This Present Darkness
By Frank Peretti
Crossway Books
This month, Christian audio is offering an abridged version
of This Present Darkness as a free download. It’s been many a year since I
read the book, but I was a fan of it, so I devoured the audio version very
quickly. As a note, this review is on
the audio abridgment, not the original novel, since I don’t remember the
original novel well enough to review it.
Also as a note, they abridged way
too much of the story out. It looks like
they were trying to fit the entire thing on three CDs, and I really wish they
had added at least one more disc.
I am not generally a fan of “Christian” novels, at least the
ones published in the last few decades.
They are either really goofy, or outright heretical. Peretti is different. I like his work quite a bit. He’s a good writer, capable of fast-moving
plots and good suspense, and he appears to be basically Orthodox, as far as I
can tell. He is certainly Pentecostal in
his theology, so we should have differences with him there, but based on what
I’ve read, I’m under the impression that he is a Christian brother who also
writes well.
Angels and Demons
In this particular post, I want to touch on the thing that
really separates this novel from the others.
I remember, vaguely, when this book came out. A lot of people were talking about the
depictions of the angels and demons in it.
That’s the part that caught a lot of people’s imaginations, and it
remains an intriguing aspect of the story.
Despite our often obsessions with angels and demons, the
Bible doesn’t tell us a whole lot about them.
Oddly, we seem to ignore everything that the Bible actually does say and
instead picture little Cupids or some attractive blond-haired woman with soft
wings.
Peretti doesn’t do that, and I am thankful for that.
The first thing we should note is that angels are terrible
to look at, and I mean “terrible” in the way of “filling you with terror.” Whenever an angel appears to a person in the
Bible, it is normally followed by the words, “Do not be afraid!” That is because the person is prone to be
afraid.
Angels are able to take human form, though it is unclear as
to how often this actually happens. The
passage that comes to mind is the two angels who went to Sodom to check the
place out. There is nothing about them
in that story that sets them apart at first glance as angels.
A lot of the book is focused on angels and demons fighting
against one another. The Bible confirms
that this does take place. Daniel
relates an encounter with an angel in chapter 10, verse 11-14:
And when he had spoken this word to me, I stood up trembling. Then he said to me, “Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words. The prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days, but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I was left there with the kings of Persia, and came to make you understand what is to happen to your people in the latter days. For the vision is for days yet to come.”
He is using the term “princes” here for angels, but what
happened is clear. The angel was
dispatched to Daniel, but was waylaid for three weeks until Michael came to
assist him.
That sounds like it would have been pretty epic to witness.
Jude (v. 9) as well tells us of a battle between Michael and
Satan: “But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was
disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a
blasphemous judgment, but said, ‘The Lord rebuke you.’”
How does this play out in space and in time? The Bible doesn’t tell us. Since angels and demons are spiritual
creatures, we may not even understand it if we were told. Peretti’s depiction of swords and war seems a
good anthropomorphic representation of what is happening. It’s certainly not exactly that way, but
these fights may be described in that way for the sake of the story. I do not believe there is anything wrong with
depicting it in that way, in other words.
This depiction reminds me of C. S. Lewis’ classic The Screwtape Letters, in which demons are again anthropomorphized
for our benefits to teach us something of their ways and strategies.
That being said, let us stress this point – Peretti’s
version of these things should be viewed as a fictional depiction of the
spiritual realm, not taken as pure theological teaching. We have a great many people who are way too
concerned with angels and demons, trying to cast them out all the time and name
them and blame them for all sorts of goofiness.
Yes, they are real. Yes, they
have real effects on our lives. But let
us take our cue from the godly figures of the Bible in addressing them. Even the Apostles only rarely had any
dealings with demons. And if the
Apostles themselves did not speak of them often or have encounters with them
often, then we should be cautious in making declarations about them.
Again, I would urge those who see demons around every corner
(and also those who dismiss them completely) to look more to Scripture to guide
us on this subject. God’s Word does not
spend a lot of time describing demons and angels, and we likewise should not
get imbalanced in this area. At the same
time, Scripture confirms that they are real, and we should not pretend
otherwise.
The Strongman
Let us look to one demon in particular – the Strongman. I thought it very odd that this demon would
be named such. Of course, this is a
reference to Jesus’ own words when the Pharisees accused him of doing His works
by the power of the devil:
Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand. And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or how can someone enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house.-Matthew 12:25-29
The strong man here is Satan. He is too powerful for us, and we are under
his foot in our sin and rebellion. But
he is not too strong for Christ, who is the one who binds Satan and frees us
from the clutches of death. Jesus is
saying here, not only is He not casting out Satan by the power of Satan, but
that He is overcoming Satan.
The Strongman in the book is not Satan, though he is said to
have the ear of Satan. So I’m not sure
why Peretti chose that name. I think
he’s trying to reference that passage to give us an idea of how powerful this
particular demon really is, but I think it just causes confusion. I would have preferred a renaming of this
particular character.
But we will continue look at this book a bit more in the
next post.
