Adam – Ted Dekker
I’m currently reading my first Ted Dekker novel. After years of seeing his stuff at the Christian bookstore and wondering how good “Christian fiction” is, I decided to get over my Tim Lahaye “Left Behind” mentality and dig into this book – albeit after borrowing it from a local library.
What I meant by the Left Behind comment is that Christians sometimes come across as real losers trying to follow a popular trend. When Lahaye came out with the Left Behind series, you were almost outcast if you didn’t read the books and actually like them.
I read a few but soon got over the “let’s stretch out this shocking theology over X amount of books so we can rake in the money” approach – similar to how shows like “Prison Break” and “Lost.”
And to think that end time understanding of millions of people is influenced by such trash makes me wonder who the bigger culprit is: Dan Brown or Tim Lahaye? Scary thought.
So that was my mindset as I picked up Adam at my local library. Surprised to see a Christian author in the library, I read the blurb and decided to have another crack at Christian fiction. I’m about a quarter through it and love it!
Dekker is an author I resonate with. He shy’s away from typical cliché one would expect from a Christian fiction writer and delivers in a way where you can admire the research an author has undertaken in order to generate his work. It’s real, it’s deep, it flows and it captures you.
Ultimately, Adam is a story about demon possession played out in a scientific “CSI” type environment. To pull this off, Dekker had to do his research and any “hokey pokey christian cliche” would sink this story. I’m glad to report that so far, this story aint sinking and is actually getting more intriguing all the time.
Have a listen to Dekker himself describe some of the thinking behind the book and then go do yourself a favour and grab a copy from somewhere.
