Reading Time: 10 minutes Chapter Six contains a pair of vignettes about demonic attacks on people–and how those attacks turn out if the target happens to be a TRUE CHRISTIAN™. This chapter also contains a very important primer on conducting spiritual warfare. If you unfortunately lack this absolutely essential skill, then hop aboard and strap in!
This Present Darkness
Posted inReligion
Culture Warriors Love Stupid Demons Best in ‘This Present Darkness’ (LSP #99; Ch.5)
Reading Time: 9 minutes Today, we examine the second meeting–and see some important truths about the culture warriors who love this book. We’ll see how they see themselves, and more importantly how they see their enemies–which includes not only demons but also you, me, and everybody else who rejects their simple message of control-lust, cruelty, division, and authoritarianism. Hop aboard for a demonic meeting, as filtered through a culture warrior’s lens!
Posted inReligion
A Muddling of Angels in ‘This Present Darkness’ (LSP #98; Ch.5)
Reading Time: 7 minutes Here, we continue our examination of Frank Peretti’s somehow-bestselling fantasy novel This Present Darkness. In Chapter 5, we discover some startling facts about angels. Today, Lord Snow Presides over an ethnography that Christian culture warriors never forgot.
Posted inReligion
The Sad Decline of Ashton in ‘This Present Darkness’ (LSP #97)
Reading Time: 9 minutes We’ve talked about all kinds of stuff about the novel and its historical context. Today, we examine the book’s setting: the tiny town of Ashton. As with the book’s other elements, Peretti chose this one–and then set it in undeniable decline–for a reason. And we can tell what that reason was.
Posted inReligion
The Not-So-Casual Sexism in ‘This Present Darkness’ (LSP #95, Ch. 1-5)
Reading Time: 11 minutes Written at the height of the Satanic Panic back in the 1980s, this novel provides us a glimpse into the mindset of today’s Christian culture warriors. It captures the forces that created those culture warriors. Now, we turn our gaze to the stereotypes in the book that concern women. Today, Lord Snow Presides over a rainbow of mischaracterizations and strawmen–er, strawwomen!
Posted inReligion
The Magical Evil Demon Powers in ‘This Present Darkness’ (LSP #94, Ch. 4-5)
Reading Time: 8 minutes We meet an honest-to-goodness demon, learn about the dangers of higher education, see fundagelical parenting in action, and encounter another weirdly-persuasive evil character. Today, Lord Snow Presides over a crash course in more right-wing Christian prejudices in This Present Darkness.
Posted inReligion
The Magical Christian Jesus Powers in ‘This Present Darkness’ (LSP #93, Ch.3)
Reading Time: 8 minutes In this installment, we discover Magical Christian Jesus Powers that only TRUE CHRISTIANS™ can possess–and the mystical evil heathen powers deployed in turn by the Cabal of Satanic Wiccans (or Wiccan Satanists, Whatevs) (CSWWSW). Today, Lord Snow Presides over a pair of confrontations that reveal the insecurities–and the most feverish fantasies–of the Christians who loved this book.
Posted inReligion
The Persecution Fantasies in ‘This Present Darkness’ (LSP #92)
Reading Time: 9 minutes This poorly-written book helped elevate the Satanic Panic in Christian imaginations–and shaped their conceptualization of spiritual warfare for many decades to come. It did even more than that, though! Today, Lord Snow Presides over the way that This Present Darkness drew battle lines for culture warriors through the manipulation of their persecution fantasies.
Posted inReligion
The Hated Stereotypes in “This Present Darkness” (LSP #91)
Reading Time: 11 minutes Last time, we touched on how this book both derived from and defined those wild and woolly years. This time, I’ll show you the biases and prejudices that seethe and pulse under its oh-so-purple prose. Today, Lord Snow Presides over This Present Darkness: a book that revels in its pure hatred of outsiders.
Posted inGaming, Religion
This Present Darkness: Marking–and Making–an Era (LSP #90)
Reading Time: 8 minutes I finally re-bought a copy of This Present Darkness. Almost immediately, I realized I’d made both a mistake and a discovery. Let me show you what I mean. Today, Lord Snow Presides over a book that became a fad that became both a sign of its time and one of the shapers of the very future of evangelicalism.