Month: June 2008

Christian Horror

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Hello-o?! Hello! (hello, hello, hello). Echo! (echo, echo, echo).

Hmm….

Having a blog that nobody reads is kind of a surreal experience. It’s akin to being on a deserted island with nobody around for miles. I mean, I could get totally naked on here and run around screaming, “Woohoo! Woohoo!” and no one would care.

Of course, the moment someone does start reading this, I’m putting on a palm leaf.

I joined the Writer’s Water Cooler forum yesterday, left a couple of posts. It’s a nice site. Lots of traffic. Some interesting things to read.

I wasn’t overly surprised to see references to Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker on the site – but what was interesting was to see the interviews where they both disclaim the Christian Horror moniker. They prefer the title “Christian Thriller” or “Christian Suspense.”

Maybe that makes sense from a marketing pov. I dunno. I’m not so sure I don’t want to be known as a Christian Horror author. I think there are some incredible opportunities in that vein – certainly in terms of branding (the Christian Stephen King!), that sort of thing.

I suspect (know with high degree of certainty) that Frank and Ted (may I call you Frank and Ted?) are recoiling from the label of Horror because of its obviously evil (pronounced ēē‘vîl) connotations.

I submit to you that Grace, the cornerstone doctrine of Christian faith, is itself a Horrific concept. We don’t think so, as we tend to be on the receiving end of it. But look at it from Jesus’ point of view for a moment. The doctrine of grace is this: punish the absolutely innocent with torture and death so the guilty can get away scot-free.

In any other context or story, we would be horrified by such a premise! And rightly so. It is a gross injustice. And without it, we are damned.

Let’s take it a step further: if you were present at the crucifixion (and I’m assuming you have a modicum of Christian faith, or at least human decency), and the Roman soldiers handed you the hammer and nails, would you crucify the Son of God?

If you don’t, you cannot be saved. You’ll go to hell (do not pass Go!, do not collect $200). If you do, you are damned for crucifying the Son of God. It is only in damning ourselves that we can experience salvation.

Horrified yet? (or maybe just by my repetitive use of the word “damn”?)

I don’t advocate gratuitous violence. The Coppersmith is a violent book. But it isn’t gratuitous. The violence is integral to the story line, to show how bad evil is. The Bible is full of violent stories. What is worse, is the Bible’s stories of violence is all true-crime. That my stories are fictional sanitizes the horror somewhat, by removing us from it a step or two.

Someone may well protest: fiction stories use adjectives and descriptions to show us the violence. The Bible doesn’t.

I submit to you the Bible didn’t have to. The people of Its day were well acquainted with blood and death. They saw suffering first hand. A simple word or phrase detailing what happened was enough to evoke the imagery. One of the simplest phrases in the Gospels is “They crucified Him.” People who witnessed crucifixion knew exactly what that meant, and all it contained. By contrast, the prophet Isaiah described crucifixion in more detail, if only because his immediate audience wasn’t as well acquainted with it.

Today, the word “crucify” means practically nothing. We use it to describe character assassination (heavens! Someone said something mean about me!). How different and removed from the actual horror. We’ve lost something in our civilized world (and no, I don’t think we want it back – though I do believe it’s coming back whether we want it or not).

So using description with horror works to overcome the distance – to bring the reader near and allow him or her to viscerally experience evil – so that we may be less accomodating of it in our own lives.

And that’s why I write Christian Horror Suspense/Thrillers.

Excerpt from Topheth…

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Fire blazes before him, roiling clouds of black smoke smelling of burning vinyl, fuel and rubber. Glass shatters and crackles as the flames press against the van’s windows. Inside is Ashley. Little Ashley. He screams to her but she doesn’t answer. He reaches for her but a wave of heat slams him to the ground. Ashley, Ashley!

Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust.

His sob broke the silence and he looked up, startled by the sound.

Let me go, Daddy.

No, Ashley. It’s time to come home.

Please, let me go.

Come home.

Daddy—

Now.

He picked up the bottle and the lighter, striding quickly to the front of the church. He splashed the fuel across the altar, the pulpit, and the new screen for the projector. He ran a line of it along the back bench of the choir loft, watching it dribble in sagging streams down the back of the pew. He dumped more on the carpet in front of the altar.

No, Daddy!

“It’s time to come home, now.” He bent forward and lit the cigarette lighter, holding the flame close to the fuel-soaked carpet.

“Obey your Daddy, now.”

A burst of orange and blue flame shot out along the carpet, flickering whimsically under the altar. It reached the line of gasoline that had fallen down the right leg and started lapping greedily up the table. He stared at the flame, fascinated by the demon’s pulsations. The fire climbed up the altar, and the line on the floor spread to the pulpit. Heat pushed against his face. It was a dance of hunger, a gyrating pulse of pure desire caressing, embracing, licking, gorging itself upon the wood.

Ashley.

The heat stroked his face, inviting. He gave himself to it, fingers of warmth his neck, his arms, his torso, his loins. He was aroused. Later, he’d feel guilty for this foreplay. Right now, he wanted to give himself to it, to let the spirit that claimed his daughter’s life bring him to climax. He pushed out a heavy breath and retreated to the far pew. He fished out a fresh cigarette and stuck it between his teeth. The heat hadn’t reached the rear of the church, and the back of the pew still felt cool to his touch. His desire subsided.

That was always the danger. The demon wanted him. It craved his flesh, to possess him body and soul—a lover whose embrace would kill. But the demon also carried his daughter’s essence. He could bring her back, but only through fire. The succubus brought her with it, dangling her presence, her smell before him, bait to lure him into the infernal coitus. It was a treacherous courtship, letting the demon woo him. He gave the spirit the churches instead, letting it satiate its hunger on those who’d wrought his grief.

He took a drag from his cigarette and leaned his head against his closed fist. God, how he missed her! Firelight flickered before him, brightening the church with its intensity. A clump of ash fell away from his cigarette, collapsing on the floor like a delicate, gray snowflake. A single touch would smear it into oblivion.

Something fell up front, sending a shower of sparks toward the ceiling. He started, looking up at the front of the church engulfed in flames. Outside the church, flashes of red pulsated against the windows. He’d stayed too long. Swallowing hard, he pushed himself from the pew and darted for the exit. He grabbed the handle and pulled, stunned when the door refused to budge. He tugged again, but it wouldn’t open. Behind him, he heard the demon laugh. He turned around, staring wide-eyed at the entrance to hell he’d opened up. The abyss of fire and smoke stood yawning before him. He turned and yanked on the door.

So What Else Is New?

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Okay, so yesterday’s post was whiney. Get over it. You, me, whomever. We’re moving on.

There are a lot of new ideas I’m working on. In fact, I have several novels in the works. There are three sequels to The Coppersmith planned.

  • Topheth – an arsonist in Rochester New York is targeting churches. Janelle teams up with Curtis Bold again to stop him before he turns the Christian witness in this city to ashes. It’s currently about 100 pages.
  • Jezebel – just after Topheth is stopped, Janelle is immediately called away to Albany, New York, where men in a particular group of churches are being murdered. Someone has a peculiar penchant for injecting snake venom into their throats (yeah, gross, but it makes sense once the story takes off). This is around 24 pages
  • Puzzle – some years later, I expect. This happens in North Carolina (I think). A serial killer is playing games with the BAU. He is reenacting famous situational puzzles (think: a man lies dead in the room. The door is locked, the window is shut. Nothing is broken in the room except a pencil which lies in two on the floor.). Janelle teams up with Ron again to put together the pieces to the Puzzle before he destroys them all. Not even outlined yet.

In addition, I’m working up a screen play called “Age of Reason.” It’s a story about what happens when an archaeologist claims to have found the bones of Jesus of Nazareth – and DNA tests on the Shroud of Turin confirm it! (Gee, should I give away the ending?)

Another novel is called Autograph. It is the story of what happens when an archaeologist stumbles upon an ancient manuscript that may be in the original handwriting of the Apostle Paul. It’s more of an action/adventure story – not as dark, but definitely suspenseful. Autograph is around 70 pages right now.

The Novem is a science-fiction story centered around a group of students at an Institute. They have been implanted with microchips which enable them to directly access the Internet from their minds. Someone is hacking into them, and causing them to kill themselves. The Novem has about 104 pages.

One of my favorites is a story called St. Jude. It’s gone through several revisions before I felt comfortable enough to really outline it. St. Jude is the tale of a recently released pedophile who attempts to start living right and starts going to church. The reactions of the town and church people will explore the application of grace.

Another one dealing directly with grace is Heart of Stone. In this story a sociopath (ie: feels no emotion) comes forward after twenty years and confesses to a kidnapping and murder – for which he had been paid a substantial ransom. His reason: he believes in heaven and hell, and wants to be saved–but feels no remorse. At issue is the question of whether or not an emotional response is needed for salvation – or if it can be accomplished on purely legal grounds. Something like that. I have a handful of pages written for this.

There are a number of other thoughts, but these bear mentioning as the most likely stories which I will complete and submit – or make available through the Internet like The Coppersmith.

I will share samples from these in days to come.

No More Naivete

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This is harder than I thought. Maybe harder than it should be. I dunno.

I had visions – when I first got the idea for The Coppersmith, when I first started writing it and realized I had something special – I had visions of it being wildly received and taking the CBA (that’s “Christian Booksellers Association”) world by storm.

Now, of course, I recognize how grossly naive that was.

It’s been over a year and a half since I finished the book. Three years since I first met Special Agents Janelle Becker and Ron Wilson, and realized they’d had an affair. Three years since the first priest was found murdered in St. Paul’s Episcopalian Church in Clyde, New York – his face and body torn to shreds by the Coppersmith’s misguided wrath.

Three years, and no one pays any attention. Eleven pastors dead. One more burned beyond recognition. And no one is interested.

Ironic. It’s not all that different from church-planting. Two years into this church plant and we’ve gone through three worship leaders. Maybe people don’t want to go to church with a pastor who writes psychothrillers. Go figure.

Every day in the news I can read about Muslims doing this or that. I can read about Christians being arrested for speaking up for their beliefs. No one seems to notice or care that the philosophical underpinnings of Western Civilization are being systematically eroded to the point where the whole thing will collapse. Psalm 11:3 “When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?”

I’m whining, of course. It won’t get me far, but it’s nice to get it off my chest.