It's a while since I've shamelessly plugged my latest book, The Saved Saint, so please permit me the indulgence of doing so today.
The Saved Saint is based on a true story. It's about learning to accept and respect someone's decision, even if you don't agree with or even understand it. It's about learning to love a person even when you disagree with them. It's about the two-centuries-old antagonism between Latter-day Saint Christians and Evangelical Christians. Alternate chapters are written from the point-of-view of the LDS mother and her rebellious born-again Christian son.
Here's a sample scene. In it, Jeannie and a friend, Scott Baker, are visiting Harley's new church for the first time:
The random twanging and wailing of the musicians had now formed into noise which actually had a semblance of tune, and the thin woman seemed to realise that it was time to stop goading the visiting Mormons and do whatever it was she liked to do in this place. “Um, can I talk to you some more afterwards about the Mormon Church?” She asked. “I want to tell you about a few things you might not know about it.”
“Of course,” Brother Baker said, astonishingly munificently. “But only if you are prepared to use its proper name. The word “Mormon” is just a nickname applied to us initially by our detractors. It is important to us to use the full and correct name of the church, so if you’d like to discuss it then I’m happy to do so on those terms.”
The woman looked blankly at him. “I thought it was called the Mormon Church,” she said after a confused moment.
Brother Baker shook his head.
“Then what is it called?”
“Might I suggest,” Brother Baker said coolly, “That if you claim you are going to tell us things we don’t know about our own church, we might be more inclined to take that seriously if you actually knew our church’s name.”
We (my co-author and I) are confident that we have stuck a balance between the two church traditions perfectly, because we've had a Mormon complain to us that it's biased in favour of the mainstream Christians, and mainstream Christian complain that it's biased in favour of the Mormons. Most reviewers, however, seem to feel it's perfectly balanced.
Intrigued? Here are the links to buy it, or download a longer sample:
No comments:
Post a Comment