Peretti’s latest thriller uncovers church’s dark side
by Charlie Wear
 [The Visitation by Frank Peretti, Word Publishing,
Nashville, 1999.] Order
the book.
Once again, Christianity’s answer to Stephen King, has
written a novel that manages to build suspense within the context of the Christian
subculture.
Chronicling the arrival of a charismatic religious figure
to a rural Washington community, and the eventual consequences, author Frank Peretti
manages to reveal the dark side of church life in North America.
From the hyperspirituality of the small-town Pentacostal
"mission" to the programs-as-religion and Christians-as-consumers of the
suburban mega-church the author takes us on a spiritual journey that visits nearly every
spiritual excess on the millennial horizon.
While the book is not criticism as such, it nevertheless
seems to underscore the yearning that spiritual seekers have for the authentic.
Peretti’s protagonist, a burnt-out former pastor,
responds to the fantastic claims of the "visitor" to his small-town reluctantly.
Reluctant heroes, battling spiritual foes with unlikely weapons such as prayer and truth
are the author’s forte. And once again, he has managed to strike just the right tone
of reality in the character exploration.
In addition, to being insightful into today’s
pre-millennial Christian milieu, the book manages to provide thrills and surprises along
the way that make it a page-turner that is difficult to put down. While Peretti’s
earlier books seemed to focus on the surreal side of demonic spiritual forces, sort of a
John Grisham (if he would write about pastors instead of lawyers) meets Disneyland’s
Haunted House, this current novel develops the human characters and drama to a greater
extent.
Postmodernists will be able to read this book in the same
way they enjoy V.C. Andrews’ works or the dialogues with Vampires in Anne Rice’s
work. In the environment of relativism, The Visitation will be just one more way to
look at the strangeness of humanity and the weirdness of the supernatural. While the end
of the book is inevitably predictable, it does have some nice plot twists that raises it
above the pedestrian. The astute reader will read between the lines of suspense that the
author deftly plots, and question what his observations mean for the state of the church
in North America.
 Charles Wear is the publisher of
Next-Wave. He works as a lawyer near Los
Angeles, and pastors a ministry to skateboarders. He has four
children and one grandchild.
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