November CSFF Blog Tour, Day 1: The Skin Map

The Skin Map, by Stephen R. Lawhead

Day 1 of the November 2010 CSFF Blog Tour
Thanks to Thomas Nelson for kindly providing a copy of The Skin Map for review on the November, 2010 Christian Science Fiction and Fantasy Blog Tour.

On the first read, The Skin Map comes across as a puzzlingly convoluted tale. But further reflection and perusal of the book alleviates such a notion. A better description would be that it is disjointed. I do not mean that in a bad way at all. Given the nature of the underlying premise of the story, the existence of so-called ley lines and their ability to whisk one away to another time and place (always in the past as the future has not occurred yet), the seemingly disconnected parts are natural. Of course, they are not truly disconnected; it is only that their inter-relatedness is developed slowly, which adds to the intrigue.

The story has two key protagonists, Kit (Cosimo) Livingston and his girlfriend, Wilhelmina Klug. Kit’s life is aptly summed in the words of his great-grandfather,

“...my dear boy, you are a lonely twenty-seven-year-old bachelor with a worthless education, a boring no-hope job, a stalled love-life, and very few prospects for the improvement of your sad lot.” p. 11.

The fact that those words were spoken directly to Kit by a relative who should be at least 125 years old alerts one to the extraordinary possibilities in this world of ley lines and time travel.

Wilhelmina, as portrayed by Lawhead, is a drab, monotonous, and colorless character who is a baker (key to her role in the story) at Giovanni’s Rustic Italian Bakery, requiring a 4:00 AM start every weekday leaving her exhausted by six in the evening and sound asleep by eight:

“As Kit watched her slouch back to her big blue sofa, which was her habitual nest, he was once more impressed with the idea that he simply had to get a better girlfriend at first opportunity. Dressed in black slacks and a black turtleneck with the horrible, ratty, hand-knitted purple scarf she wore everywhere, with her feet stuffed into flat-heeled, sheepskin boots, she was a dead ringer for the undertaker’s anemic daughter. Why, he wondered, did she have to look so austere? Whatever happened to sugar and spice? When enumerating the qualities he desired in a mate, vim and vigour, a zest for life, and a keenness of mind and intellect came quite near the top of the list. Wilhelmina’s idea of excitement was an extra scoop of sultanas in the cinnamon buns. Her intellect might have been keen enough- if anyone could ever catch her awake long enough to stimulate her into meaningful conversation.” p. 29

Such are the leading characters, not an unusual scenario for any story, but a particularly familiar situation for speculative fiction. For reasons that involved ley travel and a meeting with his great grandfather in another time and place, Kit is late for a promised day of shopping with Mina (diminutive of Wilhelmina), and in order to appease the unbelieving Wilhelmina’s cynicism, he convinces her to go with him and see what happened for herself. In the doing of that, the two are catapulted into a different time and place, but not together.

Wilhelmina lands in medieval Germanic territories (her German is poor but she manages) and makes her way into Prague accompanied by a likeable character named Englebert. The time period is during the reign of Emperor Rudolf. I’m assuming this is Rudolf II who reigned from 1576-1612. According to Wikipedia, Rudolf II lived in Prague Castle, was eccentric, depressed, and held bizarre courts of astrologers, magicians, and other strange figures. The Rudolf of The Skin Map is much like this, and among those strange figures are alchemists who are pertinent to the story.

Meanwhile, Kit lands somewhere, meets up again with his great grandfather (also named Cosimo); the two are almost overpowered by ‘Burly men’ (henchmen of Lord Burleigh, the arch villain of the story), and finally escape via another ley jump to the London of 1666.

The quest is a search for the ‘skin map’ whose acquisition, both for Lord Burleigh (a particularly distinguished fiend) and Kit (along with Cosimo and another, Lord Henry Fayth), is eminently vital. The skin map is a collection of hieroglyphs that have been tattooed, in piecemeal fashion, onto the chest and abdomen of an important character who uses them as a guide to safe and accurate time travel; their indelibility in his skin ensures the map never departs from him (although at one point it almost does by flaying at the hands of the despicable Lord Burleigh).

The quest for the skin map is certainly a prelude to something big and marvelous, which the story hints of involving a place called the Well of Souls. The accuracy of that assessment will be revealed in subsequent volumes of The Bright Empires Series; the next is due to arrive in September 2011, The Bone House.

I enjoyed the story. Lawhead is a good writer, crafting his sentences and paragraphs well, and masterful in his depiction of the life and times of medieval people. The story is intriguing, albeit not easy to follow (I attribute some of that to the abbreviated time in which the book had to be read). The characters are many, distinctive, and attractive, another indication of Lawhead’s excellent writing prowess.

There is little of the writing, if anything, to be negative; but if something negative were to be said, it might be the dialogue which, for me at times, came across as a bit too artificial. The effort to have those of another era speak in a manner fitting to that time does not always have a genuine mood and sometimes feels overdramatic. But the story is good, the writing great, the characters interesting, and this little issue of dialogue is only a speck of a problem.



Stephen R. Lawhead's Web Page
List of CSFF Blog Tour Participants
The Skin Map on Amazon

The Gospel and "I Will" Messages

The gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, died on the cross and made an atonement that completely satisfies the justice of God for sinners who repent and believe in Christ to save them from their sins through that atonement. The ramifications of the gospel are many and whole systematic theologies have been written which explore and expound those ramifications.


The central thought in salvation is that it is salvation from sin. This does not mean merely that we are forgiven of our sins, though that is true. More fundamentally, it means we are saved from our sins and sinfulness. We are sinners at heart, which is to say we are born sinners so that as we grow from infancy to childhood to adulthood we sin continually. Our natural inclination is not to seek God and obey him. It is the opposite - to rebel against him and despise his holy commandments. (Romans 3:10-18; Psalms 14 & 53)

An aspect of our sinful state is that not only do we not do good, but we are utterly unable to do good. Much is said (pro and con) about the total depravity of man, but little about the total inability.

"For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God." Romans 8:7, 8.

It is not a lack of proper motivation, good counsel, intellectual insight, or sheer will that the sinner does not do good. It is because he is incapable of doing good. He has no motivation, insight or will to do good. All such counsel to do what is good is foolishness and looked upon as strange (1 Peter 4:4).

Granted, even the worst of sinners do things that are outwardly commendable (Hitler had a heart for children), and that is because the law of God is written on the heart convicting and excusing men (Romans 2:14, 15). But the unbelieving sinner’s doing the commendable thing does not come out of an attitude like David’s:

“Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You,”
“Against You, You only, have I sinned, And done this evil in Your sight,”
“I said, 'LORD, be merciful to me; Heal my soul, for I have sinned against You.'" (Psalms 119:11; 51:4; 41:4 respectively).

David kept God’s law because he loved God and his commandments (Psalm 119:97; see also I John 5:3), and he grieved when he disobeyed them. The unbelieving sinner does the “right thing” out of an innate (God-given) sense of right and wrong, which he agrees with, but not out of a love for God and his holy will.

The gospel, the good news of salvation from our sins and sinfulness, should be at the core of all preaching, not only to the unbeliever, but also to the believer. The repentant sinner begins in humility by renouncing anything he can do or offer God, and turning to Christ by faith for everything he needs: forgiveness, justification, sanctification. The mature believer must do the same. He has no power in and of himself by which he follows and serves Christ. He had no innate ability to do that when he first came to Christ for salvation, and he has none after. Constantly aware of his tendency toward sin, the believer must always look to the cross and Christ for grace to persevere and overcome his sin.

Recently I listened, with my son, to some messages delivered by a local youth pastor to a group of young people in his congregation. The series of messages were advertised as the “I Will” messages. The overwhelming emphasis was that the hearer must choose to follow and serve Christ. An occasional reference to repentance, the sin nature, and sin itself was made, but it was mentioned in passing, as though it were of secondary importance. Now, I hope that the mention of these in such a peripheral way does not mean that the youth pastor thinks of them as secondary. I doubt very much that he thinks that way. But the point is that regardless of his personal estimation of those things, or even more broadly, the official doctrinal position of the local church he serves in, the 'I Will' messages do not lay a proper emphasis on our sin and sinfulness.

The youth were constantly pressed to make a choice to follow Christ because God gave (offered) them that choice. In fact, they were told that they should be glad that God gave them that choice, the implication being (I suspect) that God does not make us choose one way or the other; he has given us the free will to choose and will not force his will upon us. We are not automatons.

If the messages were based on a free will theology (the choice to believe or serve is completely in the hands of the sinner and saint), I can see why the references to sin, sinfulness, and repentance were on the periphery. If the choice is ultimately contingent on our innate ability to choose, then why not emphasize it? If in spite of our sinful hearts we have the power to choose to follow and serve, then that is what our message must focus on.

But that is not the gospel way. The gospel way is to point sinner and saint alike to Christ in his death and resurrection. Christ suffered the penalty of sin and rose in power over it. The condemned sinner is led to Christ and the cross to be saved and turned from his sins. The believer is led to Christ to acknowledge humbly that without the work of God in his heart (won by the victory of Christ over sin through the cross and resurrection), there is no serving, no choosing.

"We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them," Ephesians 2:10.

By sanctification, purchased for us through the cross, and imparted to us by the risen Saviour through his Spirit, do we humbly obey the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not a mustering of our natural ability to chose to serve. We have no such ability. We are sinners at heart and must always look to the grace of God in Christ and his cross to overcome our rebellious will.

This was the way of Paul who predicated the imperative on the indicative. When he urged, beseeched, or commanded obedience, he did so always looking back to the finished work of the cross and resurrection as our deliverance from our sin.

Paul exhorts the Romans to yield their bodily members as instruments of righteousness [imperative] (Romans 6:12, 13) because they are in union with Christ who was raised in newness of life; as sin no longer had dominion over Christ, neither did it any longer have dominion over them, they are no longer slaves to it, they have been freed from the power of sin through their union with Christ in his death and resurrection [indicative] (Romans 6:2-11, 14):

He urged the Philippians to work out their salvation [imperative] because it was God who was at work in them both to will and do his good pleasure [indicative]. This work of God in them was predicated on God's exaltation of the Saviour by resurrection, ascension, and session at his right hand with the ultimate effect of his universal lordship acknowledged by all (every knee shall bow), (Philippians 2:9-13).

He beseeched the Ephesians to walk worthy of their calling [imperative] (Ephesians 4:1) because God’s Spirit strengthens his people in the inner man, and God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think because of the power (i.e., the power of his Spirit) that works in us, the same power he worked when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand [indicative] (Ephesians1:19, 20; 3:20).

Left to ourselves, we Christians would go astray and leave our God. Unless he works in us by his Spirit to be strengthened to resist and overcome the sinfulness of our hearts, we would leave him. For that reason, we must always look to Christ and his work (death and resurrection) to defeat our sin - its penalty, power, and someday its presence.

To the degree that a message or sermon ignores our sinfulness (even as Christians) and the need to rely upon the Spirit of God for the power to follow Christ, to that degree the message is based on a false gospel. The false gospel is this, that spiritual blessing and the ability to serve Christ comes through the power of our choice and not the power of the cross of Christ and his Spirit. To press upon one to choose to follow Christ on the basis that he has the innate ability to choose and serve Christ, is pressing that one to perform a self-generated work whose goal is to obtain a sanctification that can only be produced by a God-generated work, through the Spirit, who strengthens us to keep us from going astray.

Our message to our youth and adults should not be to declare brazenly, 'I will chose to serve,' but to humble ourselves like David who sang:

Direct my steps by your word! Do not let any sin dominate me!
(Psalm 119:133)


Create for me a pure heart, O God! Renew a resolute spirit within me!
Do not reject me! Do not take your Holy Spirit away from me!
Let me again experience the joy of your deliverance! Sustain me by giving me the desire to obey!
Then I will teach rebels your merciful ways, and sinners will turn to you.
(Psalm 51:10-13)

Thomas Talbott's Universalist View of the Meaning of Christ Victorious

Thomas Talbott, Professor, Department of Philosophy, Willamette University (Salem, Oregon), is a ‘Christian Universalist’ who writes:

“Universalists believe that the same God who commands us to love our enemies loves his own enemies as well. But God does not love sin or death or anything that separates us from him, and Paul also referred to these enemies [1 Cor 15:25-28]. So here we must distinguish carefully between the sense in which such personified evils as Sin and Death and various cosmic forces are enemies and the sense in which real people under the power of such evils are enemies. Christ destroys enemies of the first kind (non-persons) by obliterating them, that is, by eliminating them from creation entirely. When he does destroy sin and death and various cosmic forces, he likewise destroys enemies of the second kind (sinful persons) in the only way possible short of annihilating them: by redeeming them while they are yet enemies. For only enemies of the second kind (persons) are possible objects of God’s redemptive love.” (page 27, Christ Victorious, an essay in Universal Salvation? The Current Debate, edited by Robin A. Parry and Christian H. Partridge, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company).

A ‘Christian Universalist’ believes that salvation is through faith in Christ as does the evangelical; but the universalist contends that all men without exception will believe, either in this life, or postmortem, after a time of suffering in hell where they will eventually come to repentance and faith. In this way, according to Talbott, Christ is truly victorious, for there will no longer be anyone who remains a sinner in hell.

The assumption is that if a sinner remains forever in his sin (in hell), then that sinner, an enemy of God, remains undestroyed. But Talbott insists this cannot be, for Paul declares that Christ will put all enemies under his feet, and that the last enemy to be destroyed is death (1 Cor 15:25, 26). Therefore the sinner, who is an enemy of God, must either be annihilated or redeemed. Either the individual is destroyed (annihilation) or the dispostion of the individual is destroyed (transformtion from sinner to saint – redemption).

This position is untenable for the following reasons:

(1) God’s final victory over all his enemies does not require or even imply that all sinners will repent.

1 Cor 15:24, 25 defines the victory of God as the putting to an end of all authority and power by placing it under Christ’s feet. What is the nature of the authority and power that is conquered by Christ? The references to enemies and enemy (‘For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet’ and ‘the last enemy that will be destroyed is death’) in the immediate context can leave no question that the authority and power in mind is characterized by rebellious opposition. Christ will reign until all such rebellion is subjugated. A change of heart on the part of the enemy is not requisite for final and absolute victory (authority) over that enemy. Victory is the confinement of the enemy and the dismantling of his sphere of operation so that he no longer is free or able to rebel. Indeed, the punishment of the enemy for his rebellion during his confinement is not out of order.

A universalist might object that the rebellion continues in the heart, even during the confinement and punishment. Unless the rebellion is eradicated from the heart, namely, unless the sinner in hell repents and believes and thereby transforms, the rebellion continues. Christ is not victorious, there is still an enemy to be defeated.

But this notion is not supported by the scriptures. 2 Thessalonians 1:6-10, when speaking of the Second Advent, assures us that Christ will take vengeance upon his and our enemies, punishing them and banishing them from his presence, an extreme form of confinement:

...since it is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you, and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, when He comes, in that Day, to be glorified in His saints and to be admired among all those who believe...

The word ‘everlasting’ (aionion) may be literally translated age-like, and there is much ado over this word among universalists. No wonder. If it is translated eternal, everlasting, unending, their doctrine of universalism is doomed forever.

Some universalists would translate the word age-long as

"Any space of time whether longer or shorter, past, present or future, to be determined by the persons or things spoken of, and the scope of the subjects; the life or age of man. Aiónios, a definite and long period of time, that is, a long enduring, but still definite period of time," cited by Rev. John Wesley Hanson in his study of the words aion and aionios in 1875.

But let us assume that aionion has retained a fundamental meaning of age-like or age-long in the New Testament and the inherent meaning is of a duration whose extent is determined by the person or things spoken of. This does not at all favor the universalist. The Second Advent is the pivotal event that separates this age and the age to come. From the perspective of Christ’s second coming everything that precedes is the present evil age, and everything that follows is the age to come. From the vantage point of the Second Advent and its teleological significance, when one looks forward into the age to come, he sees only an age that is endless. Indeed, the experiences of that age will be manifold, but one thing is certain - those experiences will coincide with the endlessness of the age itself. Unless the universalist is willing to place a limit on the duration of that post-Advent age to come, how can he deny that age-like life and age-like destruction, whose nature is contoured by the never-ending duration of that Age par excellence, can be anything less than everlasting.

Granted, there are places in the New Testament where the future is referred to in terms of ages (plural), and one might be tempted to construe that, even in the age to come, there is a division of ages.

For example:

But God who is rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his kindness toward us who believe, Eph 2:4-7 (but Paul, in the same letter, refers to the exaltation of Christ and his authority over all as not only taking place in this age, but also, in the age to come (singular), Eph 1:20, 21)

Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever (lit. unto the ages), Heb 13:8.

For me, it is appropriate to think that the intended use of the plural in such texts is for emphasis or intensity. Regardless, from the perspective of the central event of Christ’s Second Coming, there is the making of two ages, and only two, by the consumation of the present evil age (which is how we may understand our text with regard to the words, ‘then the end’), and the commencement of the age to come. Again, the attributes of age-like life and age-like destruction must be defined in terms of the everlasting, endless character of that coming age (thus, Matt 25:41, 46).

(2) Talbott's interpretation of three stages in the resurrection is eisegesis rather than exegesis (i.e, reading into rather than taking out the meaning).

Talbott assumes that the destruction of the last enemy, death, necessarily requires that the death of the sinner in hell must be brought to an end by one of two ways, annihilation or resurrection. In support of this, Talbott contends that resurrection comes in three stages: Christ the firstfruits, those who are Christ’s at his coming, those who repent and believe afterward (in hell). In terms of our 1 Cor 15 text, this third stage is elicited from the words ‘then (comes) the end...’

15:22-24 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ's at His coming. Then comes the end...

Talbott prefers to translate the words ‘then the end’ as ‘then the remainder’ (ibid., page 26), which, if that were a viable interpretation, would seemingly refer to those who are not resurrected at the time of Christ’s second coming, but later, after a long time in hell. However, Talbott is willing not to press that point seeing that few commentators would agree with the translation.

Whether he presses such a translation or not, Talbott insists that in 1 Cor 15:22-24, there is the image of a procession taking place in three stages.

For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits [stage 1], afterward those who are Christ's at His coming [stage 2]. Then comes the end [stage 3], when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power.

But we object, for the imagery does not bear that out at all. The imagery is Old Testament wherein there are two stages– the early harvesting of the firstfruits (Feast of Harvest), then the later ingathering at the end of the year (Feast of Ingathering):

Exodus 23:14-16 Three times you shall keep a feast to Me in the year: You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread...and the Feast of Harvest, the firstfruits of your labors which you have sown in the field; and the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you have gathered in the fruit of your labors from the field.

Interestingly, in 2 Thess 2:1, coincidental with the Second Advent, Paul writes of our gathering together to him (hemon episunagoges ep auton). The picture is of gathering in such a way as to bring the objects so close they may be thought of as 'upon' or 'crowding' the one who gathers.

The Greek in 1 Cor 15:23, 24 does indeed, specify a three part order using the words epeita...eita (translated afterward...then, as in Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ's at His coming. Then comes the end...) The epeita...eita construction is used for enumeration and loosely means first this; after that, this; then this. So Paul does have in mind three events that follow in a certain order: Christ’s resurrection; after that, the resurrection of those at his coming; then the end.

The question is, are all three events referring to the same theme – resurrection. The first two clearly do. Resurrection is the making alive of men, and the subjects involved in the first two events are identifiable human beings, Christ on the one hand, and those at his coming on the other. But the third event, the End, does not contain the notion of making alive. Rather, the event of the End is the point in time when Christ delivers the kingdom to the Father, when he puts an end to (rebellious) rule, authority, and power. It is an event of deliverance on the one hand, and of destroying and subjugating on the other. The resurrection of persons, so cleary delineated in the first two events, is missing in the third event, for the resurrection harvest is over. With the final ingathering at the Second Advent, the End has come. It is the closing of the present evil age when those resurrected in glory (see 15:43) are delivered to the Father, and those who are not Christ’s (and therefore not raised in glory) are destroyed, bringing their rebellious rule to an end. The timing of that third event is confirmed by other texts (such as the 2 Thessalonians 1:6-10 passage cited above) to be coterminous with the Second Advent.

In this 1 Cor 15 text, there is no tension in Paul’s thought of a truly total victory by Christ over all his enemies which does not at the same time require their ultimate salvation. It is the victory of the conquering King who rescues his people from his and their enemies whom he destroys by banishing them from his presence and glory (2 Thess 1:9).

Talbott cannot even raise the objection: If the last enemy to be destroyed is death, how can there be an eternal banishment from God, the essence of death itself? If hell were to continue forever, has not God failed to destroy death? But that is not what the apostle has in mind when he speaks of death as the last enemy to be destroyed. When Paul elucidates in the latter verses of 1 Cor 15 the nature of the resurrection (wherein he answers the question What kind of body is a resurrected body? 15:35), he is thinking of the resurrection referred to in the second event (‘afterward those who are Christ's at His coming’). There is nothing in the passage that would indicate that Paul has any other resurrection in mind. And as such, the destruction of the final enemy of death is precisely the resurrection of the saints at the Second Advent, for Paul writes (15:54, 55),

So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written:

"Death is swallowed up in victory. O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?"

One final note. Talbott and universalists like him rely heavily on the translation of ‘all’ in 1 Cor 15:22 and Rom 5:18 (these texts appear to be the loci classici of their position) to mean ‘all without exception,’ such that as on the one hand all without exception have died in Adam, so on the other, all without exception will be made alive in Christ. They insist that the grammatical parallelism leads to no other conclusion. But if our understanding of the 1 Cor 15 text is correct, that those who participate in the resurrection harvest are only those at Christ’s coming, then Paul, without explanation or apology has used the word ‘all’ differently in a parallel grammatical construction. The point is that such parallelism does not always demand an identity of scope on both sides. Context determines the scope. In some cases the context may extend beyond the immediate text and into the theology of the writer as propounded elsewhere in the New Testament.

TCB

The Transformation Is Inevitable

Ephesians 5:1-8

1 Therefore be imitators of God as dear children.
2 And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.
3 But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not even be named among you, as is fitting for saints;
4 neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor coarse jesting, which are not fitting, but rather giving of thanks.
5 For this you know, that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.
6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.
7 Therefore do not be partakers with them.
8 For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light...

Paul exhorts his Ephesian readers to imitate God. The exhortation may strike one as preposterous; after all how can we, sinners by nature, finite in every aspect of our being, imitate the infinitely Holy One? But Paul is not alone in making such a demand. Peter, in a similar vein, charges his readers, "as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, "Be holy, for I am holy," 1 Peter 1:15, 16. In both Paul and Peter, the exhortation is accompanied by the image of children. Paul elicits the picture of a dear child imitating his Father; Peter speaks of 'obedient children.' Children of God love their Father and as such want to be like Him. They want to please Him. For one who is a child, loved by his Father, and devoted to his Father, nothing is more satisfying than to be like the Father.

Both Paul and Peter are specific as to what it means to be an imitator of God, to be holy just as He is holy. For Peter, it is not to conform to one's former lusts. Peter is simply saying, "don't behave the way you used to, before you became children of God."

Paul lays it out in starkly contrasting and explicit examples: Fornication, filthiness, covetousness, foolish talking, coarse jesting on the one hand, and the fruit of the Spirit on the other. This contrast was introduced by Paul in the fourth chapter. There, after having explained in Chapter 2 how the Ephesian believer - once dead in tresspasses and sins in which he walked according to the course of this world, in whose nature there was no difference from that of the son of disobedience - a dead sinner was made alive in Christ. Something radical happened, a transition from death to life, and Paul unabashedly expected there to be a difference in such a one who was made alive. The liar is now to speak the truth. The thief is no longer to steal but labor that he might have something to give to him who has need. Anger is to be short-lived and no longer an occasion for sin or an opportunity for the devil to work his evil purposes. The mouth is guarded such that nothing corrupt proceeds from it, but rather that which is good and helpful to the listener. All bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, evil speaking, and malice is to be cast off. Instead, the way of the one who has been made alive is marked by kindness, tenderheartedness, and forgiveness.

God does a work in the believer that changes him, from sinner to saint, death to life. This is radical, so radical that one in whom God has done the work cannot help but behave in a particular manner - in godliness and holiness. This does not mean sinless perfection or anything that comes close to it. Rather than a life of ease, there is a profound struggle that permeates everything. Paul bears witness to the war that goes on in the heart and life of the believer (Gal 5:17; Eph 6:10-18; I Cor 9:24-27, II Cor 3:16-18). But there is an inevitable difference between what came before and what follows.

This struggle to be holy is itself a part of the difference. For the unbeliever, still dead in his sins, whose understanding is darkened, alienated from the life of God because of ignorance and blindness, who is so far gone that he is past feeling and gives himself over to lewdness to work all uncleanness with greediness (Eph 4:18, 19) - such a one knows of no struggle to be holy.

Holiness, its pursuit, the struggle for it, is not optional, but mandatory. In some sense, it comes easy because it is inevitable - the one who has been made alive cannot help himself, for his deepest desire is to be holy. He fights to be holy; he grieves over his sin hourly; his life is characterized by continual repentance. His conscience is struck, his heart is pierced over his sin. The bane of his iniquities drives him continually to God for forgiveness and restoration, that he might have that grace to live on and fight another hour. He rejoices in anticipation of that day when in glory, he sins no more.

The one who claims to be a Christian but is not walking as one, has deluded himself. To him Paul says, "Let no one deceive you, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience."

Are you struggling to be holy? If so, that is a good sign. Perservere. Take heart. There is a day coming in which the struggle will be over. For now, fight.

Is there no struggle. Take heed, and examine yourself to see whether you are in the faith. We are despicable sinners, helpless to change, and yet in Christ, there is everything we need. We bring nothing to him. We cannot offer a submissive heart for we have no such thing. We need a broken, contrite heart, and only Christ can do that. In Him there is not only forgiveness, but sanctification. Christ alone changes us because he alone makes us alive.

Do you sense the wickedness of your heart and the inability to change? Come to Christ, who became for us wisdom from God - righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. There is no transformation except through Christ. He saves us from our sins and sinfulness. We offer him nothing - not our hearts, our wills, or our minds for they are altogether corrupt. We can only receive from him - his righteousness (imputed to us), his sanctification (transforming us into a godly, holy people), his redemption (the forgiveness of our sins and deliverance from his deserving wrath). Receive the grace of God in Christ and be transformed from sinner to saint. Turn to him for cleansing from your sin, a renewed heart, and a stedfast, persevering spirit in his holy ways. Take his yoke for it is easy, his burden is light, and you will discover his commandments are no longer grievous but joyous, more precious than silver, more to be sought after than gold.

TCB

Promoting Blaggard's Moon, Character and Dialogue - August 2010 Christian Fantasy and Blog Tour, Day 3

Every story that has compelled me to read it again typically included a peculiar character, sometimes more than one, so well-written that I could see him and hear him. Of course, the voice and looks that came to my imagination were often those I’d seen either in real life, or in a movie, or in a child’s story book. But the reason they came was because the writing invoked them, called them forth, and they came: Gollum, Puddleglum, Tom Fitzgerald (The Great Brain), the Scarecrow (The Wizard of Oz), John Carter (The God’s of Mars), Vernon Dursley, Rubeus Hagrid, Severus Snape, and Dolores Umbridge (Harry Potter), Jack Torrance (The Shining), Mr. Li (Plague Maker)...and others.

Blaggard’s Moon has such a character whose role is catalytic, yet without him, Polivka could not have told the tale of Blaggard’s Moon as he did...literally. Hammond Drumbone, known as Ham to his shipmates, if he ever existed in real life, would probably have been one of the most likeable pirates one could ever hope to meet (assuming one would knowingly want to be an acquaintance of pirates). Yet, he plays no role in the unfolding or outcome of events. But he adds such a flavor of drama that without him the story would not have been so fresh. How so?

Ham doesn’t come into the story in a flare, but quietly. The reader is commiserating with Smith Delaney and thereby becomes acquainted with Ham. Smith Delaney is skulking about trying to find things to dwell on other than his little predicament. You see, Delaney’s sitting on a pole (eight inches across, eight feet high) in the middle of a piranha-infested lagoon, abandoned by cutthroat pirates. Ham comes to mind and Delaney is struck by the pirate’s gift for telling a tale. Sometimes Ham filled in where there needed filling in but, as Delaney recalls, no one who listened really cared what was real and what was fabricated, it all was real when it came from the lips of Ham.

    Delaney could almost hear Ham talking now, a shade of melancholy in his deep voice, calling up both lonesome longing and high hopes at the same time, painting those word pictures like only he could paint them...He’d wait until there was quiet there under the decks, quiet but for the creaking of the ship’s timbers. And then he’d begin.
    Where did it all start? he’d ask. Where do such tales ever start? It was what he’d always ask at the outset of a story. Then Ham would answer himself. Deep in the darkest part of the heart, where men don’t know what goes on even in their own selves. That’s where every story starts.
    That Ham. He could tell a tale.

The reader is already charmed by Ham wanting to hear a tale himself, see if Ham lives up to the grand story teller of Delaney’s nostalgic memories. The paragraphs that follow do not disappoint. In those paragraphs, Polivka does a remarkable thing. He treats the reader with the blending of two voices and two tales, his own and Ham’s.

    “Dark and clouded it was,” Ham began one evening below decks, “with the sky iron gray and restless, the misty sea churning beneath it, throwing off white foam as far as the eye could see.” Smoke rose from his pipe as the men lay silent, hammocks in tight rows swaying together with the movement of the ship. “A storm was brewing, aye, and a big one, too. And then a thundering came, and it echoed, and then a voice came, carried on the thunder. But the voice was not like the thunder. The voice was high and beautiful. The voice was a girl singing sweet, and lingering on every note, a pure voice from far away, from out of the rain, out of the storm, out of a dream.”
    “How old was the girl?” a young sailor asked in hoarse whisper.
    “Don’t matter her age,” Ham answered easily.
    “What’d she look like?” asked another, bolder.
    “It was just a voice, gents. A disembodied voice, as they say.”
    “Ye mean she ain’t got a body?” a third asked, somewhat shocked. “It’s a ghost, or what?”
    Ham sighed. “It’s all happening in a dream. The ship, the singing, the girl...I’m telling you about a dream that Mr. Delaney had. When he wakes up you’ll know where he is, for some of you were there. But I’m trying to build some mystery into it, so shush, and let me tell it.”
    The pirates went silent again, and Ham continued...

The mood is palpable. The crew-filled hammocks, the ship creaking, the pipe smoke rising, the beginnings of the tale. The reader stands among the hammocks watching the scene play out. But before Ham’s story gets going, he is interrupted and a dialogue (conversation that brings drama) ensues.

The dialogue is not contrived. It has a back and forth banter that is true to life. It completes the picture; hitherto, the reader sees the crew gathered about, but now he hears them. And it all centers on Ham who, without any pretense, admits that he’s trying to build mystery into his tale. The pirates apparently like that, and so does the reader.

The dialogue permits the reader to peek into the social psyche of the crew. The tales of Ham were their only means of entertainment. There are (apparently) no books, obviously no movies or television. The nearest comparison that I can think of is how families at one time (in the ‘old days’ as I thought of them as a child) sat around the radio listening to radio plays and drama. This is more striking because Ham’s introduction could have been used for radio. Do you see it?

    Where did it all start? he’d ask. Where do such tales ever start? It was what he’d always ask at the outset of a story. Then Ham would answer himself. Deep in the darkest part of the heart, where men don’t know what goes on even in their own selves. That’s where every story starts.

This is akin to the way the old radio melodrama The Shadow began, ‘who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men...only the shadow knows,’ (organ in the background). Good radio drama has a quality that is unique. Those who sat around the radio in the ‘old days’ were entertained in a way that television, movies, and books are unable to provide. These pirates are unwittingly entertained in similar manner with the likes of Ham. So is the reader.

Ham was a master of suspense:

    “...This fine young lady was boarding a ship, and at that same moment a fierce young warrior wearing the blue naval uniform of a Vast marine was disembarking from another. She glided up the gangway to the main deck of a heavy-laden merchant vessel, which was bound for the southern seaports of Warm Climes.”
    “What’s her name?” one of the men asked.
    “Tell us what she looked like!” begged another.
    "Aye, and don’t tell us there’s mystery to it!” another called out. Laughter rose. Ham was always shrouding some fact he easily could have explained, just so he could produce it later with a flourish, making his listeners feel satisfied after a long hunger.
    “Oh, she was a mystery,” he said. “She was indeed...”

Mystery, a technique that Ham used, and so does Polivka. The names of the lady and the Vast marine are not mentioned until a fitting time later, all the while making the reader wait tantalizingly for the disclosure of the mysterious persons.

The lady and the marine are key to the story of Blaggard’s Moon, and Polivka’s use of Ham introduces them unforgettably. The two going in opposite directions turn at the same moment and their eyes meet - they recognize each other; they have a past:

    “...He saw beauty, fresh and unspoiled, radiant and sharp-eyed, but with sorrow somehow bound up deep within. And what she saw was a dark-haired, scruffy warrior just in from the wildness of the seas, fresh from the fight, but with some unquenchable thirst, a drive she couldn’t name.”
    “Wait, wait, did you say a fight?” one of the men asked. “What fight?”
    “You are a hard bunch to tell a story to, and that’s a fact. If you must know, that very morning Damrick Fellows had had his first battle against a pirate. It wasn’t much, really, just a...”
    Now the cramped room exploded.
    “What did you say?”
    “Hang on now!”
    “You sayin’ it’s Damrick Fellows?”
    “This story is about Hell’s Gatemen?”
    When the room calmed, Ham puffed his pipe for a moment. Then into the tense calm, he spoke the single word, “Aye.”
    The room erupted once again, this time in glee. “Tell us the fight!”
    Ham savored the moment. “But gents, we were about to learn of the fair Jenta Stillmithers, and her travels, and how she was first introduced to the world of pirates and scalawags.”
    “Jenta?” and “Wait, ye mean the pirate’s woman?” and “We want to hear Jenta!”
    “No!” and “Hang on, tell the fight!” others countered.
    And then the forecastle was in an uproar, men shouting at one another from their hammocks, until a few rolled out and stood, the better to argue their points, particularly should their own position on the matter require proofs of a somewhat more forceful nature.
    “All right, shush now! Shush or you’ll hear neither!” Ham bellowed. The room quieted some. “You’ll get the Whale down here thinking there’s fisticuffs broke out amongst us, and we’ll all be feeling Mr. Garvey’s lash. Just furl some sail, boys, and ease up a bit.”
    The men grumbled but settled quickly, then waited impatiently.
    Ham cleared his throat. “Aye, the tale is of Damrick Fellows, and Jenta Stillmithers, and Conch Imbry and his gold. And you shall hear it all.”

And so shall the reader hear it all, thanks to the pen of George Bryan Polivka.

Promoting Blaggard's Moon: A Novel's Opening - August 2010 Christian Fiction and Fantasy Blog Tour, Day 2

With fiction and the great majority of nonfiction, the opening is the most important segment of the work, not because it may contain extraordinary literary deployment (though that could be the case, of course), but because if we lose on readers here, we’ll never get them back. In tennis we get a second serve; in most types of writing we don’t. We get only one chance to intrigue our readers, and we’d better make it work! – William Noble, Conflict, Action & Suspense, p 35.

The opening of the novel must accomplish at least two things:

(a) Capture the interest of the reader.

(b) Contain the seed of which the novel is the germinating flower.

If this is not done by page two, or at most by page three, the reader will be too ready to put the book down. Even if he survives an opening that fails on either of these two points, he will have a more critical eye trained on all that follows. It will take more to put the reader into a positive frame of mind toward the story. Mistakes that may come later (a historical inaccuracy, an unrealistic moment, a dull description, an unimportant detail, a subtle grammatical error, etc.), however small, will not be easily forgiven.

One of the ways to ‘capture the interest’ is to open with conflict and/or intrigue. Conflict is intriguing, but I’ll not grant that intrigue is conflict. Conflict is a clash between a character and another character, a character and his circumstances, or even a character and himself. Intrigue has more to do with the unusual and unexpected both of which may or may not be the result of conflict. To encounter a bee gathering pollen may be intriguing, but hardly a conflict (unless you consider the bee as struggling for survival in his pollen-gathering, which to some degree is true).

An opening scene which is rich with intrigue, and equally rich with conflict, is very astute. Blaggard’s Moon opens precisely in this way. The first paragraph, a single line, is so pregnant with intrigue that the reader does a mental double-take.

“On a post. In a pond.”

The reader stops, if only for a moment, to try and let the meaning of that sink in. Does it mean what it really sounds like it means, something (or more unexpectedly, someone) is stuck on a post out in the middle of a body of water? What is it/he doing there? How did it/he get there?

The reader wants and expects the author to reveal what this is about, and if the gratification of that ‘want’ isn’t met in short order, the intrigue will turn to frustration. But Polivka does not let that happen. The next paragraph tells just enough to begin to satisfy the need to know:

Delaney said the words aloud, not because anyone could hear him but because the words needed saying. He wished his small declaration could create a bit of sympathy from a crewmate, or a native, or even one of the cutthroats who had left him here. But he was alone.

Conflict is a sure source of intrigue. Two of the three types of conflict identified above are present here: between character and his environment (the individual stuck on a pole in a body of water), and between character and other characters (the pole-sitter and the cutthroats who put him there).

The abandonment on the pole is conflict, and it is so unusual that the intrigue is immediately palpable. The intrigue comes in the form of dread, and Polivka increases the dread by revealing the unthinkable scope of the conflict in the next three paragraphs. But the paragraph immediately following is a teaser:

It wasn’t the post to which he’d been abandoned that troubled him, though it was troubling enough. The post was worn and unsteady, about eight inches across at the top where his behind was perched, and it jutted eight feet or so up from the still water below him. His shins hugged its pocked and ragged sides; his feet were knotted at the ankles behind him for balance. Delaney was a sailor, and this was not much different than dock posts in port where he’d sat many times to take his lunch. He was young enough not to be troubled with a little pain in the backside, old enough to have felt his share of it. No, the post wasn’t the problem.

The focus of this whole paragraph is on the post. No action here. We don’t need any because we are entranced with the painting of a picture so vivid that we are tempted to wriggle in our reading chair to relieve the psychosomatic pain that developed in our own backsides as we read. We are revolted at the quandary of the post, and yet the post is not the real predicament. The scope of the dilemma grows and so does the dread (intrigue).

The pond from which the post jutted was not terribly troublesome either. It was a lagoon, really, less than a hundred yards across, no more than fifty yards to shore in any direction. He could swim that distance easily. He peered down through the water, past its smooth still surface and eyed the silver-green flash of scales, lit bright by the noonday sun.

The piranha, now, they were something vexing.

The dread of the predicament increases and reaches its climax in a single-sentence paragraph. Polivka’s use of that single sentence does two things: (a) it reveals the horrendous problem in a moment so that its realization is immediate, and (b) it is the verbal equivalent of a symphonic clash of cymbals – it jolts you.

Such a beginning is so intriguing, the potential of so many story lines, that the reader is struck with wonder of not only how the one in the predicament is going to get out of it (if he does), but where the story as a whole is going to go.

In terms of seed and blossom (or the building block which "must be sturdy enough, strong enough to support the story to come," Conflict, Action & Suspense, p41) it turns out that the sailor on the pole is the catalyst for a variety of ways in which the story is told, i.e., his recollection of events first-hand, or the recollection of the tales of a skilled pirate story-teller, whose delightful character is worthy of an article in itself.

This is ‘opening’ at its best.

Promoting Blaggard’s Moon, August 2010 Christian Fiction and Fantasy Blog Tour, Day 1

I’m reading Blaggard’s Moon, by George Bryan Polivka, and am wondering why it has never made the New York Times Bestsellers list. Actually, there is no mystery to it - it hasn’t been discovered, yet. Whose fault is that? As Randy Ingermanson once pointed out in an e-zine, nobody is more interested in your book than you are. The burden of marketing one’s book lies heavily on the shoulders of the author. Those who have spent the time (and, I assume, the money) to promote their own books unrelentingly have largely been rewarded for their efforts. If Polivka were to do the same, assuming he has the interest and the means to do it, I think this book could make it big.

For so-so books, or even books that are above average, I would say that it is justifiable for the bulk of promotional responsibility to be on the author. But a book of this caliber should find more than its own author as the promoter.

The publisher comes to mind. Why would a publisher not seek to get the word out on this book is a mystery to me, unless he doesn’t recognize the book to be as good as it is. Surely, that is not so. Perhaps the publisher has to be careful during this economic downturn and cannot afford to devote the time or money to it. If that is the only reason, there should be a change of heart as soon as recovery comes. Perhaps the publishing house believes that many of its books could equally vie for such attention. That may be true, but I cannot think there could be one better than Blaggard’s Moon. The publisher  would do well to take a serious look at what could be done to bring this book to the attention of the reading community. I don’t think it would take a lot; once discovered, word of mouth surely will do the rest.

The author and publisher are not the only factors in the promotion of such a book. There are other influential causes: Blogs and websites whose purpose is to bring attention to good Christian works. Other (well-known and respected) authors could take up the cause. Those who have already read it could do more to get the word out.

Why does it matter? A more pertinent question for me, an aspiring author, is why should I be concerned about the well-being of another’s work; don’t I have enough to handle as it is - trying to produce the best possible work given my time and talent, its publication, and most difficult of all, its marketing?

One might consider that if the general recognition and respect for modern Christian literary works were raised by one successful author (whatever his genre), it might bode well for others of similar aspiration. That might be true, but only possible if the hopeful beneficiaries are themselves exceptionally good writers – as Polivka is. And it is this latter point that is the single reason that makes the promotion of Blaggard’s Moon so reasonable and worthy. It is a novel in which the writing is a work of art. It is the exemplar of which many of us need to become familiar and by it learn the craft of writing.

For that reason, I intend to write a series of articles in which I will use Blaggard’s Moon to illustrate the principles of good writing and story crafting. The first two of these will appear as my second and third posting for the August 2010 Christian Fiction and Fantasy Blog tour.