Imagine this book in the middle of that explosion. Oh yes. That’s a lovely mental image.
I’m going to hold that in my head as I read the second book in this series next month and as I read Summa Elvetica in October. Why, you ask? Because this project has managed to raise $5,125 dollars for RAINN and other organizations doing similar kinds of work and, well, I apparently like pain.
#readingVD Doo da da doo doo… https://t.co/Pt8zREZt5y
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 5, 2015
#readingVD *cracks knuckles* Only ten more pages to go. LET'S DO THIS THING.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
Chapter 29: I’ll Be Watching You
#readingVD Chapter 29: I'll Be Watching You. Epigraph from Galatians.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD that's not a creepy-ass chapter title at ALL
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD Chris wakes up in bed, grateful he closed the shades because he's got a HELL of a hangover.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD okay, not really but that would have been awesome.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD He's been awoken by a persistent knocking at the door. It's Jami. She wants to go to church. The one in the school.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD Wait a minute. How did it get to be Sunday. Wasn't it Wednesday earlier? With the weeknight service?
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD Anyhow, Chris doesn't want to go to church. Jami is disappointed, but doesn't get sharp with him.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD So Chris goes back to sleep and as he drifts, half-asleep, Melusine shows up and smooches him.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD that wakes him up in a way his sister and Jesus just can't.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD Melusine is still as hot as ever with her horns, crimson hair, and seductive curves.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD Chris is annoyed but kind of happy to see her.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD Melusine acknowledges that they're on different sides for now, but reminds Chris that Kawm and Lucifer haven't forgotten him.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD Melusine is tempting Chris with the power he had while serving the devil but then he sees what she's trying to do!
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD and he grows a backbone and kicks her out! She won't leave! She taunts him! He prays her away!
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD Then Mariel shows up! And tells Chris he needs to arm himself! By reading the Bible!
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD and Chris can't properly arm himself if he is also concerned with what other people think of him!
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD then Mariel does a slow fade and…Chris goes to church.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD he manages to find his sisters in the throng of 700 people who go to this elementary school church.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD and Jami is just SO HAPPY and Holli sees and ARMY OF ANGELS in gymnasium.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD And then they all sing.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD THE END. (well, still the author's note to go. but that's it for the story.)
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
Yawn.
Author’s Note
#readingVD Author's Note. No epigraph.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD the first sentence of this is a claim that the invisible world of spirits described in the book is real.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD Just like gravity is real, so are angels and demons. This is an analogy that Beale makes.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD The central theme of this book is supposed to be the question of evil and how we respond to it.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD with a lot of bad prose and turgid homoerotic descriptions, apparently.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD Us modern folks have a hard time admitting that evil is a thing! And that people who do evil are CONSCIOUS AGENTS OF SAID EVIL.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD so let us look at Theodore Beale's recent actions through the lens he himself has described.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD or let's not because I think we all know that he is, at best, a Jerkbutt. And goes downhill from there, fast.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD Sin is beautiful seductive, and always always entertaining. So I guess this book isn't sinful because it wasn't entertaining?
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD and we're all sinners in the hands of an angry God
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD aha, now we get to the part where Beale talks about how he wholeheartedly embraced a sinful lifestyle.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD and that this is why he has concentrated on the question of evil in this novel.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD Up until 4 years before this book (1999, so 1995), Beale was not a Christian.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD This is despite the fact that he appears to have been raised in a fundamentalist home (his dad worked for Pat Robertson).
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD I expect Beale would say that he was just pretending up until 1995 or something.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD until he got Jesus, Beale claims to have been living what the world considers an ideal lifestyle.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD Which is totally defined by Hollywood: the car you drive, how hot your dates are, and how happy you feel.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD this is a weird way to define ideal lifestyle but okay whatever, man-child.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD Beale found all this really boring and he craved more excitement and more thrills. Again, let's not look at recent events.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD When Beale compared his life to his friends who were Christian, he knew he had to make a decision.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD because he'd seen positive changes in their lives.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD so this is totally like picking a team? Beale became a Christian because he envied what his friends had?
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD Beale has another friend who doesn't understand how a loving God can send anyone to hell.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD But Beale knows that hell is our natural destination bc we are drowning in a sea of sin & self-destruction.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD OKAY THEN.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD but we can all get out of that sea of sin by grabbing onto the Jesus lifeline!
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD HOWEVER–it's just not enough to accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you have to fight against the forces of evil!
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD I am having a hard time reconciling this kind of earnest author's note with, well, the spittle-flecked crap Beale spews now.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD the EARTH IS A BATTLEFIELD, y'all. (Didn't L. Ron write that series already?)
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD Beale closes out this author's note by making some book recs for non-believers.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD first one is Greg Boyd's Letters from a Skeptic which sounds a little inspired by Gosse's Father and Son.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD and the second book recommended is CS Lewis's Mere Christianity and this makes me sad because I mostly like that one.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD also the Narnia books are brilliant, y'all.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD then there's a plug for the website associated with this book which still exists in the wayback machine.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD So if folks want to peruse or read some Really Terrible Poetry: https://t.co/aOLahkz5pm
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD I'll note that the bad poetry and religious stuff is on earlier iterations of the site.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD but most of all, of course, Beale recommends one read the Bible. He likes the NIV translation the best.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD and the book closes out with Beale's hope that God blesses and protects the reader.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
#readingVD and with that, it's a wrap. Over 60 donors, entirely too many tweets, and over $5,000 raised to help combat sex abuse.
— Imperator Nataliosa (@eilatan) August 6, 2015
THE END.
Karaeir says
August 7, 2015 at 2:24 pmThanks for doing this, it was briliant! (And I feel for you, getting through must have been tough)
But I mostly wanted to point out that Narnia books probably aren’t as great as you think, I’ve loved them as a child and recently I’ve found Ana Mardoll’s deconstruction of the series… and oh boy. I really erased from my brain/just didn’t notice a lot of bad stuff in these books. Seriously, you should read them again or check out Ana’s website.
Also: I’m kinda sad that “The War In Heaven” was that bad (I knew it was going to be like this bc Vox Day, but ehhh) because books about angels have a lot of potential… especially if the person writing them isn’t that much into christianity side of things. For example, in my country we have a series of really popular fantasy books about angels where God has basically disappeared one day leaving his Seraphim in charge (or rather they decided that they are in charge) and everything is really grey, the “good” angels are not any better than most “bad” angels and everyone is confused. And angels shoot guns. And Lucipher never wanted to be a ruler or a chief rebel, but he complained and then things got out of hand. And lake of fire is a popular holiday resort. Also, everyone has anime hair colours. General awesomeness all around. Of course, Vox Day could never write anything as good.