekker writes some good stories, and that we, if we are honest and write what we know of Spiritual warfare will do fine.

[seraphim]

Nothing per se wrong with Baptists...just a convenient example from the middle of the Evangelical audience that forms the bulk of those who read spiritual warfare novels.

[kouter]

My whole take on the spiritual warfare thing is that the "campy" books are actually simplifying and sensationalizing what true spiritual warfare is. And to its detriment.

The Word of God says:-

Eph 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high [places].

This is the true battle. It rages every second within our own minds. Every decision we make is a choice for either God or the god of this world.

The plot can be about anything, but the spiritual warfare should be the internal battle of the MC. Or the theme at least. To have your characters simply call on God and zap the bad guys is Deus ex machina in its literal form and that makes for corny fiction.

How about a story about a Christian who is a cop who goes undercover as a drug dealer to bust the big boss? Tons of depth and realism potential in something like that.

[mongoose]

Christians are, sometimes, faced with witches or demons or demon posessed people who wish to either do them harm or make fools of them and of God. There's a good many stories that could be written about those encounters. But I also would think less of authors that had their PCs calling on God who would then zap the bad guys. As I pointed out in another thread, in most of these instances the PC evades the enemy's attack, submits to God, resists the devil, and the devil has to flee. So God doesn't zap the baddies, but they lose any power they had over the PC's mind, heart, or soul.

I just remembered a couple of times I heard of when the spiritual struggle did become physical. A lead worshiper was preaching on how magic was ineffective when used against Christians. A demon posessed witch in the back of the auditorium started wigging out (manifesting), so the ushers took her into a prayer room. At the end of the service one of them returned to the auditorium, looking as though she'd taken a beating. She called the lead worshiper, LaMarr Boschman, to come help. He arrived in the room to find all the prayers and ushers plastered against the walls, the witch in the middle threatening them. They said, "Oh good, LaMarr's here." the witch said the same thing, only it was the demon speaking. She went for him with a knife, so as to jam it into his face. He'd had tennis elbow for some time, but just in time God healed it, and he caught her wrist. She was bringing the knife down with such force that her wrist broke upon his hand. He proceeded to cast out the demon.

Another time there was a young lady serving as a covert missionary into to Russia, out of China. She was arrested while smuggling Bibles in, and the KGB interrogator tried to get her to renounce Christ. She would not, and after a while he got so fed up with her that he drew back his hand to strike her. She rebuked him in Jesus name, and his arm froze in place and remained stuck there until he asked her to pray for him. She did so, and he was released. Seraphim has a similar story from the Eastern Orthodox tradition. And how does a prophet slay 400 false prophets in one rampage, or run from one mountain to another ahead of enemy chariots, or how did David and his mighty men take down so many baddies at once? Did they just line up and wait for the axe to fall on their necks, or did God empower his servants to do these physical things?

But still, we can see that God doesn't send his servants into physical battle against physical enemies very often, and we already saw the verse about wrestling not against flesh and blood. That's why I do prefer those stories wherein the spiritual warfare is waged against the spirits, either those assaulting the PC's mind, heart or spirit, or those possessing other people and causing them to commit evil. Furthermore, I prefer those stories in which the PC prevails by the love and grace of God flowing through them, rather than by the strength of their arm or the acuity of their mind.

[Ginny]

Hello, all you spiritual warfare writers. I just found a publisher who might be interested in some of your stuff. You may already know about it but in case you haven't heard, check out the Realms Imprint of Strang House. They're charismatic, and apparently open to weird and wonderful fiction that glorifies God.

[myrthman]

I'm a little surprised Peretti hasn't already shown up in this conversation. I really enjoyed his Darkness books. They showed the MCs with plausible and readable struggles AND the behind-the-scenes action of the host of Heaven fighting it out with clouds of devils. Anyone agree/disagree?