Piercing The Darkness

This novel is the second Christian thriller by Frank Peretti, and sort of a sequel to This Present Darkness. It portrays problems in small-town America which are mirrored in the spiritual realm with angels and demons battling for lives and souls. It's exciting enough that it would probably be enjoyed by anyone who likes action-packed thrilling novels although it probably makes more sense to Christians.

As encouragement for Christians to stand up for what they believe, and to keep praying, it's probably quite successful. However the book IS fiction, and it's important to remember that Peretti's spiritual battles are only his interpretation of a possible scenario. Some critics complain that his theology is off-beam, but I don't think show more that's really fair: he's not teaching theology, he's writing a novel.

It's a good read which was almost as gripping the third time I read it as it was the first time, about 12 years previously. show less

This was not a direct sequel, and I enjoyed this new story with a similar premise of having spiritual forces affecting people’s lives. It was well done to setup a new story and characters before bringing in some characters from the previous book. It continued to get me thinking about unseen spiritual warfare that happens.

I remember when my mother purchased both books, This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness. She tried to get me to read them when I was in high school but all the angels and spiritual warfare stuff really spooked me back then. I snagged, Piercing the Darkness, from her house a few years ago and finally started reading it earlier this year. I found it to be a slow read but I’m glad I stuck with it.

Lucy Brandon thought her daughter, Amber, had an innocent imaginary childhood friend when she acted out as Amethyst, the horse, but she was really possessed by a demon spirit. This “possession” propelled the forces of darkness into motion in the small town of Bacon’s Corner. Peretti sets the story in motion quickly and then gives show more us the details through the middle. Tom Harris, director of the local Christian school, children has been taken by Child Protective Services and he has been charged with child abuse. The child abuse charges does not stem from him abusing his own children but for spanking and trying to cast Amethyst out of Amber. While all this is going on there is a background story and the main character is a mysterious woman named Sally Roe. What happens to Sally Roe ultimately affects the outcome of things in Bacon’s Corner. The most intriguing part of the entire novel is how the ranks of angels and demons actually move the story along.

Peretti gives a lot of background and details so the middle of the story was kind of hard to work through. There was always a lot of suspense and the ending was riveting! My favorite characters had to be the “angels.” It was so great how Peretti made them so diverse. They were of all nationalities. The names that Peretti gave the demons made you really think about how these evil spirits can infiltrate our daily lives. They had names like despair, insanity, destroyer, strongman, and many more. Peretti made it real clear how effective the power of prayer can be when believers unify and cast away demonic imps such as “discord” and “gossip.” We also saw how the spiritual wickedness really is in “high” places.

There were a lot of shocking revelations and moments in the text when you speed read to see what happens next. The most moving and beautifully written part for me was when Sally Roe came to know Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior. At that moment, she found peace and confidence that she had been searching for for years.

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, and against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” – Ephesians 6:12 show less

Month of February 2022: Christian Fiction

Part 2 of This Present Darkness; although, it can definitely be read as an independent read alone novel. It’s much of the same except evil spirits are attacking the hearts and minds of grammar school instead of college. The same heavenly angels are used in this book as in the last. There was more talk and courtroom than anything. I found it to be slow. I was bored most of the time.

Boredness aside, this book does show how evil slowly overtakes our education system and shapes the hearts and minds of our youth at very early ages.

Just like today, if you follow the money and start connecting the dots (or the moles that keep popping up as reporter Hogan calls it in the book), you will undoubtedly show more start to find one common denominator, a common belief, organization or club, and possibly some kind of cult ( or even one major socialist ideology) down the line that someone, or many could be involved in.

The following quote from the book was regards to the bogus lawsuit brought against a Christian school and one pastor and teacher, in particular, Tom Harris, who they claimed abused his power with one spiritually possessed four year old. They trumped up some charges against him…

“…the real object of that lawsuit is not the awarding of damages to the plaintiff, but legal precedent, the molding and shaping of law, even the rewriting of law, through an ideal test case.” (p. 376)

Behind the scenes in the book, since this is all a spiritual battle, Ango was the scrawny demon in charge of the local schools in this small farming town called Bacon’s End. It had taken him years to get things set up…the right Principal and Superintendent in place, implant the sympathizers, and blind parents to what was happening to their kids, sneaking in curriculums such as “Sexual Understanding and Family Life, Fourth Grade” and “Finding the Real Me-Self-Esteem and Personal Fulfillment Studies for Fourth-Graders” produced by the Omega Center for Educational Studies.

The American Citizen’s Freedom Association’s (ACFA) intent was to give the government power to control religion and religious schools. Omega’s intent was to raise generations up free of Judeo-Christian values, which they considered bigotry.

Amber, in fourth grade, was caught up in all this because her mother was involved with some kind of local cult that was involved in heightened spiritual out-of-body awareness. They met regularly for seances. She didn’t realize it was evil, and Amber was taught to practice mind control as well. But, she developed a split personality and this other personality was pure evil. Her mother enrolled Amber into this little Christian school, hoping it might help. But, when Tom Harris disciplines her and then tries to remove the demonic spirit through prayer, the bait is taken, and next thing they know, the Christian school finds themselves up against a lawsuit, and CPS even came and took Tom’s own kids away from him.

They would soon discover that this evil was imbedded in their small little farming town of Bacon’s End. show less

The main reason that I did not like this book was because it was shoved down my throat by a fundamentalist Christian when I was twenty years old and living in a halfway house because I had pretty much stuffed up my life. To be honest, I had been charged with a number of criminal offences, stolen about $1000.00 (in 1990s money) off of my parents, and was hanging around with a guy that was not only a bad influence, but also a bad smell. Before I go into this book I might say a word or two about this guy.
He was a funny guy, a refugee from an Eastern bloc country (isn't it funny that refugees from European and Asian Countries were welcomed, but refugees from Middle Eastern Countries aren't) who wanted to live 'the life' but did not want to show more work for it. I suspect that the main reason he hung around me was because he thought that I could come up with grand some money making scheme that would make him rich, but with the minimal amount of work (probably also because I looked up at him, and he was one of those people that loved having people around that looked up to him – it gave him some form of identity). It was like if he could buy alcohol and clothes by passing off stale cheques or stolen credit cards (it was a lot easier back in those days to rack up credit card debt on somebody else's card because the shops would not be notified until at least a month after the card was reported stolen), he would do it, but if it involved establishing a publishing house (or even a dodgy stock brokerage firm) he was not interested. Oh, and he was also the type of guy that would pretty much take everything for himself, and when I said he was a bad smell, I meant it: I simply could not get rid of him. I would try to disconnect myself from him, and then suddenly he would rock up at my door one day and want to hang around with me. I really don't know what happened to him, and in a way I am curious because it has been a long time since I have seen him and it would be interesting to see if he has pulled himself out of the rubbish that he had got himself into (as I have done), or if he is dead.
Mind you, that is all by the by, because this book is about spiritual warfare. It is about a woman who is haunted by a demon and has to come to terms with this demon by fighting it. A number of Christians that I know don't like this book because it is very works based: the main character has to fight and overcome the demon herself when in reality it is through God that we are able to overcome our demons. Mind you, when I speak about overcoming our demons, I mean it in both in the literal and the metaphorical sense.
One of the funny things that I have found in my life so far is that sometimes our demons (both literal and metaphorical) can be location based, and sometimes they can simply be due to who you hang around with, and I guess that is why I mentioned the story of that guy above. It wasn't until I managed to not only separate myself from him, but from all of the people that were related to him, that my life began to turn around again. Look, I am not blaming my problems on him, by no means, because I always had a choice. There was one time where I (surprise, surprise) ran into him in Victoria Square when I was with another friend, and I was given the choice of going with him or with my other friend (I couldn't have both) and I ended up going with him (bad choice).
The same has happened recently, in that I have moved myself seven hundred kilometres away from my source of marijuana and I have begun to clean myself up (though I still probably drink more than I should, and am kicking myself that I did not by any beer on Christmas Eve to discover that even in Melbourne you can't buy beer on Christmas Day) and even save money. As I write this on Christmas Day in 2012, I must say that I have managed to achieve three goals this year, I have moved interstate, I have saved $5000.00 and put it into my share trading account, and I have beaten the market (by about 8%). The third one, I must admit, was more luck than skill, and I am not expecting to do the same next year, but I guess my next goal is to bring certain holdings up to about $5000.00 each, and also develop a friendship network here in Melbourne, as well as going to Hong Kong and connecting with a church there. One should remember though that the bible says that it is not that we should not be making plans, but that we should be making plans with God's purposes in mind, and as I look back on my achievements this year, once again I will have to say that it is not through any skill of my own, but through God's grace that I have been able to do that. show less

This is the second novel in the Frank E. Peretti (This Present Darkness).

It all begins in Bacon's Corner, a tiny farming community far from the interstate...An attempted murder, a case of mistaken-or is it covered-up?-identify, and a ruthless lawsuit against a struggling Christian school, Sally Beth Roe, a young loner, a burn-out, a kind of "leftover hippie," finds herself caught in the middle of these bizarre events, fleeing for her life while trying to recall her dark past.

Across a vast panorama of heart-stopping action, Sally Roe's journey is a penetrating portrayal of our times, a reflection of our wanderings, and a vivid reminder of the redemptive power of the Cross.

Not as good as this present darkness but still thought provoking.