It may be fiction, but it’s still nice to see evangelical authors Randy Alcorn and Frank Peretti haven’t given up completely on journalists and the secular media

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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Catholic cooking: From Pope Francis’ love for Buenos Aires pizzerias to Father Leo Patalinghug, the TV show Filipino ‘Cooking Priest’

“If smell and sound are important to Catholics, so, too, taste,” I wrote last Dec. 18 in a blog post headlined “With our O antiphons, Smoking Bishops and ‘sinful servants’ we are the Church Militant on Earth.” I noted that we had borrowed the “Smoking Bishop,” a mulled wine wassail, “in a spirit of ecumenical breaking of bread at table” from our “Anglican (also known as Episcopalian and Church of England, depending what country you are reading this post in) brothers and sisters, particularly Charles Dickens….” You can read that earlier Christmastide post in its entirety at https://soundingsjohnbarker.wordpress.com/2014/12/18/with-our-o-antiphons-smoking-bishops-and-sinful-servants-we-are-the-church-militant-on-earth/

As today marks the Fourth Sunday of Lent, could be food is simply on my mind a bit, as I wrote in another post Feb. 13 headlined “Shrived by the confessor: Fat Tuesday and Ash Wednesday arrive for penitents as the liturgical season of Lent is upon us, but not before one last rich feast of pancakes Feb. 17 as shrovetide ends” and Ash Wednesday was some 26 days ago now: https://soundingsjohnbarker.wordpress.com/2015/02/13/shrived-by-the-confessor-fat-tuesday-and-ash-wednesday-arrive-for-penitents-as-the-liturgical-season-of-lent-is-upon-us-but-not-before-one-last-rich-feast-of-pancakes-feb-17-as-shrovetide-ends/

In any event, something Pope Francis said in a recent interview,  to mark the second anniversary of his election to the papacy March 13, with Valentina Alazraki, the veteran Vatican correspondent for Mexico’s Noticieros Televisa at Casa Santa Marta, the Vatican hotel where he has lived since his election on March 13, 2013, caught my eye. Alazraki has covered the Vatican for Noticieros Televisa since 1974. The Spanish-language section of Radio Vaticano published a full transcript of the interview March 12, which you can read here at: http://es.radiovaticana.va/news/2015/03/12/segundo_aniversario_de_la_elecci%C3%B3n_del_papa_francisco/1128922, while an English-language summary of its contents published March 13 by Vatican Radio is available to read here at: http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2015/03/13/pope_francis_on_his_pontificate_to_date/1129074

It wasn’t the prediction that the 78-year-old pontiff expects to have a short papacy of maybe four or five years that really caught my eye.  Perhaps if Pope Francis had suddenly embraced Jack Van Impe, Cris Putnam and Tom Horn’s view, along with others on the far reaches of Protestant evangelicalism, that he was indeed “Petrus Romanus” (Peter the Roman), who would be history’s last pope, according to the Prophecy of St. Malachy (https://soundingsjohnbarker.wordpress.com/2014/09/04/the-prophecy-of-malachy/), also known as the Prophecy of the Popes, from 1139, then the time element really would have caught my eye. Alas for would-be date setters and their eschatological ilk (some of whom like to deny they are date setters even when they are for all practical purposes) he didn’t do that. No, what really caught my eye was Pope Francis saying the only thing he really misses as pope is the ability “to go out to a pizzeria and eat a pizza,” adding that even as Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio in Buenos Aires he was free to roam the streets, particularly to visit parishes.

Almost half the population of Buenos Aires can rightfully claim  Italian heritage, so it is little surprise the Argentinian capital is so well-known for its Napoletana pizza. “The only thing I would like is to go out one day, without being recognized, and go to a pizzeria for a pizza,” Pope Francis said, comparing his life now to how it was when he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires. “In Buenos Aires I was a rover. I moved between parishes and certainly this habit has changed. It has been hard work to change. But you get used to it,”  Pope Francis told Alazraki.

What I want to know is what pizzeria is Pope Francis’ favourite in Buenos Aires? Is he a double-cheese kinda guy with extra pepperoni? Those strike me as the kind of questions this pope just may answer if posed to him.

In a similar vein, I am a big fan of  Father Leo Patalinghug, who was born in the Philippines,  raised in the Baltimore area, ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Baltimore on June 5, 1999, and who works at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland – and who finds time along the way to host Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN’s) half hour Savoring Our Faith show, where he uses the kitchen as his pulpit to preach the Catholic faith while at the same time showing viewers how to prepare flavourful dishes.

Father Leo developed his love for cooking while attending seminary at the North American College in Rome. There, he became friendly with several Italian restaurant owners and would often invite them back to the student kitchen to trade cooking secrets. They would teach him about rigatoni and lasagna; he would show them how to make hamburgers and ribs.

I haven’t caught an episode of Savoring Our Faith for a few months, but I did  see a special report with Father Leo, known as the “Cooking Priest,” back home in the Philippines walking through Central Market in Manila Jan. 16  to do an open air Filipino street food tour, explaining local delicacies to a journalist during January’s papal visit to the 7,107 Islands of Faith.

Mouth watering. Soul satisfying. And so very Catholic.

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