A New Star Trek Series?
While I am waiting for the availability of “The 11th Demon: The Ark of Chaos” around November 20th (I’ll give all of you a firm date once I find out) I thought I’d share something just for fun. In the past couple of months there has been rumors and suggestions for a new Star Trek television series. The movies have proven successful and now the writers of these two movies think it is time for a television show. Star Trek was made for episodic series. Only then can it deal with pithy and difficult social and humane issues as it did in the 1960’s. You can’t dig that deeply into a movie.
But, we can’t simply go back to the original world of Star Trek, can we? Now, we have two parallel time lines so what do we do? What and WHEN would be the focus of the next series? So, if you are a Trekker, then read on. If not, then come back soon for more information on my book.
So, here is an idea. It may already have been used in the spin off games, comic books, or novels but a suggestion:
It is the far future and the Borg eventually overran the Federation. All but a few worlds were assimilated. Quadrillions of sentient beings became Borg. Earth became an outlying Borg world with an underground rebellion preventing the planet from total conversion. With over 95% of the Federation worlds under Borg control, the Borg grew tired of the rebellion on Earth and withdrew from a devastated and depopulated Earth.
But, the Borg’s greatest strength proved to be their undoing. With so many minds now linked in the Borg collective, the Borg began to splinter. Twelve factions within the collective mind began to strive for dominance. Soon, these sub-consciousnesses drew apart and so began the Borg Civil War. Such battles and such clashes were unparalleled by any in the history of the galaxy. Great war machines were built that dwarfed entire solar systems. Energies were deployed that tore holes in the very fabric of space. Biological and genetic weapons decimated normal genomes and created horrific spawn of the Borg. Entire regions of the galaxy became uninhabitable filled with unspeakable pervasions of space time.
Eventually, two factions remained, the Red Borg and the Gray Borg. These two remaining collective “minds” could have recombined and saved the Borg, but soon the Gray Borg lost ground. In a final desperate move, the Gray Borg unleashed the ultimate doomsday device. Arcane energies rippled through the remaining Borg collective, reducing all living matter to goo and disintegrating every Borg circuit.
Silence fell across the known galaxy. Borg ships and war machines drifted in cold, harsh space and peace filled the devastated territory of the Alpha Quadrant.
On Earth, a remnant of Starfleet had been biding its time, rebuilding quietly within the very wreckage of the Borg machinery and the tortured Earth. Salvaging Federation starships and merging them with Borg technology, Starfleet’s weakening pulse grew stronger. Once the Borg mind fell silent and was no more, this ragtag group of sentient beings emerged from the shadows to rebuild the Federation.
And so, the new Federation of Planets was created built upon the ashes of the dead and decaying worlds of the Borg collective. It was time to rebuild civilization by reaching out to worlds once prosperous and powerful. It was time to boldly go into an unknown universe far more dangerous than ever before. What remnants of the Borg Civil War await our intrepid starships? What horrors born from the great war machines and biological weapons await discovery?
This could be the new Star Trek!
What do you think? Where would you like to see a new Star Trek television go?
The 11th Demon Book Cover
Here it is, the final book cover for my upcoming book. Release will be soon!
Almost Ready for the 11th Demon?
Well, I just sent the final galley proof corrections for the text and the cover of my latest book back to my publisher. That’s right! “The 11th Demon: The Ark of Chaos” will soon be available! I don’t have a firm release date but it should be within the next month. When the final cover comes back to me, I’ll post it.
For those of you who have not read my first two books, this book will be a continuation of the story of Jonathan Steel. You can enjoy this book without reading the first two, but I highly recommend getting the first two books BEFORE you read “The 11th Demon”. Both books are available from links at this site. They are in ebook format for iBooks, Nook, and Kindle. And, they are in paperback form as well.
Tentatively, the paperback format of “The 11th Demon” will retail for $19.99 and the ebook for $3.99. And, if you would like for me to come to your area for a book signing, let me know. Right now, I haven’t planned for a launch party as in the past because our coffee shop at Brookwood Baptist Church is no longer open at night. I will have to come up with different plans!
Now, some of you may have an obscure former book entitled “The Ark of the Demon Rose”. Portions of that book have been adapted into this newest story. But, trust me, you will NOT want to miss the new book. It has all new story lines. I reveal Cephas Lawrence’s backstory. Why does he collect ancient books and documents on demons? Who is in the mysterious picture on his desk? I reveal the cause of Theophilus’ fall into drugs. What did he do in his past that filled him with such self loathing that he gave up his church and turned to a life of drugs? And, why does he call Jonathan “Chief”?
Oh yeah, let’s talk about Vivian. I hate her. Do you? She is a pain in my side. The woman is a devious ingenue! What made her that way? Where did she get her demons? What happened in her past to make her the evil thing that she is? Well, you’ll find out!
“The 11th Demon: The Ark of Chaos” is a very personal story. It is a settling in of my characters. It is about their growing relationships and Jonathan’s acceptance of his inevitable role to battle demons. It is revelatory and there is a very important flashback that asks more questions than it answers about Jonathan and his relationship to his father, “The Captain”.
On top of that, this story is a slow, smoldering burn building to a rip roaring climax that, I hope will leave you turning the pages as quickly as possible.
Halloween is coming and there is no better time than now to read some scary books. Pick up my first two books and remember “The 13th Demon” is the first book! Read them in the next few weeks and get ready for the arrival of “The 11th Demon”! Keep an eye on this site for the formal announcement of its release.
And, in the meantime, whatever you do, DO NOT OPEN THE BOX!
He Will NOT Let Go!
I am broken and sobbing as I sit here before the bright and brilliant screen of my computer. It has been a hard summer and early fall. Health issues have clouded the sunny world I usually inhabit. Pain and fatigue have blunted my optimistic outlook on life. In the midst of the pain and crises of the past few months, there have been moments of rapturous joy. We finally closed the book on the cause of my daughter’s seizures and now, on a new medicine, she is finally blossoming and growing into the full person God intends for her to be. That alone should be enough to fill my cup with joy and thanksgiving. But, I am, after all, a Hennigan. My late brother once repeated a phrase from, of all places, HeeHaw (if that name means nothing to you, count your blessings!). “That Hennigan luck strikes again — if it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all!”
The rosy outlook I have on life is but a patina barely covering my pessimism and paranoia. I am always looking over my shoulder or waiting for the other shoe to drop. I can’t relax and just accept that God has finally answered my prayers for my daughter. What does that say about my reliance on God? God’s answered prayers just aren’t good enough? Isn’t it so typically human to focus on the bad at the expense of the good work God has brought to our life? When God delivers we are immediately grateful but then we, like Oliver, hold up our bowl and say, “Please sir, can I have some more?” When is God’s bounty every good enough?
I have had several brushes with death this summer. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t quite that bad. But, at the time, I wasn’t so sure. Crushing chest pain cannot be taken lightly. Sky high blood pressure isn’t something that will be cured with a couple of Tylenols. My poor wife has suffered through so much with me, with our daughter, and with her mother this summer. Through it all, she has managed to maintain a sense of total and complete reliance on God. She is fortunate to not have the Hennigan “luck”. I thank God for her every minute of every hour of every day.
Which brings me back to now. Here I am sitting before my computer. My co-author Mark Sutton and I have finished an update to our depression book. The cover has been chosen. The bios are adjusted to reflect the changes in our careers since 2001. The release date is set in stone. This is happening! Mark has completed his final edit of the book and sent it to me and now it waits patiently for my final ministrations. This should be one of the happiest moments of my writing career.
But, all I can see are the cracks in the cement. I am flailing away at my other book, “The 11th Demon: The Ark of Chaos” trying to get that book out before the end of the year. I am dealing with publicists and cover designers and editors. I am excited about the book. I think it is, hands down, the best book I have ever written. I am stoked about the message — the care with which God protects us from the enemy and his lies. The indisputable fact that God has placed His hand on us and has given His angels the charge of protecting our fragile state.
But, I also know the reading market has softened when it comes to these type of books. Maybe it is the glut of zombies and vampires and magic and fantasy in the world right now. Maybe Christians are tired of reading such Christian speculative fiction. I don’t think so. God is in the Story all around us. I have made sure God is in my story; my book. But, will anyone buy the new book? Will all of my hard work be for nothing? Am I just wasting my time and God’s time?
Such doubts haunt me. They make me pause as I begin to place my hands on the keyboard. These thoughts seize my mind; frigid now and cold in despair. Walk away, Bruce. You are a failure. This is a waste of your time. Go watch television. Go play a video game. Go eat something. Forget this fight against the enemy.
Do you feel my despair? Has this ever happened to you? Just when you are on the brink of massive success in the name of God, you give up and walk away?
Then, like a spark of warmth and light; a flickering ember of hope rose from the ashes of my perceived failure. I stumbled (Right! As if there are really such things as coincidences!) across Laura Story’s newest album. Her song, “Blessings” was a salve for our wounds when we were dealing with our daughter’s illness. There in the list of songs on her newest album was a simple title, “He Will Not Let Go”. I clicked on the song in iTunes and listened — and wept! Here are the lyrics:
It may take time on this journey slow
What lies ahead, I’m not sure I know
But the hand that holds this flailing soul
He will not let go
There may be days when I cannot breathe
There may be scars that will stay with me
But the deepest stains, they will be washed clean.
And He will not let go.
When all around my soul gives way
He then is all my hope and stay
When grief has paralyzed my heart
His grip holds even tighter than the dark
I’ve heard it said
This too shall pass
The joy will come
That the hurt won’t last
So I will trust
That within His grasp
I am not alone
For He will not let go
Go to http://www.laurastorymusic.com and purchase this new album RIGHT NOW! Listen to every song; every word. For here in this song, God has brushed away my pain and my sense of failure. God’s light chases away the dark, smothering lies of the enemy. God shows me in the struggles and triumphs of another believer’s life that I too can be victorious over this moment of paralysis.
And so, I put my hand to the keyboard.
I put my mind to the task of putting BOTH books out there. Someone needs to hear the message God has placed in the simple words of this broken man; this sinner saved by grace who is walking a path he never chose to walk.
Each word I type, each thought I convert to words on this page; each drop of blood that falls from my wounds leads to the foot of the cross — to my Savior. When I feel gravity grip me and the fall is coming I stop for a moment suspended in doubt and I close my eyes and I see the nail scarred hand reaching out and taking mine in its terrible but powerful grip and I remember with tears in my eyes and endless gratitude in my heart that He will not let go!
All Edited out!
Prologue
The Tomemaster
Ah, you return? So curious, you humans. I am surprised you are not frightened by this abandoned insane asylum. However, I have learned over the millennia that humans have a morbid fascination with the macabre.
What is that? You want to know more about the Council of Darkness? Why are you so curious? Do you wish to become a disciple of the Tomemaster and his apprentice, Quibble? There is a cost, you realize? Ultimately, you will have to make the Choice: Whom will you follow? Whom will you serve?
For now, I will open the Grimvox, our repository of stories, and allow you to witness the tale of the eleventh demon and his pursuit of the Ark of Chaos. What is the Ark? Ah, you must be patient, for our story does not begin here in the present. It begins many decades ago.
Quibble, activate the Grimvox!
The above is the prologue for “The 11th Demon: The Ark of Chaos” coming soon! I finished the final corrected line edit this weekend. I’ve been so busy this summer with editing and writing, I’ve neglected this blog, but that will stop now that the book is just weeks from being released. And, to give you a little hint of what goes on in the book, here is a photograph presented without comment:
The Eleventh Demon is Coming!
Don’t Open the Box!!!!!
No Supernatural Elements, Thank You!
That seems to be the sentiment from traditional publishers. We welcome thrillers. But, NO supernatural elements.
I want to thank Mike Dellosso for a kind email response to my last post. He has an awesome new book out. You should definitely buy it. Right now! Don’t wait!
Mike was asking about Christian speculative fiction and its future. I mentioned that I had attended the first Platform Conference in February, 2013 and mentioned some comments from Michael Hyatt.
I revisited my notes from that conference and I wanted to expand on some of Michael’s ideas. These ideas, of course, are part of Platform University (I strongly recommend joining if you have any kind of blog or website) and his own personal site which features one of the best blogs for authors out there and one of the best podcasts for authors of any kind.
At the Platform conference, there was a great deal of discussion of “tribes”. In his book, Platform: Get Noticed in a Noisy World, Michael Hyatt discusses how as authors, we garner the interest of readers who are attracted to our genre. We may start out with a few readers who like our work. They begin to follow our website, twitter feed, Facebook page, or blog. This is what Michael calls our “home base”.
Once these followers begin to come back to our social media on a regular basis, they become a tribe. And, our goal is to keep our tribe interested, happy, and to give them more to consume. As we move away from our “home base” through interaction with other sites, commenting, reposting, etc. our tribe begins to grow and enlarge.
The tribe of Christian speculative fiction is growing. And, it is growing quickly. But, that interest and growth doesn’t necessarily translate into book sales. It reveals a growing interest in the supernatural that is reflected in the current glut of zombie, vampire, and werewolf television shows and movies. It reflects a growing fascination with the fantasy we see in such shows as Game of Thrones. If reflects a growing obsession with science fiction as seen in the huge number of science fiction movies just this summer and the success of super hero movies (and in the case of Arrow, television shows).
Interest in speculative fiction is huge right now. Michael has commented on this aspect of fiction in the past. But, there is a disconnect from the secular readership embracing spec fic and the success of Christian spec fic. Why? The reasons are paramount and the subject, no doubt, of a future post.
Michael shared these encouraging words in the first session of the 2012 American Christian Fiction Writers conference on why ‘today is the best time to be a writer.’
1 — It is easier than ever to do the writing. The tools have never been easier to access, from conferences and books about writing to specific software for writers and other technology.
2– It is easier than ever to do market research. Google made it possible. Facebook and twitter have made it personal. Authors can research their characters and scenes with a few key strokes. Understanding the target audience for a book has never been easier with tools on the internet. ‘Group-think’ is facilitated by creative groups engaging each other through social media and writing circles. Authors can engage readers directly like never before. Authors have the tools to figure out what their platform is, and to build a tribe around it.
3 — It is easier than ever to get into print. Traditional publishing is no longer the only option. Self publishing is viable. It is not necessarily the best option for everyone, but it can be a great option for some. Traditional publishing is far from dead, and if traditional publishers learn to ‘lean into the changes’ being brought by the self publishing phenomenon, it can be an exciting place to be. Traditional publishers need to ask: What do these tools and this model make possible? What are the new opportunities? How can I find new readers in more places?
4 — It is easier than ever to build a tribe. Authors can engage their fans directly. There are new tools like the recently launched bookshout.com site, where authors can interact real-time with readers inside of their own book. Another new site called bookjolt.com, allows readers to read whole books for free online, and interact with authors. These are part of a new concept called social reading, and literally, an author’s book becomes a platform.
5 — It is easier than ever to build a business around your content. After all, it is great to write for writing sake, but most authors would like to earn some income from their writing too. Websites and blogs help you build your platform, engage readers, offer free content, and sell books. A small book business can be a sustainable business.
(Thanks to http://blog.outlawsalesgroup.com/tag/mike-hyatt/ for the above summary! Check out the site for more info on Michael’s comments.)
So, the question for those of us who love speculative fiction is: How do we turn our sub-genre into a successful genre? How do we overcome the obstacles out there that stand between the desire of our culture to consume spec fic and the awareness that these good stories are already there just waiting for them to pick up the book?
What do you think?
Down, But Not Out!
I am frustrated.
I haven’t been posting this summer because of family issues with my daughter’s health. But, she is doing very, very well and it is time for me to re-engage the creative side of my brain.
I haven’t been negligent of my writing. I am finishing up the final edit for “The 11th Demon: The Ark of Chaos” and it will be available hopefully by late October. It will not be available in the usual traditional sense but you will be able to purchase it through bookstores, Amazone, B&N, etc. Now that I am no longer beholden to my previous publisher, I have much more freedom to tell the story the way I want to.
For instance, my previous two books suffered from the word limit demon (pardon the pun). I had to constrain my story to fit 75000 words. That required cutting major story elements and, in some cases, entire characters to fit the required word limit. While I don’t plan on going all Harry Potter on my readers and make the next books 700+ words, I have extended the upcoming book from 75000 to 90000 words.
I am back in the world of self-publishing and it is much different from the first time I self-published back in 2006. Self-publishing has gained in reputation since then. To give you an example, I ran my dilemma by Michael Hyatt back in February. If you don’t know who Michael Hyatt is, go to his website. He was former CEO of Thomas Nelson and has launched his own brand teaching authors how to communicate and how to build a platform for their work. I met him at the first annual Platform conference. Michael took one look at my previous two books in the Jonathan Steel Chronicles and quickly, confidently without hesitation told me to self-publish. This came from a man who was once the CEO of one of the largest Christian publishers in the world!
For a while, I pursued traditional publishing for the third book and met with half-hearted response. I don’t want to disparage my previous traditional publisher, but I think today’s tp’s don’t know how to effectively market Christian speculative fiction. Michael Hyatt made the comment this is the fastest growing sub-genre in Christian publishing. I have discussed problems with this genre in previous posts, the least being that bookstores don’t know where to put these books — Christian publishing or secular publishing areas.
So, it is up to those of us who write such books to decide if we cave in to the poor sales and poor marketing and little recognition or do we press on and continue to write the books God has placed on our hearts and minds. Authors such as Greg Mitchell, Mike Duran, Mike Dellosso, Marc Schooley, Linda Rios Brook, and Conlan Brown write speculative fiction and their works are fantastic, awe inspiring, moving, and wildly imaginative. Their books should be flying off the shelves. Instead, like me, they are struggling with balancing day jobs and writing supernatural thrilling stories that are trying to break their way out of our brains onto the written page.
Here is my plea. Check out the Christian speculative fiction market. But some books. Buy lots of books. Support your favorite Christian speculative fiction author and I’m not just talking about the giants such as Ted Dekker or Frank Peretti or Tosca Lee. Look for us little guys and gals who are struggling and promise to give you a good story — a great read that is wildly imaginative, thrilling, and yet, ultimately redemptive.
Give us a chance!
Buy one of our books as summer comes to a close and then post a review on Amazon or on your blog or your website. Help us flood American readers with the kind of thrilling supernatural stories the world is craving but with a different twist — a Christian worldview. Do that, and we will go a long way to changing the world’s attitudes — changing the world’s perception of reality — and showing the world the light and love of Christ!
I’m Back!
“Dad, I feel normal for the first time in years.”
This one statement drove me to tears. My daughter feels normal. My daughter acts normal!
I haven’t posted in weeks. My family has been in survival mode for so long. Life happens and it is not always good. My son and his wife made a major move to a new town and new job situation. My daughter finally agreed to have some testing performed thanks to her two best friends who agreed to accompany her. The stress level has been beyond 10 for so long I don’t know what it feels like to be normal. But, I will try and become familiar with the feeling again.
My daughter, Casey, in her long protracted battle with migraines and seizures has finally found the perfect medication combination and over the past three weeks my wife and I have watched her blossom and bloom. We have our daughter back! Sorry, but I have to keep the tears off the keyboard. I’ll be back in a moment.
Okay, so I want to thank my blog readers for their thoughts and prayers during this time. Casey is back to her normal self, something we haven’t seen in years.
Through all of this, I have continued to work on my next two books. For the readers of the Chronicles of Jonathan Steel (both books are great summer reads if you haven’t tried them!) I will have the third book available by the end of October, first of November. I am keeping my promise to you, my readers, of having a book out once a year in this story arc.
I am also finishing the final manuscript chapters for the update to “Conquering Depression” with my co-author, Mark Sutton. More on that in the near future, but I am so excited about the opportunity B&H Publishing is giving us to update this book and bring it into the 21st century!
That’s all for now. I’ll be blogging again very soon. I just wanted to take a moment to thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers. God is so good!
Just a teaser:
The 11th Demon: The Ark of Chaos
Just when Jonathan Steel thought he would get a break, he discovers that his mentor, Cephas Lawrence has purchased the house once owned by the evil Robert Ketrick, once in league with the thirteenth demon. And, trapped within the walls of the house’s basement is a dark secret that threatens their existence. When Vivian Darbonne Ketrick arrives in Shreveport to locate the Ark of the Demon Rose, a new evil organization appears to rival the Council of Darkness. Soon, Jonathan, Josh Knight, Cephas, and Theophilus King find themselves involved in government conspiracies, evil powers, and in the clutches of not one, but two powerful demons! What is in the Ark of the Demon Rose? Why is Vivian looking for it? And, who are the mysterious white eyed minions of evil who make Vivian look like a Girl Scout? Find out in the latest installment of the Chronicles of Jonathan Steel in “The 11th Demon: The Ark of Chaos”. Available this fall.
A Summer Update from the Doldrums
Summer Update
FIRST:
“I’m not as strong as you think I am. I am very afraid.”
Many of you have been kind enough to read my posts about my daughter’s struggle with migraines. At the age of 9, my daughter went through a grueling ten day ordeal in California. She underwent 24 hour EEG monitoring attached to a 25 foot tether and isolated in an ICU room. It was the worst time of her life, she told me recently. Although that event was 17 years ago, her memories of those days remain strong. She now has to go through these tests again, this time for her migraines. When she learned about this back in April, she was adamantly against the tests.
For weeks she has been in limbo, too afraid to face those tests again. I have always regarded her as the bravest person in the world for all of the struggles she has faced with her disease. I was shocked when she told me she was afraid. I shouldn’t have been. In spite of her courage, she is tired of fighting this unrelenting, chronic disease that is robbing her of the quality of her life. But, her two best friends, Angelique and Sarah have agreed to go with her and stay with her if she will have the test.
And so, next week, my brave daughter will once again face the most horrifying days of her memory. Only my wife and her will not be alone. She will have friends with her. Please pray for her next week as she struggles to find the courage and the faith to face this one more time.
SECOND
I visited the mall in Dallas today that inspired the opening scene in “The 12th Demon: Mark of the Wolfdragon”. By the way, both “The 13th Demon” and “The 12th Demon” are excellent summer reads. One of my fans sent me an email this past week asking about the next book. He is re-reading “The 13th Demon” to get ready for the next book. Wow! I am humbled.
Anyway, I thought you might enjoy seeing the ice skating rink and the tiered mall where Jonathan Steel, Joshua Knight, and Atchison, the skanky lawyer were sitting in the opening scene. The Chinese restaurant is gone and now replaced with a Subway. Go figure! But, you can also see the maintenance catwalk that inspired the scene. Of course, I am not going to tell you which mall it is. Come to Dallas and explore and you will find it.
Which brings up another development.
THIRD
Will there be a next book? Yes. I am currently working on a deal to release “The 11th Demon: Cult of the Chimera”. The Jonathan Steel Chronicles is not dead yet! If all goes as planned, you will see the next book right here on this website available by the end of October as promised.
To give you some hint as to what the book involves here are some intentionally vague statements:
The story begins in 1963.
There is an arcane chest filled with an evil secret.
Yes, Steel and company end up moving into Robert Ketrick’s creepy house (from “The 13th Demon”).
You will learn a terrible secret from Cephas Lawrence’s past.
You will learn what drove Theophilus Nosmo King to a life of drug addiction.
Vivian gets a new love.
An old enemy returns.
Finally, you will learn that the Dark Council is NOT the only evil organization in the world!
I will bring periodic updates to the website so keep track.
Unto Caesar . . .
Today, I invite you to read a guest post by my son, Sean Hennigan regarding the relationship between Christians and, well, government.
“You place your vote, misplace your hope in men
Who will let you down with empty dreams
And broken promises
It’s hard to keep from giving up
It’s easier to just fold up your arms” – Derek Webb
For some people of faith, last week was a week full of bitter disappointments. They see a moral arc of their universe bending towards corruption and ruin. They hear wars and rumors of wars on the borders of everything they hold dear. They feel threatened, neglected, discounted.
They feel like the world that created and sustained an environment amenable to the presence of God is passing on, and they worry that the world coming has little room for Him, much less His people.
They fear the consequences of a world that rejects their Savior so fully.
I don’t think they’re wrong to be concerned, because salt and light has always been challenging to the systems of the word and men have always rejected light for their love of darkness. To the people of Jesus, these things are not new. They rejected Him andthey will turn away from us, too.
However, I believe that the above is only part of the story.
Christianity has always operated in an uneasy truce with the empires that govern the world around them. Throughout history, the people of God have lived as strangers and sojourners among the kingdoms of the mighty men of old, and to varying degrees found peace and coexistence with them. Very rarely have they been a kingdom of their own, and the times of kingdoms were marred with infighting and born of a desire to be like the other nations surrounding them. The kings frequently struggled to preserve their reigns, and the most prosperous kings in Israel’s history were judged by God for doing evil in His sight. God eventually led them into exile, a defeat of such magnitude that it forced His chosen to be a people again, set apart and strange. His subversion extended even to their well-meaning messianic dreams, which embellished God’s deliverance into a military conquest and return to the kingdoms of old. When God finally fulfilled the kingdom restoration they dreamed of, He hung their mighty ruler to die on an empire’s cross. The victory of God was not over His people’s temporal enemies but their final enemy: death itself. God’s messiah changed the calculus governing the affairs of men, their rules for authority and kingship and power. Jesus inaugurated a kingdom of open peoplehood, a culmination of the promise that God would be King over His people, and they would grow to gather from and convey blessing to the whole world.
There is an uncomfortable truth at the heart of God’s story that we must reckon with now: we long for kings when we believe that God’s headship is not enough.
The American church of the last 100 years has often flirted with political power. America itself has always been a land of immense promise in our imagination, a place where the divine right of the old kingdoms was democratized, where divine blessing manifested not as enforced rule but as a popular consensus. In the 20th century, full of technology and war and the energy of the Great Awakenings, the church was a place of common cultural grounding, a shared quasi-nationalistic identity. Religious belief was a guiding consensus element of national identity, expected of men of influence and injected by government fiat into currency, classroom and national pledge. Jesus became the border guard of our kingdom, separating us from the Axis and the godless Communists and the Muslim powers of the East.
In the last 35 years, the American church has become particularly aware of its power as a voting block. People of faith have gathered to voice their opinions on a number of social and political issues that have been reshaping the cultural and political landscape of the country. We especially oppose the pluralism inherent in the shift in national consensus identity from Judeo-Christian Enlightened Man to inclusive, post-religious Enlightened One. We have become a potent voting bloc and a fervent and well funded special interest group in American political life.
I believe that is wrong.
What I fear is that in the course of our political engagement we have started seeking kings so we can be like the other nations. For every David we find (if we find him at all) we are plagued with ten Sauls, men disingenuously consulting ghosts and forging bad pacts to win victories in conventional terms, hoping to be retroactively blessed because they pursued it in the name of God’s kingdom. We align ourselves with political leaders who claim to be like us, but who all too often exploit our fear and discomfort to accrue power to themselves and to pursue their own political ends.
We do it because we believe that we have no choice. We do it because we are convinced that if we don’t follow the rules of presiding empires then we will be cast aside or persecuted. We want to protect what we love and store up the rich blessing that God provides and we see no other way to do it but through a king.
The trouble with Jesus is that His kingdom, a kingdom of people, transcends nationhood and call us to radical love and sacrifice. God’s Messiah is the fulfillment of Saul and Solomon and Caesar — the God-king whose kingdom is one of wholeness and unity and everlasting peace. He speaks of purchased fields and mustard trees and unfair wages and forgiveness, and He does not idly assent to defend the political fortunes of particular nation-states. His kingdom and people overcome by story and blood, not might or power, as He patiently asserts His reign over the world. When the end comes, He will conquer with a sword in His mouth, it His powerful right hand, and He will judge the nations alongside and through His people.
What temporary power we might hold to enforce our faith through political action is tempting because we believe that we will exercise it fairly. We see our political will as a rare blessing from God to legislate His kingdom into the world, not as a political enshrining of His redemption but as its agent of enforcement. While the government plays a role in protecting from evil and promoting justice and general welfare, we hope it to go further to enforce the particular ethics of our peoplehood on others. We hope that governmental enforcement of the outcomes of our transformation will somehow lead people, in reverse, to their Cause.
We become convinced that we must act because our way of life will be dismissed otherwise. And in defense of conscience and of kingdom, we relive the sins of Saul and David and all the kings who trusted in their own power above the Lord’s, even when they thought they were acting in service of His work. We count our armies and ask Him to bless that work while He beckons us to be His people and desires to be our King. He jealously guards His loving dominion over us, and He shares that dominion and worthiness of worship with no one but His Son.
At our best, at our most true, we are a peculiar people in the world, people who have no home apart from the one we create together with Him and with each other. He works through us to preserve and shape our communities and our culture through radical, sacrificial love. His kingdom work transcends social morays and political boundaries. He is not limited by the boundaries of our expectation and He does not take kindly to the notion that there are places He cannot go. His Spirit wind blows where it pleases and He does need us to take Him there by force.
Ultimately, we are His and He is our king. Ours is the task of loving and serving and living out — His is the finished-but-still-finishing work of His kingdom’s rule. The kingdoms of this world are becoming the kingdoms of our God and King, and we are His children when we like Sarah call Him lord and do not fear anything that is alarming. We persevere through love not into violence and scarcity but into abundance, rest and victorious peace.
When Jesus walked the earth, He resisted the temptation of Satan and of the crowds and even of His disciples to fulfill the militaristic, messianic Kingdom dreams of His day. As His servants-turned-friends, we should expect no less a temptation, and no less a calling, for ourselves.
“One day you’ll wake and the curse will break
And even you won’t be the same.
Your hope is not wasted on a day when everything will change.”
Bruce Hennigan 
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