Book Review: Night of the Living Dead Christian, Part 1

[Warning: There will be spoilers.  In fact, I’ll be spoilering the shit out of this book.  There’s no way to say what I intend to say without doing so.  I’m sure that the reasons behind it will soon be made abundantly clear.]

I’m reasonably certain that Scalzi’s “Big Idea” series has cost me $600 since I bought my Nook.  Of course, part of that is because on some level I blame Scalzi for the fact that I own a Nook in the first place.  Well, okay, that’s not fair.  I, after all, opted to get the more expensive Nookcolor and the fancy-schmancy faux leather case.  And I’ve overestimated the number of books I’ve purchased because of it.  The actual number is nine.  So he’s cost me, like, a hundred bucks.  Still, y’know, consideration could be paid.  Or something.

Anyway, I love Scalzi’s Big Idea series because it appeals to me as a writer and storyteller.  I’m often far less interested in the story than the story behind the story.  And sometimes I can become interested in an otherwise uninteresting narrative precisely because of the story behind the story.

That was the hook that took me to Night of the Living Dead Christian by Matt Mikalatos.  He sold it as a comedy novel about the monsters we see every day with theological discussion thrown in.  I’ve seen comedy, monsters, and theology put together before, specifically in Christopher Moore’s Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal.

Were I to meet Matt Mikalatos I could say to him, “I’ve read Christopher Moore and you, sir, are no Christopher Moore.”  But I suppose I’m getting ahead of myself.  Because I knew what I was getting in to with this one.

See, my general strategy with Big Ideas is a three-step process.  I decide if I want to check the book out.  I then download and read the available Nook sample.  Then if I like it I buy it.  At the moment the Big Idea is 9-5-2 on my Nook, with the 2 being one book I haven’t decided if I want to buy but probably will and one that I just downloaded the sample for today and haven’t actually checked out yet.  And there were a couple other Big Ideas that lead me to buying books in the before time, the long, long ago.  One of those was Cat Valente’s The Habitation of the Blessed, which also handled issues of religion and theology and technically had monsters.  I just thought I’d toss that out there.[1]

One of the problems that comes up in a piece like this is the, “Well why don’t you offer something constructive, instead?” question.  It’s generally the last resort of the butthurt so I ignore such things in counter-criticism.  But one of the big issues here is that Mikalatos book fails miserably, but for a single, entirely predictable reason.  That reason boils down to two words:

Tyndale House.

If you’re reading this blog and you didn’t come here through a Google search for “coldplay sucks”[2] there’s a pretty good chance that you’re well acquainted with Tyndale’s big fiction series.  For that would be Left Behind, which Slacktivist will be deconstructing until the end of time.  I nearly decided not to buy the book when I saw those two little words in the sample.  I had no urge to give Tyndale House my hard-earned money, as they do not deserve it.

But then I realized something.  This is a book that uses monsters as allegory published by the same publishing house that is so allergic to allegory (allegorgic?) that they have published, like, 60 goddamn books turning a pretty explicit allegory in to a supposedly factual history of the future.  I was curious, then, how they’d handle using real monsters.  And if the real monsters would approach the level of inexcusable nastiness of Rayford Steele and Buck Williams.

Now, I suppose my perspective on this whole thing is wrong.  If I’d been reading Left Behind I’d probably have loved to have the option to read Night of the Living Dead Christian.  Because if you’re the sort of person who primarily purchases books from Christian book stores, you’re pretty much limited to theology, “Christian Living” books (which are basically self-help books about Jesus), and the plodding, unimaginative fiction of Frank Peretti or Tim LaHaye.[3]

I, however, had just finished reading Merrie Haskell’s delightful The Princess Curse.  I’m now reading Lee Arthur Chane’s Magebane.  Both of these books are infinitely better.  They’re very different books that are infinitely better for different reasons, but those different reasons and why they’re better than Night of the Living Dead Christian can be summed up with three words: not Tyndale House.

In this I can say that I can feel bad for the author.  It is almost impossible to write for an explicitly Evangelical audience and write for entertainment purposes.  Still, the subtitle quickly made me angry.  “One Man’s Ferociously Funny Quest to Discover What it Means to Be Truly Transformed.”

The book isn’t “ferociously funny.”  The book isn’t even particularly funny.  It spends a page[4] on a tangent in to a discussion of which Bible translation is most accurate.  This is the sort of thing that could be played off as funny and I get the impression that the author was genuinely trying, but the explanation of why they were having the argument came out in an overly earnest expository paragraph.

Sadly, it couldn’t be any other way.  The intended audience to which Tyndale House panders is afraid of…well, they’re afraid of many things.  I suppose I could shorthand it as, “The Unknown.”  Allegory is a gateway to The Unknown.

Let me take this back, for instance, to Merrie Haskell’s The Princess Curse.  That particular story, which I will endeavor mightily to not spoil,[5] is also a tale of transformation.  There are multiple points in that story, however, where an apparent victim becomes a villain or a villain a victim.  The apparent universal order is flipped on its head and black becomes white.  Or, at least, an interesting shade of gray.

The flipping over of the universal order is fundamentally something that cannot be done with Tyndale House’s intended audience.  Turning the villain in to victim, after all, might well engender sympathy for the Devil.  And we cannot have that, can we?

I mean, sure, Milton might disagree.  But he probably wasn’t a real, true Christian.

Allegory, then, must be avoided at all costs.  And if allegory is necessary, then it must be accompanied by explanations of the allegory.  This, too, takes away from any of the fun of the book.  I’m pretty sure that the old saw about having to explain the joke wasn’t meant to be a suggestion for how to be a successful comedian.  Now that I think about it, it’s more of a warning about how explanation robs the joke of its, um, jokeness.  Yeah.  That sounds about right.

The book, then, is long on “tell” and short on “show.”  This seems to be the disease of the Christian publishing industry.  The reader is not allowed to just get the joke and roll.

Shortly after the first time we’re introduced to zombies in the book we see them handing out flyers to a church.  It’s pretty obvious that they’re supposed to be a certain type of Christian.  Just in case we didn’t get it, though, we’re eventually told that, yes, those zombies are a certain type of Christian.  Then, if I recall, we’re told that several more times.  I kind of wish I’d have counted, now.  But that quickly became a lesser complaint for me.

While the whole non-allegorical-allegory problem is glaring, it’s not really a big deal.  Lots of people fuck that one up.  And it’s a feature, not a glitch in Christian publishing, so I can’t really hold it against Mikalatos if he wants to write Christian fiction.  In fact, many of the things he said in the book really need to be heard by the intended audience.  Which is why I wish I could actually endorse the book, with the caveat that people who are willing and able to read Christopher Moore or Cat Valente won’t enjoy the book and probably shouldn’t read it because, y’know, why bother?

No, the bigger problem is that once you get past the central conceit of “monsters as allegory for spiritual transformation,” the book is actually a mean little book.  It’s downright vicious, really.  It forces us to, ask that question that always comes up with Left Behind: “Who are the real monsters in this story?”

That’s why this post is only Part 1.

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[1]Especially since I just discovered the sequel, The Folded World, is due out next month.  And I was reminded that I’ve been intending to check out The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making, due to a different Big Idea.  And I just took a break from this post to basically turn the left home page of my Nook into the Valente page.  I’m [this] close to buying The Habitation of the Blessed on the Nook, too, making in the second book I have purchased in both formats, the first being Craig Ferguson’s inimitable Between the Bridge and the River.

[2]That’s, like, half my traffic.  And I’ve learned that one of the things that has traveled all over the world is the simple fact that Coldplay does, indeed, suck.  Although I suppose that’s easier to explain than the top search term that got people to my old digs, which was some combination of the words “28,” “year,” and “virgin.”

[3]I say this as someone who once worked in a Christian book store at the height of the Left Behind craze.  I think I purchased one fiction book from the store in that time.  It was a historical fiction book that was controversial because it used the word “hell” as an expletive and not a place name.  Once.

[4]A page-ish.  It’s really hard to figure out page breaks with electronic books.

[5]Because you should go read it.  Now.  Or, y’know, soon-ish.

Comments

[DagoodS]

One of my favorite lines comes from the TV Series Heroes. (Alas, yet another TV Series starting off strong because of Character development and then flopping entirely because it didn’t know what to do with the Characters once it had them.)

The Man In the Horn-Rimmed Glasses, when asked to do a questionable task, replied, “You know I’ve always been comfortable in gray.”

One of the greatest draws, for me, in writing is to have characters who are “gray.” People who, at one time you root for, and another despise. Who you are never quite certain if you want to continue—you know they are going to help, but they are probably going to do devastating damage as well.

I always found the characters in Christian fiction to be so “Black” and “White.” Heck, within the first chapter you can place the appropriate hats on the appropriate persons and be done with it. Sure, the “White-hatted” hero will commit some minor faux pas, only to quickly become repentant, and correct their wrong. The Black-hatted villain will commit some nice act, only to further his nefarious schemes.

But all and all, one-dimensional.

Not, of course that this has anything to do with your review…

[Geds]

No. I can't imagine how your one-dimensional Christian novel character would apply in any way. Because there certainly isn't a main character who gradually realizes that he, himself, is on the verge of becoming a monster due to his own lack of attention to detail.

Nope. That doesn't happen.

Although, actually, that is one of the better threads in the book. It's handled with a lot less in the way of anviliciousness than the rest.

Crap. Now I'm going to have to do a post about what this book did well. Or, at least, not terribly.

[Inquisitive Raven]

"Tyndale House." You poor man. Is there any indication that the author could've written a decent book if it were published by, oh say, Tor?

[Geds]

I kind of wish I could say yes. He's not a bad author and he obviously gets allegory and whatnot. But, well, the book does many, many horrible things that can't be directly blamed on Tyndale House. A lot of that will come out in Part 2.

[Matt Mikalatos]

Hey Geds and everybody!

Thanks for your honest thoughts, I appreciate it. A couple quick thoughts:

1) I never claimed, of course, to be Christopher Moore. I occasionally hear that I am not him. I suppose it gives me a far, far off goal to reach for. I am also not Kurt Vonnegut, or so I am told. There are lots of excellent authors who I am not. But I don't mind being reminded that there's plenty of room to grow.

2) You can blame me for pretty much anything in the book (content-wise). You can blame Tyndale for publishing it, certainly, but the content is mine. With the exception, actually, of the tag line about the furiously funny search for spiritual transformation. I'm not, in fact, a great fan of taglines or subtitles but, hey, they get to make that call, and they thought it would help categorize the book. So there it is. Anything on the cover (other than the title and the bio) was written by one of my editors. With a few exceptions, Tyndale didn't push me to include anything or ask me to drop much of what was in my original drafts (other than ordinary editing suggestions). As for Left Behind... well, I'll just say that there is no overlap between those books and mine in the people who worked on them.

3) I will say, Geds, that I don't recall ever specifically pointing out that the zombies are a certain sort of Christian or even that they are Christian (in fact, as I recall, in a later chapter there's a conversation about the fact that there is some variety among them). If it was spelled out multiple times, I'd be really surprised. That's not to say it didn't happen; if it did it was through pure authorial blindness. It's easy enough to check on, though, and if that's the case it's a helpful thing you've pointed out that hopefully I can do better in my next book. Anyway, you've piqued my interest and I'll have to go back and take a look for those sort of heavy-handed explications. No doubt there are plenty, I just don't remember that specific one.

4) I'm interested to see who you take the real monsters to be and the viciousness you mention. I can honestly say that's not (of course) my intent, so I look forward to seeing why it came across that way.

Anyway, I hope you don't mind me hanging around and sharing some thoughts. Feel free to send me packing if you like, but I'm looking forward to hearing what you have to say.

Thanks for buying the book, anyway, and thanks for sharing your thoughts.

Sincerely,

Matt

[Geds]

Matt:

Thanks for stopping by. And for being more pleasant and thoughtful than Coldplay fans. With them I just said, "This band you like is stupid." With you, well, I'm going after something you wrote. And I would not have been at all surprised if you took it personally. Although I can't help but wonder if you saw Part 2 before you wrote your comment. Because, um...yeah. That one was mean.

Anyway, I don't have a lot of time to make a detailed response, but I did want to get one of the overarching issues out of the way as quickly as possible: I'm not saying that I believe Tyndale House told you what to write, per se. I mean, there's editing and whatnot, and I totally get the subtitle being an editorial decision that's totally outside of your control. I just tossed that in as an aside because most of my posts are actually dedicated to random asides and footnotes, anyway. It's my thing.

However, there is a certain level of baggage, shall we say, that comes with the words Tyndale House. True facts: back in the days before I became a godless heathen I actually seriously considered trying my hand at becoming a Christian author. And by "seriously considered" I mean, "I have a novel I was going to try to sell to a Christian publishing house." I've now got it on my "things to re-do" list because I loved the characters and the story and the general premise, but the big conversion scene comes off clunky.

That's one of the inherent problems with writing for an explicitly Christian audience out of a publishing house like Tyndale. There's a place where the book is supposed to go, so everything has to vector in that direction. But that great evangelistic sales pitch totally derails the narrative. I was actually rather enjoying the book up until the mid-point when it went in to explicitly evangelistic territory.

At that point, well, I started to hate it. A whole lot.

[Matt Mikalatos]

Ha ha. Well, yeah, I actually saw your second post after I commented and I thought, man, I have got to go to bed. I can't comment on this one also. But I have a pretty thick skin, and I prefer people to share their real opinion. Part of the point of my books is to create conversation, so I can't start crying foul when it does.

Believe me, I am completely on board with what you are saying about Christian publishing. It's ironic that I've become a Christian author since I don't read Christian books. My preference from early on was to be published in the ABA but I realized that, well, I could actually get published in the CBA at this point. A lot of things have changed over the last few years, and I think there are some signs of good things coming in Christian literature, though. Anyway, that's another topic, and my preference is still to read Scalzi. And if I want Christian fiction, I can always read Wolfe or Willis and still get excellent writing and science fiction.

I see what you're saying about the evangelistic sales pitch, I really do. With a large part of my audience being Christian already, though, I was more trying to get at the fact that the "magic formula" version of soteriology is insufficient. If Johnny says a prayer when he's five to follow Jesus but still does things like Luther when he's an adult, I don't see how that translates to being "Christian." And I get really sick of the constant message that "if you follow Jesus everything will be great", which is why I don't have a "happy ending" but rather a "hopeful ending" for the book. I think people forget that Jesus was called the man of sorrows and that he was, for instance, killed, and that to be like him may mean embracing suffering. And the effects of sinful behavior in life don't just disappear because you meet Jesus.

Anyway, I don't mind you hating it. I prefer hatred to a shrug. And your thoughts here are a lot more useful than people who say "It was good" or something like that.

[Geds]

Well, once again thank you for being pleasant.

I have not actually read your comments on Part 2 yet, as, um, I'm guessing that's more of a contentious discussion and...Monday. So I'll keep everything over here for the moment. But, for the record, this was originally going to be a three-parter, with Part 3 being, "This is actually the stuff that the book did well. Then I got slightly distracted by being really, really mad during Part 2 and decided that I needed to either make a Part 3 or a parenthetical post with a clearer explanation of where and why I see so much misogyny. So that pushed my original Part 3 to Part 4 and then I spent the weekend distracted by The Great House Buying Expedition of 2011 That Should Really Have Been Done By Now But Isn't Because I Hate Home Owners' Associations That's Why.

But, yes, weirdly, part of the reason that was trying to write a Christian novel is because after Left Behind came out it became a lot more obvious there was a Christian market and there weren't enough good authors. Of course that's a chicken-egg situation, because the very rules of the market are detrimental to good writing. And, crap, that might be yet another post on this topic.

You as an author in that market and younger me as a would-be author in that market had to keep to guidelines. As I recall from when I was looking in to them, like, seven years ago there was an actual bullet point that a character had to get to know Jesus and everything had to focus around that idea. Even if that's not explicit, or explicit any more, there's still basically a determination that you must make that happen. Otherwise your readers will hate you and probably storm Carol Stream, IL Mad Max-style (which wouldn't be so great for me, as I like Carol Stream just fine. In fact, most of my furniture is in a storage locker in Carol Stream)[1]. A writer who isn't in a Christian publishing situation doesn't have those guidelines, but it would be the same as saying that every single book has to, say, lead up to the point where the main character loses his or her virginity. That's a fascinating topic to explore, but not for every single book in the world. It's just not that interesting and there's an awful lot of other interesting stuff out there to explore artistically.

That said, you built up a lot more goodwill with me than I was expecting with the first half of the book. Then you killed it all in the space of about three chapters. The goodwill came from the fact that you really did seem to be attempting to break out of the formulaic Christian fiction...um...formula. But you did actually regain some of that goodwill with the way you ended it, precisely because you did avoid the tired, "And everyone was happy because Jesus," ending. Which is why I wish I could say nicer things about that middle bit but tend to think that a good chunk of my problems with it are based on the pressures of the intended audience.

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[1]For those who don't know, Tyndale House is headquartered in Carol Stream, which is just north of Wheaton, IL, which I call "The Holy Land West," and also my hometown. Oddly, I stole "The Holy Land West" from a Christian comic when I worked at John's Christian Stores, a Christian book/gift/music store in a strip mall right next door to Tyndale House. John's is now a Goodwill. Tyndale is still, y'know, Tyndale. I think. Haven't checked lately.

[Matt Mikalatos]

Well, crap. My theory on why you hated the middle was maybe you had skipped or heavily skimmed the ending.

I don't think there's contention re: part 2, but obviously we disagree as to what is happening in the middle of the book, especially regarding Lara. And of course I don't think I'm a misogynist (or that the book is misogynistic). But we can leave that for the discussion on part 2.

Regarding the Christian market and guidelines... I came into the industry sort of sideways (I can share more about that later) but basically I never had to go through those hoops, exactly, and I'm not sure they exist in the form that they used to, and certainly not at Tyndale. My first novel doesn't have a conversion moment as such, and no one mentioned that. And with Night of the Living Dead Christian, since I was talking about spiritual transformation, it was pretty much a given (self-imposed) that there would be something said about conversion. Having said that, I definitely tried to transcend the genre, trying to make things look more like real life (ironic when your books is about werewolves and so on) and less like the Amish boyfriend realizing that he will love Jesus after all, converting and getting the girl. So I guess I saw my conversion scene more as critique than capitulation.

Anyway... you're buying a house! And I should be cooking dinner while my wife is out, because I'm not a misogynist and I think that typical domestic roles are stupid and invented to keep women down! Ha ha. Actually, yes, really, I am making tagliatelle and need to get to it.

Hey... since you're doing two more posts, would it be better for me to keep quiet til you're done? I don't want my "authorial intent" to color your reading or what you might say.

[Geds]

Actually, no. I'm not worried about authorial intent. "Part 3," such as it is (not yet) is actually a discussion of intent and interpretation which I intend to write less about the book than about how and why I reacted to it the way I did. One of my minor obsessions as a storyteller is what I refer to as "the secondary story," which is a combination of authorial blindness coming in and the unintended side lessons.

The artist has no control over what the audience brings and often has little or no awareness of their own blind spots/areas of privilege/what have you, so it's an interesting discussion if everyone is willing to be honest. In this case, too, the very first place I began attempting to approach the secondary story was as, basically, a feminist. As such, since I have the very author I have accused of some pretty heavy stuff and you seem like a decent enough guy, feel free to chime in.

[Janet]

With Mr. Mikalatos joining in, this becomes a revealing study of the assumptions we each (author and reader alike) bring to a story. It is interesting to see the gap that develops between an artist's intent and the emotional impact of the work. The regulars already know a bit about Geds' baggage. I am curious what habitual connoisseurs of Christian propaganda literature would bring to this critique. Might the rising action, or the ending, distress them? Would they find comfort in those same parts that so offended Geds?

[Matt Mikalatos]

@Geds Cool. I had a funny experience with the whole author vs. reader issue in college, when we were studying Othello. Someone in the crowd was an extreme Freudian and kept talking about the sexual symbolism when Othello stabbed his wife to death. The professor kept pointing out that Othello actually strangled Desdemona, but the guy just kept on talking....

@Janet Mmmm. I don't think the parts that Geds finds offensive would probably be comforting to anyone. It's a pretty rough bit emotionally as well as content-wise. If you're interested in someone who is somewhat of an expert on Christian fiction, though, I could see if one of my editors or someone who reads a lot of it might want to come and comment. Or, if such connoisseurs exist on this site I could certainly provide a couple copies. Oh, and hey when you crossed out propaganda you forgot to put "literature" in scare quotes. :)

[Matt Mikalatos]

Oh, P.S. Janet... please call me Matt.

[Michael Mock]

Matt, let me add my voice to what has already been said about your ability to handle criticism: kudos. Seriously, criticism is not easy to take, especially when you feel it isn't fair, but you've been extremely pleasant and gracious about it. Well done, and thanks.

I'm beginning to feel at a bit of a disadvantage here, for not having read the book myself, but honestly I don't think there's any way I could finish it in time to help. I read quickly, but there are only so many hours in the day and most of mine are already spoken for. But rather to my surprise, I am pleased that you dropped by, and I'm curious to see how your arrival affects further discussion of the book.

And, of course, as someone who's particularly interested in fantastic and monstrous fiction, I'm curious about your 'take' on the characterization of your monsters. I'm also curious about how you came into writing Christian Fiction "sideways", and I'd love to know a bit more about your religious background. (As you can probably see, I missed the post on Scalzi's site.) I presume you're a Christian, but that covers a lot more ground than most people are willing to admit. Would you mind taking a moment to fill us in on your background? (To be fair, I'm happy to reciprocate.)

[Janet]

Scare quotes, Matt? I'm sorry sir, but I do not abuse my punctuation that way (though I may occasionally fantasize about it).

[Matt Mikalatos]

@Michael I would love to share those things, probably tomorrow. I wore myself out responding to part 3 of Geds' review. Also... I loved your story. Have you read Jim Butcher's Dresden Files books? Some of what you said reminded me of his narrator. If you haven't read them, it's a pretty fun series.

@Janet Nice one. I've never felt vaguely creepy about punctuation before.

[Michael Mock]

Thanks.

Re: the Dresden Files, I've read the first one and I rather enjoyed it, but I never got around to picking up the rest of the series.

[Matt Mikalatos]

Okay, wow, sorry it's taken me so long to get back to this.

So, Michael, you asked three questions, one about monsters, one about my "sideways" entry into Christian fiction and one about my spiritual background. I'll try to be relatively brief.

One: You've got the book now, so you may have seen this already, but basically I try to blur the lines between reality and monster fiction, using monsters as stand ins for various issues real people are struggling with. Nothing new here, really... vampire as selfishness, werewolf as anger, zombie as mindless capitulation to someone else's system of thought (I go back to the zombie's voodoo roots in this regard, I know it's not the most popular interpretation recently). As Geds also pointed out, it's not a straight monster book in the sense that I point out the metaphor and explain what it means. Probably too often.

Two: I started writing in high school (mostly the sort of forgettable science fiction and fantasy that we all start with, I guess). I totally screwed up a great, inside chance to write for a new television show by accidentally insulting the person who was connecting me to the show. I kick myself even now over this. But basically I said the movie the show is based on sucked (which I will stand by)... the show ended up being one you know and probably love. Anyway, that was stupid. Then I wrote a fantasy novel that I never shopped around. Then life got busy and after a while I started writing short satirical pieces about Christians for a (now defunct) magazine called the Wittenburg Door. That was my intro to being a professional... any time I got ticked off at church or with Christians I would write an article making fun of it and then get paid. Pretty cathartic. I wrote maybe 8 or 9 articles for them, then a couple for (now defunct) Discipleship Journal. Then some short stories here and there (Relief Journal, Coach's Midnight Diner, Haruah, etc.). After a while I realized I was getting published, but only in Christian outlets. Okay, this is getting long so I'll speed along here: I decided to write a book of essays. Funny essays about trying to be in relationship with a "relationally present but physically absent" Jesus. I don't read essay books but knew that lots and lots of Christians don't read anything else. An author I had met let me use his name to talk to a few agents (I had a publisher on the line already through some magazine connections)... the guy I liked best totally hated it. He could tell I didn't like essays, felt like I had good ideas but needed more narrative. We talked for a long time about Dante's Inferno, a work we both have a lot of respect for. So I went back to the drawingboard and wrote my first novel, Imaginary Jesus, which if you squint really hard and use your imagination you can see some rip-offs from Dante. Anyway, the book was completely done before my agent started shopping it, we got a couple great offers and I never really ran across any of the sort of stuff Geds was talking about re: guidelines or expectations of what must be included or not in the book. In fact, they let me use the words "damn" and "ass" in the book (without any real struggle). Which I suppose probably has more to do with how much the Christian publishing world has changed in the last ten years. I've heard that depending on your publisher (etc) some of those things are still out there. So... that's my abbreviated story.

Three: I was reared Baptist of various kinds. There's quite a bit of diversity there, as well, but before I was an adult I'd attended most every kind of church from charismatic to fundamentalist, and went to Christian school most of my life through high school as well.

When I went to college I suddenly realized that the evil non-Christians I had been told about were actually, by and large, really great people and that I enjoyed a lot of them more than some of my Christian friends. That made me wonder what else I had misunderstood in my Christian school upbringing and set me off on a quest to see what else was out there, which involved a good amount of experimentation in various religions and so on. I basically settled into a sort of "Christian by default" but there wasn't really anything Christian left in my life other than my history.

When I moved back in with my parents after college, there was a general expectation of going to church and during that time I met a pastor who sort of re-introduced me to Jesus as a person rather than a religious icon. I don't know how to say it other than this guy talked about Jesus like someone he knew personally, not just knew about, and he prayed all the time in a way that made me think that maybe it actually worked... and he was just a really great guy. That set off a time of meeting a lot of great people... Christians... and realizing that actually, I liked them better than I thought.

Which, eventually, led to me going back into "hard core Christian" territory, with more humility and less judgmentalism. At least, I hope so.

Since then there have been a lot of ins and outs... some odd mystical experiences, which were terrifying at the time but seem to have quieted significantly now.

Anyway, that's all pretty vague, but the upshot is that I would say I'm an orthodox Christian and hopefully a thinking Christian. I'm not interested in believing something "just because" it's the "right" thing to believe, but to believe something because it's true. I don't mind people coming after my beliefs with a stick, because I figure if they're right they'll be able to take it, and if not, then it would be good to know that they're wrong. It would be fair to call me an evangelical, depending on your definition. Most of my favorite (spiritual) authors are Catholic, though.

So, yeah, I believe that Jesus is God and, yes, I believe in Hell and Heaven and salvation through Jesus' sacrifice and resurrection. All the typical Christian stuff. I also believe that Christians should be loving and kind to people... you know, like Jesus. So hopefully I don't come across as one of those Christians on the ten o'clock news.

Anyway, I feel like that whole thing was a little vague so feel free to ask questions and I'll do my best to answer.

[Michael Mock]

Aha! (Okay, so I'm late - I should have come back and checked on this days ago. C'est la guerre.)

First, thanks for writing that out. (That's a fair amount of work, and I'm sure you have plenty of other things to do with your time.)

For whatever it's worth, my writing history looks a lot like yours except for the part where you actually, y'know, got things published. That's probably more funny to me than it should be.

And you know, on further reflection, I'm kind of glad that I didn't find this until after I finished the book. The stuff that I'm putting in the reviews over in my little corner of the world all comes from a relatively... un-biased? Is that the word I'm looking for? ...first reading of the book.

"...some odd mystical experiences, which were terrifying at the time but seem to have quieted significantly now."

This would be where the donkey comes in?

[Matt Mikalatos]

Ha. Yes. The donkey.

No, that was purely designed for my audience. I don't usually share much about the mystical stuff in public, as it freaked me out, I don't think it's the norm and I'm not looking to upset others. But, if you read Imaginary Jesus, there's a scene in "the labyrinth" toward the end that is relatively close to one of those experiences... one of those things that is either a significant spiritual moment or a full-on hallucination (auditory and tactile... is it technically a hallucination without visual?).

Michael, you seem to have a great grasp on what works and doesn't as you're going through NLDC. I'm sure if you stick to it you'll be published soon. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help along the way.