{"id":17068,"date":"2022-07-25T19:14:52","date_gmt":"2022-07-25T23:14:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=17068"},"modified":"2022-07-25T19:14:52","modified_gmt":"2022-07-25T23:14:52","slug":"dark-intercept-by-andrews-wilson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=17068","title":{"rendered":"‘Dark Intercept,’ by Andrews & Wilson"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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I mentioned just the other day<\/strong> that I\u2019m prejudiced against Christian fiction. Not because I\u2019m against it, I hasten to add, but because I hate seeing it done badly. Which it usually is, in my experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I approached Dark Intercept<\/a><\/em>, by Brian Andrews and Jeffrey Wilson, with a certain amount of caution. However, these guys are established, bestselling authors. I thought I\u2019d take a chance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My response is\u2026 complicated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jedediah Johnson is a Navy SEAL going through the difficult adjustments of retirement. When he gets a call from his old boyhood friend in Nashville, David Yarnell, he doesn\u2019t really want to talk to him. They parted on bitter terms, and David married Rachel, who\u2019d been Jed\u2019s girl. He has neither forgiven nor forgotten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But David explains that their daughter Sara Beth has been kidnapped. That\u2019s a different matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Jed doesn\u2019t know is that Sara Beth is a very special girl, and not just in her parents\u2019 hearts. She has a psychic (or spiritual) gift. She can communicate telepathically and read people\u2019s minds. She was being recruited by a Christian group with a mysterious, clandestine mission. But there are others aware of her powers, and they\u2019re the ones who snatched her. They have dark plans for her, unless somebody is able to locate her and rescue her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which just happens to be something Jed is good at.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I kind of seesawed in my estimation of Dark Intercept.<\/em> At first I was delighted by the sheer quality of the writing. The book is professionally and effectively written. I thought the dialogue was a little weak \u2013 everybody tended to talk the same way. But all in all, very good on literary style. Which is a rare treat in faith-based literature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, other elements of the story began bothering me increasingly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One element was the idea of a Christian military group, which is an important part of the story. I have no problem with the idea of the Christian solder (or warrior), obviously. But I view military service as part of a Christian\u2019s civil obligations. I very much distrust the idea of a \u201cChristian\u201d army, fighting holy wars. (Though the enemy here certainly merits a holy war response. But this is fantasy. I don\u2019t want to give people ideas in the real world.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another element was the fact that the spirituality in this book is pretty generic. Lots of talk about God and faith. Very little about Jesus Christ and his death, resurrection and atonement. It seemed to be a sort of Touched By an Angel<\/em> spirituality, adapted for the mass market. Tyndale House is the publisher, but I think they\u2019re aiming at a wider audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, there\u2019s a woman pastor. You probably know what I think about that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In sum, I\u2019m not sold. I appreciated the authors\u2019 professionalism. But I found the story theologically problematic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You might easily react differently.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I mentioned just the other day that I\u2019m prejudiced against Christian fiction. Not because I\u2019m against it, I hasten to add, but because I hate seeing it done badly. Which it usually is, in my experience. So I approached Dark Intercept, by Brian Andrews and Jeffrey Wilson, with a certain amount of caution. However, these … Continue reading ‘Dark Intercept,’ by Andrews & Wilson<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,15],"tags":[4271,4273,4272,4274],"class_list":["post-17068","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-reviews","tag-brian-andrews","tag-dark-intercept","tag-jeffrey-wilson","tag-the-shepherds-series"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17068","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17068"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17068\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17069,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17068\/revisions\/17069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17068"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17068"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17068"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}