Saw this video a couple of days ago, thought it was hilarious—especially the parts about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: “Mormons? Just kidding—we said Christian denominations!” And then later… “Unitarian Universalists? They’re atheists. We’ll even take the Mormons over these guys.”
Although, to be fair… if Joseph Smith’s first vision was real, and God really did tell fourteen year-old Joseph not to join any church, because He didn’t recognize any of them as His true church and kingdom… then of course every other denomination that rejects the restored gospel would also reject the Mormons as not being “true Christians.”
But yeah, one thing we definitely need to work on is our beard game. Brigham Young, Joseph F. Smith—we used to be even more awesome than the Church of Christ with their Duck Dynasty guys, but man, we’ve really lost it in the last hundred years!
This is an extremely polarizing and contentious issue right now, so I’m going to try to make this post as fact-based and non-sensational as possible.
Full disclosure: I never got the covid shot. My wife and I both had covid before the “vaccines” became available, and decided that our natural immunity provided enough protection for us. We were also trying to become pregnant, and even in January 2021, we had heard rumors that the shots were affecting both men’s and women’s fertility, as well as women’s menstrual cycles, and didn’t feel that the risk was worth it, in spite of the tremendous social pressure to get “vaccinated.”
At the end of the day, we simply did not trust that the “vaccines” were safe (and I put “vaccine” in quotes, because we now know that these shots do not provide lasting immunity, nor do they prevent transmission. The health establishment literally had to change the definition of “vaccine” for that word to apply to these treatments). We were wary of the fact that the emergency use provisions absolved the manufacturers of any liability, and that the long-term effects of these shots was unknown. In our family’s calculation, the potential risks outweighed the potential benefits, especially since we already had natural immunity and were unlikely to contract covid again.
In the past year, some very disturbing things about the “vaccines” have come to light. A recent poll by Rasmussen shows that more than 1 in 4 Americans believe they know someone who has died of the covid “vaccines”—not from covid itself, but from the vaccines. Interestingly, more Democrats (about 1 in 3) than Republicans (about 1 in 4) claim that they know someone, which is interesting, because the political left was much more taken with the “vaccine” mania than the political right. Remember that super cringey vaccine song on Colbert’s show?
The last two years have been crazy, for sure. But how has it affected the science fiction and fantasy world? The January issue of Locus Magazine made me curious about this, since Greg Bear recently passed away “after complications from heart surgery,” and the obituary section mentioned two other people under the age of 60, one of whom “died unexpectedly.”
So I went through all of the back issues of Locus from January 2021 to the present, and made a comprehensive list of every person mentioned in the obituaries, with their age and cause of death. If they died of a stroke or an accute heart-related issue, I bolded their name, since the mechanism for death appears to be related to blood clots caused by the spike protein that the mRNA “vaccine” is designed to generate. Also, I bolded the name of anyone 70 or younger who died without the cause of death listed. The global average life expectancy is just north of 70, which is lower than the US, but I decided to take the lower of those numbers. I also bolded any names where the cause was listed as covid, since many people who died in the first couple of weeks after getting the shot were automatically listed as covid, especially in the initial rollout.
Here is the list:
JAN 2021
Ben Bova (88): “contracting COVID-19, developing Pneumonia, and suffering a stroke.”
Phyllis Eisensetein (74): “suffered a stroke in January 2020 and entered hospice care not long after.”
Richard Corben (80): “died December 2, 2020 after heart surgery.”
Dean Ing (89): cause not listed (died July 21, 2020).
FEB 2021
James Gunn (97): cause not listed.
Storm Constantine (64): “following a long illness.”
Anton Strout (50): “died unexpectedly.”
Jael (83): cause not listed.
Alison Lurie (94): “in hospice.”
Richard West (76): “of COVID-19.”
Joseph Altairac (63): cause not listed.
MAR 2021
Kathleen Ann Goonan (68): cause not listed.
Rowena Morrill (76): “following years of poor health.”
Jean-Claude Carrière (89): “of natural causes.”
APR 2021
Norton Juster (91): “complications following a stroke.”
Dean Morrissey (69): cause not listed.
Michael G. Adkisson (65): cause not listed.
MAY 2021
John C. Pelan (63): “of an apparent heart attack.”
Wanda June Alexander (69): “diagnosed with lung cancer last year, and though she underwent successful treatment, her lungs were severely damaged, and she entered hospice care in January 2021.”
JUN 2021
Marvin Kaye (83): “in hospice care.”
Don Sakers (62): “of a heart attack.”
Jan Stirling (71): cause not listed.
Jim Rittenhouse (64): “in hospice care.”
Anish Deb (69): “of COVID-19.”
JUL 2021
Bob Brown (78): “after a valiant battle with esophageal cancer.”
AUG 2021
William F. Nolan (93): “of complications from an infection.”
Stephen Hickman (72): “of natural causes.”
Joe McKinney (52): “in his sleep.”
Paul Alexander (83): cause not listed.
John Longendorfer (90): cause not listed.
SEP 2021
Elizabeth Anne Hull (84): cause not listed.
Patricia Kennealy-Morrison (75): cause not listed.
C. Dean Andersson (75): “in his sleep… after a long illness.”
J.W. Rinzler (58): “of pancreatic cancer.”
Ron Weighell (70): “a few weeks after suffering a stroke.”
Lorna Toolis (68): cause not listed.
Judi B. Castro (58): “following a brief illness.”
OCT 2021
Erle Korshak (97): cause not listed.
L. Neil Smith (75): “after a lengthy battle with heart and kidney disease.”
Carol Carr (82): “of lung cancer.”
Genevieve DiModica (73): “of natural causes.”
NOV 2021
Mary Kay Kare (69): “of a blood infection.”
Gary Paulsen (82): “of cardiac arrest.”
Lou Antonelli (64): cause not listed.
Douglas Barbour (81): “of lung cancer.”
Otacilio Costa D’Assuncao Barros (67): “was found dead in his apartment… after two days without contact by neighbors. The cause of death has not been disclosed.”
DEC 2021
Petra Mayer (46): “died suddenly of a pulmonary embolism.”
Robert Thurston (84): cause not listed.
Jim Fiscus (76): “died suddenly.”
Catherine M. Morrison (52): “after a brief illness.”
JAN 2022
Anne Rice (80): “of complications from a stroke.”
Diana G. Gallagher (75): “of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.”
William G. Contento (74): “after a long struggle with prostate cancer.”
Jeremy G. Byrn (57): “after a long illness.”
Chris Achilleos (74): cause not listed.
Jose Luis Benicio da Fonseca (84): cause not listed.
FEB 2022
Willie Siros (69): cause not listed.
Dave Wolverton (64): “after suffering a severe head injury falling down the stairs the previous day.”
Ron Goulart (89): cause not listed.
John Jos. Miller (67): cause not listed.
J. Brian Clark (93): cause not listed.
Sally Gwylan (67): “in a traffic accident.”
Jane E. Hawkins (70): “was a cancer survivor, but she received a terminal diagnosis and went into hospice.”
Elizabeth Miller (82): cause not listed.
Bill Wright (84): “fallen at home and ‘thought he had broken his back.’”
Chuck Verrill (unknown): “after a long illness.”
Athos Eichler Cardoso (87): cause not listed.
MAR 2022
Angelica Gorodischer (93): cause not listed.
Tom Dupree (72): “of cardio-respiratory arrest.”
Harold R. Johnson (68): “of lung cancer.”
APR 2022
Andy Remic (50): “of cancer.”
Faren Miller (71): “after being hospitalized with serious respiratory problems.”
Shirley Hughes (94): cause not listed.
Melissa Mead (62): cause not listed.
Priscilla Tolkien (92): “after a brief illness.”
Aiki Flinthart (unknown): “after receiving a terminal cancer diagnosis.”
MAY 2022
Robert C. Cornett (69): cause not listed.
Bill Johnson (65): cause not listed.
Valerio Evangelisti (69): cause not listed.
Joel Houssin (68): “after a long battle with MS.”
Carlos Emilio C. Lima (65): “from an infection following surgery.”
Lygia Fagundes Telles (98-103): cause not listed.
JUN 2022
Patricia A. McKillip (74): cause not listed.
Sergey Dyachenko (77): cause not listed.
JUL 2022
Ken Kelly (76): cause not listed.
AUG 2022
Eric Flint (75): cause not listed.
Geoffrey H. Goodwin (50): “of heart failure.”
Dorothy J. Heydt (80): cause not listed.
Barbara Haldeman (Barbara Delaplace) (69): cause not listed.
Jonathan Lyons (52): “succumbed to injuries after being mugged.”
SEP 2022
Nichelle Nichols (89): “of heart failure.”
Alexei Panshin (82): cause not listed.
Robert “Bob” Self (55): “as the result of an accident.”
Wayn McCalla (53): “following a long illness.”
Roland J. Green (76): cause not listed.
OCT 2022
Peter Straub (79): “after a long illness.”
Bruce Taylor (75): “after a brief hospital stay. He had a heart condition and was in poor health recently.”
Maureen Kincaid Speller (63): “she had cancer.”
J.G. “Huck” Huckenpohler (81): cause not listed.
NOV 2022
Robert A. Madle (102): “died peacefully in his sleep.”
Albert E. Cowdrey (88): cause not listed.
Hilary Mantel (70): cause not listed.
Matthew Mather (52): “died suddenly.”
Lani Forbes (35): “of neuroendocrine cancer.”
DEC 2022
Tom Maddox (77): “of a stroke.”
Martin Morse Wooster (64): “the victim of a hit-and-run.”
Jill Pinkwater (81): cause not listed.
Sue Strong Hassler (84): “of complications from back surgery and COVID.”
Anne Fakhouri (48): “following a long illness.”
Justin E.A. Busch (63): cause not listed.
Ned Dameron (79): “of ALS.”
JAN 2023
Greg Bear (71): “after complications from heart surgery.”
Anne Harris (58): “after suffering a stroke.”
Marcus Sedgwick (54): “died unexpectedly.”
To be clear, there may be benign explanations for many or even most of the people whose names are bolded. Strokes and heart attacks have been killing people long before the covid “vaccines” existed, and continue to kill people without any help from the “vaccines.” Also, many people who died under 70 may simply have been in poor health—after all, it’s not like the SF field is known for robust physical fitness. However, there may also be people on this list who did die of vaccine-related issues, whose names I did not bold because they were over 70 and the cause wasn’t listed. So it cuts both ways.
My purpose is not to compile a comprehensive list of vaccine-related deaths in the SF field, but to point out some deaths that appear to be suspect. And of the 114 people listed, more of them “died unexpectedly” or “died suddenly” than died of covid, which is worth noting.
If you haven’t seen the documentary Died Suddenly, it’s worth watching, even though it does have some flaws. Most notably, toward the end it recycles some disturbing footage of people who either did not die, or who died before the pandemic, implying that they all died of the vaccines. You can find a much more in-depth and non-sensational treatment of vaccine-related deaths and injuries on Chris Martenson’s channel, especially in this video where he interviews several morticians about the clotting issue:
Vaccine safety is a very serious issue, and every day, it seems that we are learning new things about the covid “vaccines” that call into question all of our assumptions and beliefs. The science fiction field has always leaned to the political left, especially on the traditional publishing side. For the past two years, many of our conventions and other events have pushed mask mandates, or required proof of vaccination, including our own LTUE here in Utah.
Has this lockstep, unquestioning, and at times almost militant advocacy of the establishment narrative led to the tragic loss of several writers and artists before their time? Has it decimated—indeed, is it continuing to decimate—the talented creators in our field? How many wonderful stories will never be written because of this? How many voices will no longer be heard?
I hope that we can come to a place where we can honestly start asking these questions. Because if we can’t, then the science fiction and fantasy field has lost much more than those who have died, and the gifts they would have shared with us.
So it’s been more than a week since my last post. Don’t worry, I’m still around: it’s just that this blog is always the first ball to drop when I need to get things going. The post-holiday season was actually harder on us in a lot of ways than the holiday season itself, with insomnia, stomach bugs, and the like, but we’re getting back on our feet and doing pretty well.
The main thing I’ve been focusing on is writing, and I’m happy to say that I’ve been making very good progress these last few days. I’m trying out a completely new process, which I’ve blogged about a little, but I’ll have to write a full blog post on it once I’ve got all the kinks worked out. It basically involves hacking my ADHD to write more, in much the same way I hacked my ADHD to read more.
So yeah, things have been kind of crazy around here, and definitely more off-balanced than I would like. But it’s also turning out to be more productive, too—at least when our toddler isn’t throwing up and I’m able to sleep through the night. Happy new year!
In January or February, Russia will launch a major new offensive in the Russo-Ukraine War, destroying much of the Western narrative surrounding that conflict. However, it will not be a decisive victory, and the war will not end this year.
China will launch a ground invasion of Taiwan, and will seriously miscalculate the US-allied response. This war will also continue into 2024.
A tactical nuclear weapon or dirty bomb will be used in combat, either escalating one of the ongoing conflicts or starting a new one. However, there will not be a major nuclear exchange between global powers this year.
A Washington DC politician or judge will be assassinated, most likely by a lone wolf radicalized on the internet.
Food and energy prices will continue to inflate. However, deflation will be a more serious problem for the elite managerial class.
The covid narrative is going to flip in a major way. The vaccines and the lockdowns will become anathema, and many prominent players in the pandemic (including Trump) will come under serious fire from both political sides.
Toward the end of the year, we will start to hear rumblings of another pandemic.
Deleting social media will become a major cultural trend.
President Russell M. Nelson will announce something huge in General Conference, on the order of the Come, Follow Me initiative in 2018.
In spite of all these global challenges, our family will continue to thrive and will end the year even better off than we now are, both spiritually and temporally.
So I was going to post the next blog post in the Grand Conspiracy series today, but this week between Christmas and New Year’s has been unusually hectic for us. Long story short, both of my families (extended in-laws and my own extended family) are in town, so I’ve been juggling family obligations between the two of them. If I were still single, this wouldn’t be much of a problem, but now that we have small children, it’s not quite so easy.
On top of that, I’m trying to stay up on publishing tasks, including the production of all of my books as auto-narrated audiobooks, and a new short story single that’s supposed to come out the first Saturday of January. Also, I’m trying very hard to get some writing in whenever I can, and since that obviously takes precedence over the blog (and really should take precedence over publishing tasks, too), this blog is the thing that often gets the shaft.
But I know exactly what I want to write for this blog post series, and I definitely plan to put it all out there eventually, even if it takes a while. In other words, I’m not going anywhere, so it will get done eventually. Just have to deal with other things right now.
In the meantime, I’ll leave you with this amusing video that I recently watched. Enjoy!
A couple of months ago, I listened to this really fascinating interview between Daily Wire host Michael Knowles and a former occultis/astrologer who gave all that up (including a profitable podcast on the subject) to convert to Christianity. It’s a super-long interview, so here’s the TL;DL: if you don’t worship God, you will ultimately end up worshipping yourself.
This brought to my mind something I heard from a former Hindu convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when I was a missionary in California back in 2004: that all of the major world religions, with their contradictory teachings and beliefs, ultimately look to the creator of the universe as the object of their worship. So no matter how many differences we may have, if we are trying to worship the creator of the universe according to the light and knowledge that we possess, we ultimately aren’t as strange or as different from each other as we think.
Of course, there are other religions that worship the creation instead of the creator. And there are religions that purport to worship the creator, but in reality they have turned their version of the creator into an idol, refusing to worship Him as He really is, but as they wish that he would be. To one degree or another, I think we all struggle with this idolization complex: if it’s not our God that we’re turning into an idol, it’s our treasure, or our social media image, or something else that’s purely worldly. “Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.”
But ultimately, it comes down to this question: do you worship the creator of the universe according to the light and knowledge which you possess, or do you worship a mere creation? And this brings us back around to the Michael Knowles interview: because all worship of things that are merely created ultimately devolve into worship of the self.
You know what this looks like. We see examples of it everywhere: from social media narcissism to moral relativism to the modern emphasis on “finding your truth,” “giving yourself grace,” and on finding what works for you. It’s that ridiculous meme (probably wrongly attributed to Marilyn Monroe) that says “if you can’t handle me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at my best.” It’s been a plague on our culture since the “me” generation, and probably a long time before.
Scratch that probably: it’s certainly been a plague on our culture, because this selfishness lies at the heart of the mechanism of control that drives the grand conspiracy itself: our lusts.
Everyone who refuses to worship the Creator will come to worship the creation instead, which ultimately means that they will end up worshipping themselves. Therefore, the way to control these people is to manipulate them through their lusts. The only way to break out of this control is to renounce the self and turn everything over to God: “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.”
It is impossible for us to worship nothing. As humans, we all have a driving need to make something the object of our worship. Indeed, this is an essential part of what it means to be human. The hardcore atheist who claims that he “doesn’t need God for a crutch” has, in fact, made some other idol the object of his worship, whether that’s his own dogmatic atheism, or the Nietzschean concept of the Übermensch (which is certainly a form of self-worship), or some other ideology or material object.
So if we, as humans, are going to worship something, and we refuse to worship the Creator, we will ultimately come to make ourselves the object of our worship, in some form or another. This makes us vulnerable to manipulation according to our lusts, which brings us under the control and influence of the Satanic forces that are working to destroy us. This is the mechanism of control behind what I am calling the Grand Conspiracy.
In the next post, we will see how the gradation of lusts creates a hierarchy, or pyramid scheme. Toward the top of this pyramid are the controllers, or those who fancy themselves to be controllers, while at the bottom we find all the useful idiots who are being manipulated, controlled, and abused.
But ultimately, everyone on this pyramid is a useful idiot, because once we give in to our lusts, we fall under the control of the Satanic forces (whether literal or metaphorical) that have orchestrated this entire scheme. Which goes back to what I said in part 1, that if you go up high enough, everyone is being controlled by an overarching malevolent force (whether literal or metaphorical).
Remember the time before the pandemic, when “conspiracy theory” was still a dirty word? It still is in some quarters, but for many of us the term is now closer to “spoiler warning.”
After all, what are we supposed to believe: that Epstein hung himself with a bedsheet that couldn’t hold his weight, from a height that couldn’t kill him, at exactly the moment when the guards had abandoned their posts and all of the surveillance equipment had mysteriously and inexplicably gone dark? That is still the official story—just like Ghislane Maxwell, Epstein’s Madam, was thrown in prison for trafficking sex slaves to… well, nobody, at least officially.
Or are we supposed to believe that a novel coronavirus whose genetic profile shows clear evidence of artificial manipulation jumped species from a bat to a pangolin to a human, in a Chinese wet market (which the CCP destroyed before any investigation could be launched) more than 900 miles from the bat’s native habitat, which also just happens to be down the street from the Wuhan Institute of Virology where gain-of-function research was being conducted with bat coronaviruses? I’m not generally a fan of Jon Stewart, but I think he hit the nail on the head with this one:
Of course, this isn’t to say that all conspiracy theories have weight and value. By no means do I believe that the moon landings were fake—there are just too many people who would have to be in on the thing to keep it secret for long, and also, we can see the tracks of the moon landingsfrom Earth. But conspiracies do happen, and often have tremendous impact on the course of history. For example, the United States constitution was born out of the Philadelphia Convention, which conspired to throw out the Articles of Convention and replace them with something entirely different, which was technically an act of treason at the time.
Conspiracies are real, though not all conspiracy theories are true. The challenge is separating conspiracy theory from conspiracy fact.
Which brings us to the old aphorism: “never attribute to malice that which can be attributed to incompetence.” For the last two years, when I look at the direction my country is going and all of the harm that the Biden Administration has done, I find myself constantly asking: “is this malice, or is this incompetence?” After all, if my goal was to destroy this country, I could hardly do better than what this administration has already done (Victor Davis Hanson has an excellent article about that, and he says it better than me). And yet, every time the press secretary opens her mouth, I am reminded of just how staggering is the incompetence of these people. Or is it?
And then I had a realization: if you go up high enough, all of these people are useful idiots to a force of pure malice that is striving to bring about our spiritual enslavement and destruction. I am speaking, of course, of Satan himself.
Now, perhaps you don’t believe that the devil is real. Laying aside the aphorism that “the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he doesn’t exist,” you don’t have to believe in a literal fallen angel and his hordes of demonic followers in order to follow this particular rabbit hole. The devil is an archetype for a reason, after all. Personally, my own experience has convinced me that demonic forces do indeed exist, but that’s all I care to say on the subject, and I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions.
But my point is that it’s not like the forces of evil are monolithic: there is a hierarchy of conspirators and useful idiots, and some who may be conspirators on one level are useful idiots on another. At the bottom, it’s almost all useful idiots wreaking havoc by their own incompetence, but at the top, it’s all driven by malice.
Because here’s the thing: when we attribute a particular action to incompetence, we are making an implicit assumption about the motive behind that action. If we assume that Biden’s motive is to serve the interests of the American people, he’s doing a piss-poor job of it—but if we consider that he may have been compromised by China (as the Hunter Biden laptop implicates), or that he only cares about the Biden crime family’s interests, then his actions no longer reak of so much incompetence.
In the game of chess, there’s a thing called a gambit, where the player sacrifices a piece in order to gain an advantage of tempo or position. To the inexperienced player, a gambit often looks like a mistake. Some of the most brilliant chess moves involve a gambit that seems, at first, to be an act of utter incompetence, but that in fact make winning inevitable if the opponent falls for the gambit.
So even though “never attribute to malice” is a good rule of thumb, it’s clearly not sophisticated enough to explain all the insanity we’ve seen in the last two years. But neither is it sufficient to explain this insanity in terms of pure conspiracy—indeed, falling into that trap makes us susceptible to becoming infected by that insanity ourselves. Mattias Desmet points this out in chapter 8 of his seminal work, The Psychology of Totalitarianism. He also says:
In the whole process of exercising power—i.e., shaping the world to the ideological beliefs—there usually is little need to make secret plans and agreements. As Noam Chomsky put it, if you have to tell someone what to do, you’ve chosen the wrong person. In other words: the dominant ideology selects who ends up in key positions… Consequently, all people in positions of power automatically follow the same rules in their thinking and in their behavior and are under the influence of the same attractors.
One of the main points that Desmet makes in this chapter is that when people are driven by an evil ideology—or, in the words of Jordan Peterson, become ideologically possessed—their actions often appear, to someone on the outside, as if they are all part of a grand conspiracy. And yet, none (or at least, very few) of these people have actually entered into a clandestine agreement to support a deliberate plan: they are all just playing the part that they find themselves in, most of them unwittingly.
And yet, even though there is no “conspiracy” in the classical sense, the people who get caught up in the insanity all end up working to advance the purposes of something much bigger than themselves. Indeed, explaining this phenomenon is the entire purpose of Mattias Desmet’s book. He does a brilliant job of it, but mostly from a psychological perspective.
What I want to do is look at this phenomenon from a spiritual and an archetypal perspective, not as a scientist but as a storyteller. That’s why I’m calling it the “grand conspiracy,” even though I recognize that on most levels, it’s not a conspiracy so much as a confluence of interests (or more accurately, a confluence of lusts). I do think that there’s a lot that can be gleaned by looking at it this way, because there is a spiritual dimension to our lives—as Mattias Desmet emphatically points out—and stories and archetypes have been absolutely essential to our understanding of the world since prehistoric times. I happen to believe that Satan is more than just an archetype, but you don’t have to believe that in order for this grand conspiracy to be useful and make sense.
I’ve planned this series out in twelve parts, listed here. From now until the end of February, I’ll post about once a week. Since Christmas is coming and I don’t want to be thinking about all this diabolical stuff over the holiday itself, I’ll post part 2 next Tuesday, and part 3 the week after that, then go back to posting on Saturdays. The first three parts will outline the general theory that I’ve come up with, and the next eight parts will examine each piece of the theory in detail. In the end, I’ll share some concluding thoughts about how this grand conspiracy can—and indeed, ultimately will—be defeated.
I hope you find this series interesting, and I look forward to hearing what you think about it!
The prophecies of Isaiah were written around 750 B.C. and pertained primarily to the major powers of his own day, but if you tweak them just a bit, they apply remarkably well to us. Believers will say that’s because his prophecies were laced with intentional double-meaning, but you don’t have to be a believer to see how remarkably well his words apply to our day and age.
According to Avraham Gileadi (my favorite commentator on the book of Isaiah), the ancient nation that most closely corresponds to the modern United States of America is Egypt. So I thought it would be interesting to present a few exceprts from Isaiah 19, replacing “Egypt” with “America,” “Egyptian” with “American,” etc.
1 The burden of America. Behold, the Lord rideth upon a swift cloud, and shall come into the United States of America: and the idols of America shall be moved at his presence, and the heart of America shall melt in the midst of it.
2 And I will set the Americans against the Americans: and they shall fight every one against his brother, and every one against his neighbour; city against city, and kingdom against kingdom.
3 And the American Dream shall fail in the midst thereof; and I will destroy the counsel thereof: and they shall seek to the idols, and to the charmers, and to them that have familiar spirits, and to the wizards.
4 And the Americans will I give over into the hand of a cruel lord; and a fierce dictator shall rule over them, saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts.
…
11 Surely the Republicans are fools, the counsel of the wise counsellors of the president is become brutish: how say ye unto the president, I am the son of the wise, the son of the founding fathers?
12 Where are they? where are thy founding fathers? and let them tell thee now, and let them know what the Lord of hosts hath purposed upon America.
13 The Republicans are become fools, the Democrats are deceived; they have also seduced America, even they that are the stay of the states thereof.
14 The Lord hath mingled a perverse spirit in the midst thereof: and they have caused the United States to err in every work thereof, as a drunken man staggereth in his vomit.
…
22 And the Lord shall smite the United States of America: he shall smite and heal it: and they shall return even to the Lord, and he shall be entreated of them, and shall heal them.
For the last several months, I’ve quietly been running these Christian Author group promotions on Book Funnel and Story Origin. I started them in response to some other group author promotions that I saw floating around on Facebook, with banners that have the standard woke progressive litany. You know how it goes: in this home, we believe that love is love, science is real, black lives matter, vaccines are yada yada yada.
Anyway, I saw those super left-wing promotions floating around, and thought: how can I signal to the readers who think that woke nonsense is insane that I also think it’s insane and don’t have any of that woke crap in my books? In other words, how can I organize a group promotion for non-woke authors without actually coming out and saying “we aren’t woke!”
The reason I don’t want to just come out and say “we aren’t woke!” is because if that’s the way you define yourself, you’re going to be overtly political, just in the opposite direction. For that reason, books that advertise as “anti-woke” are often just as terrible as woke books—or in other words, just as infected with toxic politics. Since the whole point was to get away from the toxic politics, I wanted to anchor the promotions on something that is very much antithetical to the woke nonsense, but not overtly political.
Hence the reason I settled on Christian authors as the theme: not on overtly Christian books, but books that are written by Christians. The thinking was that authors who self-identify as Christians probably wouldn’t go for all that woke nonsense that is, after all, antithetical to Christian teachings, and that readers who want to read Christian authors are also probably trying to avoid fiction that is infected with woke ideology.
Then I read Church of Cowards by Matt Walsh, and I realized that my plan had a fatal flaw: Christianity itself has become so infected with woke ideology that it no longer serves as an effective filter or signal against it. Of course, I knew that this was a problem, but I didn’t know serious the problem had become. In my church, we all still dress in church clothes on Sunday, still actually go to church on Sunday, believe in scripture as the literal word of God, and, you know, accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. Apparently, all of those points are now super controversial among those who profess to be Christians. Go figure.
Also, Christian fiction comes with its own baggage that isn’t doing these group promotions any favors—which is a shame, because it’s not the books that are explicitly Christian, just the authors themselves. But apparently, Christian fiction has become so sappy and poorly written that I can hardly blame most readers for looking at those banners and thinking “uh, no thanks”—even the believing Christian readers. In particular, Matt Walsh took apart the God’s Not Dead series, which is apparently worse than most self-published stuff. Also, I tried out Left Behind last month, and DNFed it before the end of the first chapter just because of how ludicrous the setup for that book/series is.
(Seriously, Russia makes an alliance with… Ethiopia? …and randomly decides to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth, only to have their ENTIRE AIR FORCE destroyed in a day by a supernatural event? Every combination of the words in that sentence is laughably nonsensical to anyone who follows contemporary geopolitics. The current situation in the Middle East, with Russia and Iran basing forces in Syria, and Iran supplying Russia with kamikaze drones, is a more believable fulfillment of the Gog and Magog prophecies—and that’s before the Russo-Ukraine war spirals into a global conflict. Reality is far more terrifying—and far more Biblical—than anything the Left Behind series cooked up.)
With all of that in mind, it’s not much of a surprise that these Christian Author promotions have underperformed, not just among my existing newsletter subscribers, but among readers generally. So now I’m looking to try out some different themes for group promotions. Some of them are going to be totally non-political: I’ve always had success with the September Space Adventure group promo, after all. But how to reach that reader who thinks that this woke nonsense is insane?
The second banner might be a little too on-point (not to mention, it may get me banned from a few places), but I’m trying out this Books They Want to Ban theme again right now. I did something like it a while ago, and it didn’t do super well, but it’s worth running at least a couple of times to see how it goes.
So what do you think? Should I try running with this theme, or just totally avoid the woke / anti-woke politics altogether?
