This is an excerpt that sees Andy, the protagonist, wrestle with several issues revisited throughout the novel.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Monday, July 16, 2007
Chrysalis Crucible
When Andy Norton joins an evangelism team headed for West Berlin during the height of the Vietnam War, he thinks he has all the answers. Little does he realize the experience will become a crucible that forces him to reevaluate virtually everything he believes. In the spirit of the best coming-of-age tales, Chrysalis Crucible takes readers on a journey of discovery, transformation, and rebirth.
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Teaser - Novel Excerpt
“I shudder sometimes at what we’re selling, B. B. We want a mindless formula, Four Spiritual Laws swallowed hook, line, and sinker. We urge others to follow Jesus and then look so often like we are on a funeral march. We accept divine forgiveness but deny it to everybody else, from Communists to homosexuals to criminals to the person in the pew next to us.
“We think the world will come beating a path to our doors because we look so… What? Pious? Holy? Sanctimonious? There’s a path to our doors all right, but that’s because many with integrity are heading in the opposite direction.”
“Andy,” Gary said, “you sound so cynical! What’s happening to you?”
“We think the world will come beating a path to our doors because we look so… What? Pious? Holy? Sanctimonious? There’s a path to our doors all right, but that’s because many with integrity are heading in the opposite direction.”
“Andy,” Gary said, “you sound so cynical! What’s happening to you?”
Endorsements
Here we have an absorbing and passionately written novel in which a young disciple (Andy) from Canada encounters many of the challenges that face Christianity in these modern times. The encounters which are presented are not trite but take the hero and his readers into deep places. He relates his encounters with many important subjects, including biblical criticism, the historical basis of faith, religious pluralism, sexuality, militarism, genocide, and religious certainty. At the same time, Andy grows in areas of Christian discipleship, for instance, in God's love for the world, in our calling to love both our friends and our enemies, and in the shape of God's mission today. This is not about a person who goes in for easy believism or is satisfied with pat answers. His is a search for truth whatever it costs. The book is a challenge to the evangelical community out of which Andy comes, to costly discipleship and should be read by them.
Clark and Dorothy Pinnock (Clark is Professor Emeritus of Systematic Theology at McMaster Divinity College, Hamilton, Ontario; author of numerous books, including Most Moved Mover: A Theology of God's Openness, Paternoster, Carlisle UK/Baker Books, Grand Rapids, 2001.)
***
The Colloquies of Erasmus spoke the depth and breadth of the Christian prophetic vision to his time. Wayne Northey's novel, threaded together like an Erasminian Colloquy, does much the same thing for the Evangelical ethos. Do read, be drawn in and awakened to fuller and more challenging possibilities of the faith journey. Those of good faith, I'm sure, applaud such an evocative novel. Erasmus would be more than pleased by the line
and lineage that Wayne Northey so embodies in such a mature way and manner
in this compact novel-colloquy.
Ron Dart (professor of Religious Studies, Philosophy and Political Science at University College of the Fraser Valley, Abbotsford, British Columbia; author of numerous books, including The Red Tory Tradition: Ancient Roots, New Routes: A Series of Essays,
Dewdney, B.C.: Synaxis Press, 1999.)
***
Set in the Vietnam era, this novel grips, intrigues, and flows, unveiling the sexual and theological struggles of single conservative Evangelicals on a Witness Team, Gospel Outreach, in West Berlin. The read dances to and fro on the journey toward “pure heart” and “true faith” through vivid scenes of sexual and faith-seeking Angst and hope, pain and joy. Its theological leitmotif: what do love of God, love of neighbor, and love of enemy mean for belief and behavior in the context of unconscionable killing and suffering inflicted by Americans, even Christians, in WWII and Vietnam? Stock Evangelical arguments, with opposing perspectives, are there to hear and see. What really is the gospel we proclaim?!
Willard Swartley (Professor Emeritus of New Testament, Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart, Indiana; author/editor of numerous books, including Covenant of Peace: The Missing Peace in New Testament Theology and Ethics, Willard M. Swartley, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006.)
Clark and Dorothy Pinnock (Clark is Professor Emeritus of Systematic Theology at McMaster Divinity College, Hamilton, Ontario; author of numerous books, including Most Moved Mover: A Theology of God's Openness, Paternoster, Carlisle UK/Baker Books, Grand Rapids, 2001.)
***
The Colloquies of Erasmus spoke the depth and breadth of the Christian prophetic vision to his time. Wayne Northey's novel, threaded together like an Erasminian Colloquy, does much the same thing for the Evangelical ethos. Do read, be drawn in and awakened to fuller and more challenging possibilities of the faith journey. Those of good faith, I'm sure, applaud such an evocative novel. Erasmus would be more than pleased by the line
and lineage that Wayne Northey so embodies in such a mature way and manner
in this compact novel-colloquy.
Ron Dart (professor of Religious Studies, Philosophy and Political Science at University College of the Fraser Valley, Abbotsford, British Columbia; author of numerous books, including The Red Tory Tradition: Ancient Roots, New Routes: A Series of Essays,
Dewdney, B.C.: Synaxis Press, 1999.)
***
Set in the Vietnam era, this novel grips, intrigues, and flows, unveiling the sexual and theological struggles of single conservative Evangelicals on a Witness Team, Gospel Outreach, in West Berlin. The read dances to and fro on the journey toward “pure heart” and “true faith” through vivid scenes of sexual and faith-seeking Angst and hope, pain and joy. Its theological leitmotif: what do love of God, love of neighbor, and love of enemy mean for belief and behavior in the context of unconscionable killing and suffering inflicted by Americans, even Christians, in WWII and Vietnam? Stock Evangelical arguments, with opposing perspectives, are there to hear and see. What really is the gospel we proclaim?!
Willard Swartley (Professor Emeritus of New Testament, Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart, Indiana; author/editor of numerous books, including Covenant of Peace: The Missing Peace in New Testament Theology and Ethics, Willard M. Swartley, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006.)
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