When Evil Wears a Mask

Through the ages evil has presented itself as good, and many who behold it see only goodness. It was that way in the beginning—in the Garden. And now, evil seems to mask itself everywhere we turn.

Recent events brought evil into view in Charlottesville. The obvious wrong of the day was accompanied by something that seemed right. It was the cry of the New America, a divided country twisting history and fighting to sweep away the good with the bad. After this terrifying incident, I rummaged through Twitter to see what the citizens of our country were thinking. Here are a few tweets that caught my attention:

White nationalist, Peter Cvjetanovic is upset that this photo of him has gone viral. So please don’t retweet this tweet 1000s of times.

Of course, the sarcastic challenge took this picture to the heights of Twitterdom, and nothing about it leads me to think this young man wants to hide behind a mask of goodness. The evil seems clear. If he portrays himself as a hater, and he’s surrounded by haters, then he’s a hater. But evil did show up wearing a mask, both at the event and in the express opinion of the public. Here’s another tweet:

An American woman was killed by one group: White Christian Radicals. Use the words.

This statement wears of a mask of good intention—get rid of Christian teaching because it’s synonymous with terrorism. But it misidentifies the culprit, and from an evil idea grows the ever-evolving opinion that to be against Christianity is good. To be for Christianity is somehow un-American. Which brings me to another tweet:

It's not that ironic considering that one of the main reasons they are protesting is due to the biased libs changing history in classrooms.

I grew up learning the support of the Christian community aided in abolishing slavery, one of the greatest evils ever accepted as something supposedly good for America. If anyone believes taking the role of Christian Americans out of the history books is good for our children, then evil’s mask is present in the form of a weak caricature of reality.

If Twitter had been around in the 1520s, this statement from Martin Luther (in 140 character increments, of course) might still be re-tweeted today:

Though our children live in the midst of a Christian world, they faint and perish in misery because they lack the Gospel in which we should be training and exercising them all the time. I advise no one to place his child where the Scriptures do not reign paramount. Schools will become wide-open gates of hell if they do not diligently engrave the Holy Scriptures on young hearts. Every institution where men are not increasingly occupied with the word of God must become corrupt.

To the Christian, this is an eerie portrayal our present condition. Reliance on the Word of God helped form our great nation, and the precepts of Christianity lie deeply rooted in our past. Even so, our future must be upheld by the right understanding that we are free to believe what we will. All of us. If one American is denied this right, we all lose.

But we’re being taught by the whims of society, or the media, or the politicians to believe that what is good is bad. A Christian worldview is unacceptable. Yet it’s the same evil of the ages wearing a mask to convince us that what is bad is good.

As for those of us who claim Christ, our government, for now at least, protects our right to freely believe what we will. Here’s the truth about radical Christians: We do not believe in any form of racial supremacy. We do not hate the difference, but rather embrace it. We are multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, diverse, accepting, and loving. We are friends. We are family. A demonstrator of hate who calls himself a Christian is a liar. He might be radical, but he’s not one of us.

This picture is another gem from Twitter:

A woman who survived the thick of the fight is ready to fight again. I don’t want that kind of war for this dear woman, or for my Christian brothers and sisters, or for my country. But someday I may face a battle like the one she endured. I pray I’m equipped to stand unafraid against the contortion of evil masking itself as good.

Welcoming a Summer of Weirdness

Well, like last year I’m taking the summer off from blogging. Here’s what I’ll be working on: In a few weeks, I’ll release a novelette. If you’ve ever wondered what makes a book a novelette, a novella, or a novel, here’s the determining factor: A novelette contains between 7,500 and 17,499 words. A novella contains between 17,500 and 39,999 words. And a novel has more than 40,000 words. My own novels run about 80,000 words.

My novelette is around 13,000 words, which makes it about fifty pages long. Oh, but there won’t be any pages because it will only be available on Kindle. This really short novel (or really long short story) is called Gears. Here’s the blurb:

What happens in the black box truck? Rae hopes she never finds out. She hides at night from the truck and the slavers. The truck is a mystery, but the screaming inside it can’t mean anything good. The slavers are more obvious—they’re out for young drifters to supply their markets. And they’ve got their sights set on Rae. After a stranger rescues her from being captured and sold, she hides in an old house, where she’s brave enough, or stupid enough, to read an outlawed book.

When she meets her hero she finds out he’s the one who drives that black truck. Is he an enemy or a friend? After he saves her again, she decides to trust him. And she steps inside the truck she swore to avoid to her death. Will the enticing young man bring her salvation a third time? Or will Rae be the one whose screams fill the darkness tonight?

Okay, if you’re thinking that sounds weirder than my transhuman’s woeful tale, you’re right. Gears is young adult post-rapture dystopian with a little steampunk thrown in for fun. Yeah, one of those. Yes, it’s got a Christian slant. No, the Christian market is still not too open to this kind of stuff. So I’m stubborn. I write what I’d like to read. And as I’ve said before, it ain’t Amish romance. 

I’ll also spend some summer days working on my next novel. It’s a book for the Christian market…and it’s atypical for the target readership. Again. But it’s not futuristic, or sci-fi, or dystopian. And that’s all I have to say about that for now.

As for my sweet, misunderstood, on-the-run transhuman, book three releases September 22! Transfusion brings the journey of Chase Sterling to a satisfying conclusion. Is it a real ending? I’m not sure I can end a story, but it is book three of a trilogy so we’ll call it the end. Here’s the blurb:

Held captive in the frozen wilderness, transhuman Chase Sterling almost loses faith that he’ll ever be reunited with his bride and with the persecuted souls he’s promised to guard. His escape leads to even greater struggles, and discoveries about his own abilities. At last, he arrives at the unusual location his people have chosen as a hiding place. And then things get complicated. His wife’s been kidnapped and the underground faces annihilation. Victory and heartbreak build Chase’s resolve, until he is forced to face his worst fear. Now he must choose whether to sacrifice himself. He's endured so much since they transformed him into the world's first transhuman, but will he survive the final transfusion?

Watch for my guest blog post at ACFW in July, and for new posts at Unchained beginning September first. Enjoy your summer. Read a book or two, even if it’s Amish romance. As for me, I’ll be writing something weird.