I say bravo to Randy Alcorn and Frank Peretti for offering us characters such as Jake Woods and Marshall Hogan in books like Deadline and This Present Darkness.
Alcorn, who lives in Gresham, Oregon, is the founder and director of Eternal Perspective Ministries (EPM), a nonprofit ministry. Alcorn, who holds bachelor of theology and master of arts in biblical studies degrees from Multnomah University, served as a pastor at Good Shepherd Church in rural Boring, Oregon for 14 years before he started Eternal Perspective Ministries in 1990, after a writ of garnishment for Alcorn’s wages was served on Good Shepherd Church on May 4, 1990, where he was pastor of missions, ordering the church to surrender a portion of his wages.
In 1989, Portland police, as Tim Stafford later noted in an April 1, 2003 piece for Christianity Today, had arrested Alcorn “several times for blocking the doors of several abortion clinics. One of the clinics had sued him and other ‘rescuers,’ winning a small judgment plus attorney’s fees. Alcorn had refused to pay, believing it would violate his conscience to write a check to an abortion clinic.”
As Stafford tells the story, “Some time before the suit, Alcorn and his wife, Nanci, had placed all their assets in her name – house, car, and bank account. Alcorn had given away or sold the copyrights to his five published books. At a debtor’s hearing he was able to state truthfully that he owned nothing of value. An opposing lawyer went so far as to ask about the gold band he was wearing on his left hand.
“Alcorn held up the ring, milking the drama of the moment. ‘I’m not sure what it’s worth today, but I paid $12.50 for it at Kmart four years ago.'”
“Alcorn had not anticipated having his wages garnished, however. This implicated not just Alcorn’s conscience, but also that of his church. If the church refused to pay, serious legal complications could follow. Many church members had grave doubts about the wisdom of Alcorn’s protests.”
So Alcorn resigned two days later from Good Shepherd Church, which he had co-founded, and was the only church he had ever pastored.
Deadline, written in 1994, was Alcorn’s first novel after writing five non-fiction books. It tells the story of three old friends, whose friendships date back to childhood and their service in Vietnam: Jake Woods, a liberal and largely secular journalist who is an award-winning syndicated columnist for the Oregon Tribune; Dr. Greg “Doc” Lowell, chief of surgery at the local hospital, and a diehard atheist and humanist; and Finnegan “Finney” Keels, a devout Christian and the owner of a computer software business – represent two conflicting worldviews that Jake has to choose between after a halftime Kansas City Chiefs and Seattle Seahawks football-watching Sunday afternoon pizza-and-Coors beer run to Gino’s in Lowell’s cherry-red Suburban ends in tragedy, leaving Woods as the sole survior of what may not be an accident, as it first appears, but rather a double homicide.
In endorsing Deadline, Frank Peretti wrote: “Randy Alcorn is a walking resource library guided by godly wisdom. Like his nonfiction, this novel is for clear thinkers who enjoy a good argument. There can be no mistaking – and there should be no ignoring – the vital message of this book.”
Trumpeted in both TIME and Newsweek as the creator of the crossover Christian thriller, Lethbridge, Alberta-born Peretti now lives in northern Idaho (he spent from 1978 to 1984 as a factory ski maker working at the K2 ski company on Vashon Island in Washington State’s Puget Sound) wrote two of the best-selling spiritual warfare novels in recent times – This Present Darkness, published in 1986 and Piercing the Darkness, published in 1989.
He also played the banjo in a bluegrass band called Northern Cross.
This Present Darkness was not an immediate publishing phenomenon, but gradually word began to spread, and the book remained on the Christian Booksellers Association’s Top 10 bestsellers list for over 150 consecutive weeks. It has sold over two million copies worldwide. This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness, popularized the idea of territorial spirits ruling over specific geographical areas, vividly portraying demons, commanded by Rafar, and angels – led by Tal, captain of the heavenly host – engaging in fierce aerial battles over schools, churches, towns and territories, have combined sales of more than 3.5 million copies.
And one of the unlikely heroes of This Present Darkness? The fictional editor of the local small town weekly newspaper, the Ashton Clarion, former big city reporter and skeptic Marshall Hogan.
Deadline, which remained on various bestsellers lists for 36 months, was the first in Alcorn’s Ollie Chandler collection of novels to date, featuring Chandler as a brilliant and quick-witted homicide detective who lives by Ollies’ First Law: “Things are not what they appear.” Dominion followed Deadline in 1996, and a third book, Deception, was published in 2007.
Alcorn spent time with Portland homicide detectives, Tom Nelson, a now retired detective sergeant and certified forensics computer examiner from the Portland Police Bureau, and columnists at the Oregonian, as well as observing editorial meetings at the Indianapolis Star, so he could accurately create the Deadline’s storyline, setting and characters.
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