Faithful Observations: Father of Christian Fiction takes you behind the scenes

By BOB SHILLINGSTAD

Special to The Press

Frank Peretti is far more than a bestselling Christian author. Not only has he sold more than 15 million books, he is also an accomplished musician, popular speaker and Christian apologist. In this part of our interview we wanted to dig deeper into his books and where the inspiration came from.

Let’s begin with the novel that started this journey, “This Present Darkness.” In some ways it reminded me of “Pilgrim’s Progress,” with the imagery of spiritual forces that assist or resist us in our Christian walk, but you took us much deeper. Tell us how this came about.

Throughout scripture we see spiritual forces at work: angels appearing and intervening in the lives of people, Jesus and his disciples confronting and casting out demons, spiritual warfare at a geopolitical level in the book of Daniel. All of that provided plenty of basis for a tale of spiritual warfare in which demons and angels battle for control of a small town while the heroes, a small-town pastor and a nosy newspaper editor, get caught in the middle.

You didn’t stop there. Tell us about the books that followed.

I did a sequel, “Piercing The Darkness,” modeled after an actual court case involving a young girl being coached by her school teacher into contacting a spirit guide. Well now, you might think you’re talking to a spirit, an ascended master, a dead relative, an extraterrestrial, even a cute little pony, but who’s really pulling the strings back there? Who are you really talking to?

In “Prophet,” I used a television newsroom and a news anchor to deal with how the truth is selected, shaped, and then marketed, and how it’s important to love the truth as it really is.

In “The Oath,” I took sin and put it in the form of an insidious dragon that haunts a remote mining town and owns the townsfolk because of a dark oath their forebears signed generations ago.

“The Visitation” deals with a burned out, disillusioned pastor who must find and renew his faith even as a false Christ comes to town claiming to be Jesus, performing miracles to dupe the people, and challenging everything the pastor once believed.

Frank, you are also a very popular writer for kids and young people with about a dozen book titles there. The Cooper Kids Adventure Series gives kids “Indiana Jones” style adventures that pull them in and keep them turning the pages.

And best of all, the books get the kids reading. I love that part. So many parents have told me, “I could never get my kids to read, and then we found your books, and my kids can’t put them down.” So the kids find out that reading can be fun, they keep reading, their imaginations and language skills grow, and that’s thrilling for me.

I don’t know if we can get into the story of every one of your books but there is one that takes place in North Idaho that we have to talk about — and that is “Monster!” Tell us how this book came to be.

Oh, it had to happen: a book about Sasquatch. Bigfoot. Think what you want, believe or don’t, but researching the whole topic of a great, bipedal ape was really intriguing! I interviewed reputable witnesses who have seen Bigfoot and of course their stories mesh convincingly with so many written accounts and studies. All that to say, a story about a heroine actually being “adopted” by a Bigfoot female and all the tracking, hunting, and legend that come into it was a fun book to write and a great read.

That was a story that all of my family read, including most of the grandkids. A great story that also brings in so much about good and evil and truth. Your most recent book is “Illusion” published in 2012. Tell us about that.

It’s an interesting mixture of love story, sci-fi, and the world of stage illusion. Dane and Mandy are veteran stage magicians just about to retire when they are in a terrible auto accident. Mandy is trapped in the burning car and perishes … or, at least that’s what Dane and everyone thinks. Due to mysterious, sci-fi forces, Mandy actually reappears as the 19-year-old she was back in 1970, and from her perspective, the world all around her, our present day, has leaped forward 40 years. She’s never seen a cellphone or a personal computer. She’s never heard of the internet. She thinks Nixon is president.

And worst of all, she has never met her husband, Dane. They’ve never been in love, never been married. She has no idea who he is.

So now we have two lovers who have been married for nearly 40 years separated by a quirk of time, and a story of unraveling the mystery and finding each other again.

You have a few books made into movies, including “Hangman’s Curse” and “The Visitation.” A couple of questions: You had a role in the movie “Hangman’s Curse.” Did you enjoy the acting? Are they going to make any more books into movies? I would love to see “This Present Darkness” as a movie.

In “Hangman’s Curse” I play Algernon Wheeling, the eccentric scientist, forensic egghead, goofy whatever he is. When it came time to cast somebody for that role, the producers pointed at me. Well, if the shoe fits …

It was fun. A great opportunity to learn the movie business.

But as far as the movie business goes, don’t count on it. Over the decades, I’ve been approached time and again by producers who think they can do a film of “This Present Darkness” or one of my other books. Some of them are big names folks would recognize, but the outcome has always been the same: lots of talk, big meetings, phone calls, lawyers’ fees, and valuable time developing screenplays, and then the life just goes out of it. It’s hard to describe all the nothing that’s left after all the hopes and plans vaporize.

“This Present Darkness” made into a movie? Call me if you hear anything. No, better yet, don’t bother. Nevertheless, there are still some fine and well-intentioned people out there having a go at it, so we’ll see what the Lord might do.

Finally, a last question. Many of your books address the struggles of Christians with those who choose to be their enemies. Today, it seems there are even more blatant efforts to marginalize people of faith and restrict their freedoms. What do you see as the state of the Church and Christians in general as they face the spiritual and moral shifts in our culture?

A very big and loaded question. I’m no prophet, but here are a few things I expect:

We — that is, Christians and non-Christians alike — have a choice: we can be in opposition or we can learn how to live and let live. I expect that some of us will choose the latter option and settle for being friends and neighbors despite our differences. The moral revolutionaries will hold to the first option, which means trouble for Bible-believing Christians: their jobs, their reputations, their businesses, their churches. I would offer a word of caution: If you regard yourself as one of the oppressed, take care that you do not become an oppressor yourself.

This is one of the reasons I expect church as we know it to shift into different forms depending on the cultural and political pressures that arise. Another reason for such change is financial: the main givers in the church, my generation and our parents’ generation, are dying out, and with us goes our money. Within 15 years, give or take, many churches are going to have to survive on no more than 30-40 percent of their present budgets. That means staff lay-offs, selling of church properties, more volunteer ministry in the place of paid positions. Many churches are wisely spreading their ministry through home groups, and I expect that’s going to become more the norm than the exception. What is now the tail is going to become the dog.

Jesus promised He would build His church. He just didn’t say He’d build it the way we expect.

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To order any of Frank’s books, visit The Sower Bookstore in Coeur d’Alene or any major bookseller. For DVDs of Frank’s presentations, go to compass.org.