Is This Dying? (excerpt from THE RESISTANCE)

3

HELL FIRE

Teen, atheist to BBC "voice of faith."

For an instant, as Evans free fell from the spiraling bomber, he was certain the right wing was going to pound into his body like the arm of a giant windmill. Hot black smoke engulfed him, choking him, the heat from the burning engines suffocating him, singeing his hair. The ground rushing closer.

Why had he not gone into the infantry? As God intended, both feet firmly on the ground? He hated heights, always had. “Keep your eyes on the instruments and fly the plane,” his father had knowingly advised him.

He didn’t remember pulling the ripcord. Just a violent wrenching as his chute harness tried to crush the breath out of him, then nausea, and wincing pain in his left shoulder.

Then silence. His ears ringing from the chaos of noise he’d just escaped—engines roaring, machine guns spewing bullets, the high-pitched whine of the Fw 190s, more machine guns firing, the horrifying rush of air as he free fell through the bomb bay. And now silence, utter, floating silence.

For an instant, Evans wondered if this was death. Had he died and was this floating to heaven? Was there such a place? War had made him a firm believer in hell. But was there a heaven? And if so, who on earth—on such an earth—would be going there?

Then, behind and somewhere below his right boot, hanging prone from his chute harness, he heard a sickening crash as 25,000 tons of doomed aircraft hit the ground. Straining to see, he watched his B-17 erupt in a belching cloud of orange flame and black smoke. No, only a delusional fool would deny hell fire.

Tearing his eyes from the burning wreckage, Evans counted parachutes, one, two, three—he looked upward at the taut underside of his chute—four. Six of his crew didn’t make it. They were gone. A violent shudder ran down his spine. He was responsible for his men. He hoped they had died before the crash, before experiencing that burning inferno. He would write letters to their families, if he got the chance.

Suddenly, two of the chutes below him sagged and deflated. Two of his men were on the ground, in a pasture, bordered by a narrow road, enclosed on either side by a hedgerow. Alarmed at the sudden intrusion, three or four white cows kicked up their heels and fled.   

His navigator’s chute and his own were drifting sideways in a breeze, westward, as near as he could calculate. Then he saw them. Three trucks, a staff car, and two motorcycles.

His heart sank. Gunmetal gray paint, iron cross on the doors, swastika fluttering from the hood of the staff car...

Douglas Bond, author of a number of successful books of historical fiction, biography, and practical theology, podcasts at The Scriptorium, speaks at churches and conferences, and leads historical tours in Europe. Order a signed copy of The Resistance at bondbooks.net.

Savonarola, Man on Fire--newest biography, coming soon!

Forthcoming new biography

It's been a delight researching and writing about the fascinating and complicated pre-reformer, Girolamo Savonarola. This is my first co-authored book, with INKBLOTS founder and friend Doug McComas. And this book marks another first: I have occasionally made artist recommendations on my other books, but I have never had a publisher bite the hook on one of my artist suggestions--until now! Sarah Bye, artist extraordinaire, has created a vivid and human depiction of the man and of Florence his home, and where he was martyred, and Evangelical Press loved it. The book will release very soon.

Here is an excerpt from the opening chapter:

“Siamo perduti!” The cry echoed off the marble statues and fine stonework of the streets and plazas of Florence, Italy. “We are ruined!” What Florentines feared had come upon them. It was September 21, 1494 and the birthplace of the Renaissance was paralyzed with dread. Greedy for blood, the army of the king of France had crossed the Alps and was on the march to Florence. In a matter of days Charles VIII’s soldiers would be thundering at the gates of the city. 

"The expedition of Charles VIII into Italy," wrote Edward Gibbon, "changed the face of Europe." In those gut-wrenching days, Florentine mothers and children cared little for what happened to the face of Europe. But they were horrified for their own lives. In despair, they crowded into the cathedral church of Santa Maria del Fiore, long-awaited innovation of the architectural genius, Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446). The Duomo had become the virtual symbol of the Renaissance. Since its completion in 1436, the cathedral’s dome remains the largest masonry dome in the world, the grand marvel not only of the city but of the entire cultural movement. One awed contemporary said the Duomo was "vast enough to cover the entire Tuscan population with its shadow."

With lecherous French soldiers slavering at her gates, terrified Florentines sought refuge under that vast dome. They had gathered to hear the prior of San Marco, the fiery preacher who had expelled the Medicis and their tyrannies. That man was Girolamo Savonarola (1452-1498).

When Savonarola ascended the high pulpit, his congregation—numb with fear—longed for some words of comfort from his lips. He looked out on their upturned faces. “For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth,” the Dominican friar gave out his text, “to destroy all flesh” (Genesis 6:17). The somber manner in which he read the sacred words sent a shudder through every man, woman, and child that stood before him. Eyewitness to the sermon, philosopher Pico della Mirandola said that Savonarola’s terrifying words made his hair to stand on end. And with the preacher’s every word, the French army came on to their destruction—just as he had prophesied.

SAVONAROLA’S WORLD

Savonarola’s world reads like the guest list at a royal banquet, a veritable who’s who of celebrated personages. He breathed the air of the famous and the infamous, the notable and the notorious, the gifted and the great.

 
Born in Ferrara in 1452, he shared a birth year with Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci. As Savonarola’s mother labored to deliver her son...

Today I start my newest book: historical fiction set in the Puget Sound!

Gillian at Fort Nisqually (very near our home)

NEW BOOK STARTED TODAY! P&R Publishing has created a new series/collection of my books, THE HEROES AND HISTORY SERIES; Hostage Lands, Hand of Vengeance, with my forthcoming books on Wycliffe (1300s England) and the Huguenots (1500s France) soon to join the new collection.

The H&H series is designed to be the place where other ideas I have for historical fiction will collect themselves together into what we hope will be an invaluable collection of books for anyone who loves history.

Most recently I will be immersed (after a fun family visit to nearby Fort Nisqually) in a 19th-century Pacific Northwest, Hudson Bay Company yarn set in the Puget Sound and Fort Nisqually (very near my home). There would be a Scots connection (my lens may be a young Scots voyager), as there were many Scots immigrants (and some French Canadians) employed by the HBC.

I guess it would be sort of a Bond version of some of the favorite frontier stories out there for young adult readers. Mine will have lots of beaver trapping, PNW trading musket shooting, salmon fishing, horses, HMS Beaver steamer for the HBC, small boat sailing, Douglas fir felling, log cabin building, trading and friendship with coastal Indians, frontier tensions between American and British settlers, the Pig War, and the rising storm to the Civil War.

I'm really, really excited about beginning this book TODAY! Pray for me. Now I'm back to work...

DUNCAN'S WAR the movie--AFM launch in California

AFM launch poster for the film

The last several days have been an exciting flurry of activity. Duncan's War the movie has been germinating in the imaginations of two film-industry fellows in California. I first met Phillip Moses when I was speaking at a conference in southern California fall of 2010 (his wife was a student of mine years ago at CHS). They drove down from the Bay area, and we chatted about books and film after one of my addresses. Some time later he called me and floated the initial idea of making a big-screen film of Duncan's War. We have had multiple conversations (phone, email, texts, facebook, etc) since.

To be honest, I have vacillated from excited to incredulous, to excited again, to incredulous again--and now to excited. For the first time in more than two years, I actually am beginning to believe these guys will do this, and do it well. One of my big concerns has been that I don't want to dilute the book by turning it into a movie. Novelist John le Carre expressed his chagrin at what film can do to good fiction when he said, "Having your book turned into a movie is like seeing your oxen turned into bullion cubes." I so do not want to
see that happen to Duncan's War. Neither does the producer.

Many of you have messaged me asking how you can help. A number of you are in the film industry or aspiring to be so. It takes a significant team to produce a quality film. So connect with the producer, Phillip Moses, here https://www.facebook.com/DuncansWar. And if you know talented young actors for the film, especially ones who've grown up in the heather and the moorlands, post their contact information to Mr Moses; he's the man, or to James Chung, art director; he's also the man.

And for those of you who are enthusiastic about this, though you may not be an actor, know an actor, or be involved in film making, all of you can like and share the Duncan's War the movie facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/DuncansWar. Film executives and distributors at the AFM conference in LA are watching, sometimes with bewilderment, but they are watching the mounting enthusiasm for this movie. Tell them what you think; they're listening. Like and share today.

Maybe it is not playacting after all!

John Knox--not a Metro Male: JOHN KNOX at 500 (1514-2014)

Excerpt from THE MIGHTY WEAKNESS OF JOHN KNOX,  by Douglas Bond (Reformation Trust, 2011).

John Knox’s Mighty Weakness

 “John Knox felt toward [Scotland’s] idolaters,” wrote historian Roland Bainton, “as Elijah toward the priests of Baal.”[i] Recollect what Elijah was called to do to the priests of Baal, by the express command of God, drawing his sword and cutting down 450 of the deceitful clerics. Men called to be prophets—to do feats such as Elijah was called to do--are not generally touchy-feely, kinder-gentler, metro males. Far from it. In redemptive history, the Elijahs have been tortured voices crying in the wilderness, lone men called to take their stand against gnashing critics, men charged with the profoundly unpopular task of declaring God’s word to people who have taken their stand with the enemies of God’s word. Such men inevitably find themselves in the crosshairs of critics. For his Elijah-like zeal, Knox is—as was his spiritual, theological, and pastoral mentor, John Calvin—“as easy to slander as he is difficult to imitate.”[ii]

As with any mere man, besieged by controversy in turbulent times, called upon to do significant things, ones that affect the fortunes of many people,[iii] staunch critics have found plenty in John Knox to criticize. He had rough edges, some would call them tragic deficiencies, even fatal flaws. Like all great men, strip him of his God-given might, and the thundering power of his calling, and what remains is a mere mortal, a small man, “low in stature, and of a weakly constitution,”[iv] one who, when first called to preach, declined, and when pressed, “burst forth in most abundant tears” and fled the room.[v] But then such was Elijah, cowering in a hole, feeling sorry for himself, and begging God to deliver him from his enemies. Yet by the grace of God, who alone makes weak men strong, Elijah and Knox lived lives that were characterized far more by power and influence than by weakness and obscurity.

What transforms a man from a hand-wringing nobody into a theological thunderbolt, a bull-horn of bravery, a commando of conviction, into the unflinching left tackle of the Reformation? Is it mere hyperbole to say that “Knox was a Hebrew Jeremiah set down on Scottish soil”?[vi] With the zeal of a Jeremiah, Knox thundered against the “motley crowd of superstitions” that infested religious life in sixteenth-century Scotland, and he considered his country’s devotion to such error as far worse “than the idols over whose futility Hebrew prophets made merry.”[vii] When God’s messengers mounted the rooftops decrying people’s transgressions against Yahweh—Hebrew ones or Scottish ones--the multitudes responded, not surprisingly, with rancor and violence.

So it has been with John Knox. In his lifetime he was denounced by regents, queens, and councils, and his effigy was hoisted high and burned at the Mercat Cross in Edinburgh.[viii] Ridiculed as “Knox the knave,” and “a runagate Scot,” he was outlawed and forbidden to preach by the Archbishop of St. Andrews, with orders issued to shoot him on sight if he failed to comply. Knox did not comply. Years later a would-be assassin fired a shot through a window of Knox’s house at Trunk Close in Edinburgh, narrowly missing his mark.[ix] And still Knox preached.

And what of his legacy since his death in 1572? The English Parliament, 140 years after Knox’s death, condemned his books to public burning. In 1739 George Whitefield was ridiculed for preaching “doctrine borrowed from the Kirk of Knox.” Perhaps more than any other, he has been portrayed as “the enfant terrible of Calvinism,”[x] and has been characterized in books and film, and at his own house, now a museum, as a “blustering fanatic.”[xi] Moderns dismiss him as a misogynist for his untimely treatise against female monarchs, and for his unflinching stand before charming Mary Queen of Scots, denouncing her sins, and calling her to repent. In 1972, the 400^th anniversary of his death, it was decided that such a man as Knox was an inappropriate subject to commemorate on a Scottish postage stamp. As a crowning blow, the Edinburgh Town Council ordered the removal of the stone marking his grave, relegating his earthly resting place to obscurity under a variously numbered parking stall.[xii] In my most recent visit to Edinburgh the “JK” once legible on a small square marker was completely obliterated.

As faithless Israel resented Jeremiah’s prophesy of doom and destruction for her whoredom against the Lord, so, for the most part, has Scotland come to resent the life and ministry of John Knox. Knox himself, however, would have been little troubled by such neglect, even hostility. It seems to be an essential quality in truly great men of God that they care far more for the glory of Jesus Christ than for themselves, which is reason enough to examine closely the life of such a man as John Knox...

CONSIDER JOINING AUTHOR Douglas Bond and his wife Cheryl on the Knox @ 500 Scotland Tour in 2014. Space is limited.

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[i] Roland H. Bainton, The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century (Boston: Beacon Press, 1952), 181.

                                              

[ii] Theodore Beza, Life of John Calvin (London: L. B. Seeley and Sons, 1834), 76.

[iii] Patrick Fraser Tytler, The History of Scotland from the Accession of Alexander III. To the Union (Edinburgh: William P. Nimmo, 1869), 2:355.

[iv] Howie, The Scots Worthies, 63.

[v] John Dickinson Knox and William Croft Dickinson, John Knox’s History of the Reformation in Scotland (New York: Philosophical Library, 1950), 1:83.

[vi] Mark Galli, The Hard-to-Like Knox, Christian History, (Issue 46, Vol. XIV, no 2, 1995), 6.

[vii] Alexander Smellie, The Reformation in its Literature (London: Andrew Melrose, 1925), 245.

[viii] Howie, The Scots Worthies, 52.

[ix] Ibid, 56-57.

[x] Wayne Martindale and Jerry Root (Eds), The Quotable Lewis (Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House, 1989), 365.

[xi] Bainton, The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, 180.

[xii] Iain Murray, John Knox: The Annual Lecture of the Evangelical Library for 1972 (London: Evangelical Library. Edinburgh: Banner of Truth Trust, 1973), 3.