Book Review: Deadline (Part 2)

I finally finished reading Deadline this week.  It's unusual for me to take so long to read a new book, but I got bogged down in the middle of it for quite awhile.  Randy Alcorn likes his soapboxes, and while I agree with the stance he takes on issues, I wish he would pick a soapbox and stay with it for the whole book!

The list of controversial subjects he addresses includes abortion, sex education in public schools, liberal media bias, doctor assisted suicide, medical decisions concerning quality of life, and Down's syndrome children (among others.)  Reading this book was mentally exhausting at times.  I thoroughly enjoy a fiction book that takes a current controversial topic and uses a story to illustrate a point of view.  For example, Francine River's The Atonement Child is an excellent book that takes on the abortion argument.  What Francine Rivers has discovered (and Randy Alcorn needs to learn,) is that people listen to you better when you teach in parables (as Jesus did.)  The Atonement Child is all about abortion and the way it affects individual lives.  Different characters in the book have different life experiences all illustrating the destructive results such a choice can have.  The many angles shown in the book include abortion for medical reasons, abortion following a rape, the effects on the father, the effects on women physically as well as psychologically, long-term effects on a marriage, etc.  Many angles, yes, but one central focus: the destructiveness of abortion.  And all lived out through the fictional character's lives.

In Deadline, on the other hand, Alcorn jumped around so much that he never finished making a point on many of the topics he brought up.  And instead of illustrating his point of view through the experiences of his characters, he asserts his opinion in the conversations his characters have.  A key difference that makes the book read more like nonfiction than fiction in parts.  This is also where the reader gets bogged down.  One particular conversation filled nine pages.  Again, I agree with what he said, but I read fiction more than nonfiction for a reason- I like learning through illustrations.  

The book did address the plight of Doc (the nonbeliever)- briefly.  Alcorn's ideas about hell could start as much discussion as his ideas about heaven.  In the last chapters, the story line picked up again, and the "whodunit" aspect became exciting at the end.  In my opinion, the central story of Jake trying to find his friends' killer needed to tie together throughout the story more, and Alcorn needed to save a few controversies for another book.  I'll be interested to see his future work on this series.

Book Review: Deadline (part 1)

I bought this book at the recommendation of a friend recently and I'm only a few chapters in, but I feel compelled to start the review now, as it is turning out to be a very thought-provoking book. Since this is my first review on this blog, I'll tell you that I read a lot. My tastes run to Christian fiction, with the occasional non-fiction. I always love a well-written Christian romance, but tire of the predictable ones. Some of my all-time favorites are not "Full House" endings. I guess I just like to be kept on my toes a little. I also like books that make me think about some aspect of Christianity in a different light, even if they are fictional. Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker have become favorite authors for this reason. Deadline is turning out to be that kind of book, and like any fictional account of something the Bible leaves in partial mystery, I'm not sure I completely agree with the author's interpretation.

The story line so far is this: Three friends who have been inseparable since childhood are in a car accident. Two die; one a Christian and one an atheist. Jake, the friend left behind, is not a believer, but is torn between admiration for the way the Christian lived his life and an affinity for the beliefs the atheist held. In the process of mourning his friends and trying to get on with life, he is faced with evidence that the accident may have been intentional. Now immersed in assisting the homicide investigation, he is unaware of someone following him and watching his every move. (All in all, the start of your typical "whodunit.") The characters have been developed by flashbacks to memories from their decades of friendship and experiences serving in the Vietnam war.

The part that is the most thought provoking so far is the ongoing account of Finney (the believer.) His death experience and introduction to life in heaven are written in great detail, and it's probably not depicted the way most people would imagine (even Christians.) Taking a center role in all of it is Finney's guardian angel, present from the moment of birth (or before), beside him through all his earthly experiences, escorting him through the portal of death, and now his own personal tour guide in heaven. While a reunion with his loved ones is described, Finney seems to be spending all his time with this angel, asking him questions, seeing his life events through different eyes, and peeking in on what's still occurring on earth (on Jake's unfolding drama in particular.) This idea of heavenly experience including meeting our guardian angel and developing an ever-deepening relationship between celestial being and human produces a lot of questions on my part.

First of all, do we have any evidence that we will have much interaction with the angels in heaven? I guess I never gave the question much thought before now. The Biblical descriptions of heaven involve angels of course, and they are usually depicted as worshiping God without ceasing. I know this is the specific role of the seraphim, but what about the others? I guess I thought we'd have interaction with them- like getting Gabriel's point of view on the nativity or something like that. I just never thought of us as spending our time getting to know our guardian angel from our time on earth and learning from them. John's visits to heaven included him asking angels like Michael and Gabriel questions and learning from them, so I guess it's possible. I always thought relationships with angels, while fascinating, would take a backseat to our relationships with our fellow humans (and of course the most important of all: Christ.) The fact that we will likely have some interaction with angels in heaven (although I don't necessarily think to the degree depicted in this book) brings up another question.

Will we know our guardian angel in heaven? For that matter, do we each have a "guardian angel"? One angel whose sole assignment is to be by our side our entire life, following the commands of the Father in watching over us? I don't really know that we do. I'm intrigued enough to start looking for verses that would support the idea, because my first response would be that I don't think we each have a specific guardian angel. I know the Bible talks about God giving the angels charge to watch over us, but I don't recall anything saying we each have our own angel. What we each do have is the Holy Spirit indwelling us, guiding us, and communicating to the Father on our behalf.

One point I adamantly disagree with in this book is the angel calling Finney "master." Whoah. Angels do not serve us! They serve God. Even if we do have a guardian angel, they are not our personal genie in a bottle waiting to do our bidding. Another idea in the book is one that opens up pandora's box on the subject of predestination and free will. In this book only believers have guardian angels, and while Finney became a Christian later in life, his guardian angel was there all along. So do people who are going to become children of God have guardian angels beside them their whole lives while unbelievers do not? Or do unbelievers have guardian angels too? This line of thinking leads to many more questions than I'm willing to go into.

The emphasis this book places on guardian angels bothers me because there is a danger here of Christians becoming preoccupied with angels to an unhealthy extent. Many human-angel interactions recorded in scripture include the human falling down in awe upon seeing the angel, and the angel being very emphatic that we are not to worship them. They do not want attention to be focused on them, but on the One they serve.

It will be interesting to see how the book unfolds. I don't have to agree with an author to enjoy his work, especially if it makes me think. I haven't read any account of what Doc is experiencing yet (the atheist), but my friend tells me it's in there. I'm sure there will be more thought-provoking material ahead. In the meantime, I'm going to be reading passages from the Bible about angels as well.