A very different read than I’ve ever done. This fiction novel deals with angels, demons, and Christianity. ✝️ It took me a bit to get into, but the writing style is fantastic and the story is addicting.

All I really remember was that it was exciting, kind of spooky, and about demons and angels.

There is a deep arrogance in this text that comes out of, has influenced, and continues to influence Christianity, particularly in America. It assumes (1) English-speaking Americans are capable of "plain-reading" the Bible, an ancient text written for different people, in a different culture, in multiple languages across time and (2) pretends a work like this doesn't impact Christian understanding of their own faith, when it very directly acts as a lens on what spiritual forces do and how prayers work.

This is a radicalizing book. This is a book that encouraged and continues to encourage the idea of Spiritual Warfare in an extremely modern, fundamentalist American perspective.

Everyone the main characters don’t like turns out to have a single, cohesive worldview that is conspiring to undermine them. The fact that fellow Christians have a different perspective and can back it up with the text is just a cover for the fact they are Secretly worshiping a foreign god. Understanding other religions, even understanding other cultures or perspectives at college is a foot in the door for demons. The character Marshall claims psychology ‘can’t even agree on anything’ to argue it shouldn’t be trusted, which feels like flimsy ground considering how little the author knows about psychology and the sheer number of Christian denominations.

There is mention of the ‘real Truth of the Bible’, but the details of that truth are skimmed over. I wonder if when Pastor Hank Busche says he believes in the full Truth of the Bible, he is including the acceptance of slavery and women as property. Again and again, Good Christian Men are falsely accused of rape and pedophilia in this book. None of the antagonists in this book are acting in good faith, and the angry ignorance of the Christian protagonists are rewarded.

To be clear – I am not personally a Christian, but I am not anti-Christian. My issue with this text is that it encourages religious people to assume everyone who doesn’t agree with them is part of a grand conspiracy. It claims every religion besides Christianity is really all the same, and it’s secretly demonic. It acts as if false rape allegations are common, and does not handle what an intense situation like that would actually be like. It treats women and people of color as supporting cast to the souls that Really matter.

Oh, also, a local community festival and video game arcade are dens of sin and iniquity; it is implied it is better to be simple, which apparently means to go fishing and hunting, killing animals for sport. Sure.

It is not my place to tell Christians how to approach their faith. However, I would ask a Christian reading this to consider the fact the Bible is a difficult text. Real life is more complicated than good guys vs. bad guys. Please don't assume everyone who disagrees with you is secretly conspiring against you.

There is more that I could say, but I’ll stop myself because I think I’ve gotten my main issue down.

I had very different expectations when starting this book. Everything I'd been told, made me think it'd be much more horror-esc and unworldly, which I was looking forward to. That's when I realized the book was a little dated. Once I let go of my initial premonition, I began to appreciate Peretti's storytelling and character writing. He's a very talented writer and despite the slightly dated fashion of his book, he has a great message to portray and I ended up really enjoying the book.

One alteration I would make that I think would increase the richness of the story, would be to make Sandy the pastor's daughter. I think it would give Hank a bit more skin in the game when I felt that he alone out of all the characters wasn't given thorough development including flaws and Sandy's rebellion is common in pastor's children. And with Marshall given every flaw in the book, and having things go wrong over and over, handing Sandy over to Hank, gives him much more depth, knowing he's not the perfect pastor, but also has flaws because he is human. I would have really enjoyed reading with this change implemented.