Frank E. Peretti

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Frank E. Peretti (born January 13, 1951) is a best-selling contemporary Christian fiction novelist with more than twelve million copies of his work in print. Best known for his supernatural thriller titles This Present Darkness and The Oath, he primarily focuses on Christian topics, especially those surrounding spiritual warfare. Born in Canada and raised in Seattle, Washington, Peretti has held ministry credentials with the Assemblies of God and now lives in northern Idaho with his wife.

[edit] Biography

With a deeply rooted fascination with storytelling in his childhood, Peretti dabbled in short story writing and comic strips. After graduating from high school, he joined a bluegrass group with his banjo. He married in 1972 and later majored in English and film at UCLA. He shifted gears a number of years later from Christian music to assisting his father in pastoring an Assemblies of God church, but gave up his position as a pastor in 1983 and took up a construction job when finances became low. While working at a ski factory, Peretti wrote This Present Darkness, which he originally wrote to use as a speaker at a junior high Bible camp, and then published This Present Darkness, which was initially rejected by several publishers before being picked up and launching Peretti into his present-day profession. (Frank Peretti Biography.)

[edit] Writing career

[edit] Early success

This Present Darkness, released in 1986, achieved remarkable sales success, remaining on the Christian Booksellers Association's top ten best-sellers list for over 150 consecutive weeks; its story of a demonic struggle with the heavenly hosts for control of a small town captivated the imaginations of thousands of readers across the United States. Its sequel, Piercing the Darkness, as also well-received, and, together, the two books have sold more than 3.5 million copies to date. He continued the children's series that The Door in the Dragon's Throat began during the late 80s, and also worked on Prophet, which he released in 1992. Prophet combined Peretti's now-signature focus on the spiritual realm with the issue of abortion.

[edit] Developing his craft

Peretti reportedly felt bad about his early books' success and insisted that he had not yet developed his craft as a writer sufficiently. He began working with secular publishers and editors in an attempt to improve his writing. The result, The Oath, published in 1995, has sold more than one million copies worldwide and was the recipient of the 1996 ECPA Gold Medallion Book Award for Best Fiction. The Oath left behind the world of angels and demons developed in his previous books but certainly didn't abandon the fantastic; the story centers around the siege of a fictional Washington mining town held by a vicious dragon.

In the mid-90s, Peretti picked up his children's series, the Cooper Kids Adventure series, publishing four more titles. He also wrote The Visitation, a story of a small wheat town in eastern Washington visited by a man who claims to be a Jesus reincarnate. The Visitation was released in 1999.

[edit] Change of focus

The turn of the millennium saw Peretti's departure from writing his popular novels. He dwelled on the subject of bullying in his non-fiction titles No More Victims (2001) and No More Bullies (2003), and in his 2000 autobiographical story of childhood struggles with physical disfigurement and an examination of how society emotionally abuses and scars children, The Wounded Spirit. He also wrote Hangman's Curse and Nightmare Academy, the only two books in the short-lived science fiction Veritas Project series for teenagers.

[edit] Return to adult novels

Peretti's first novel of the new millennium, Monster, explores many angles of "survival of the fittest" and brings up objections to the evolutionary theory. Using the legend of Bigfoot as the main frame of the story, Monster is about a horrifying predator that terrorizes the woods of northern Idaho.

House was released in April 2006 and co-authored by Peretti with fellow supernatural author Ted Dekker. This latest novel follows in the footsteps of his 1990s works in its horror-based nature, but also incorporates the spiritual elements of his Darkness books.

[edit] Films of Peretti's work

Tilly was adapted into a short forty minute film by a pro-life group, Love Life America in 2002 and shown on both PAX TV and briefly on the EWTN show Defending Life before being released on DVD.

Later, 2002 saw a movie based on Hangman's Curse in which Frank Peretti had a small role as an eccentric professor. It had a limited release in theaters but appears to have been successful enough to encourage film producers to continue developing Peretti's books into films. The Visitation was also made into a film by Twentieth Century Fox. House is in post-production and set to be released into theaters in the Fall of 2008.^{[citation needed]}.

Peretti is interested in making more films based on his books. He has written a screenplay for Monster^{[citation needed]} and is hoping to make films for The Oath and This Present Darkness a reality, but acknowledges that they will be high budget projects. (Frank Peretti FAQ.)

[edit] Critical reviews

Frank Peretti has received overwhelmingly positive praise from many Christian book reviews, his books being heralded as telling entertaining stories with complex interwoven plots. [1] He has been described by Irving Hexham as a "sanctified Stephen King", and James Lewis suggests that the novels permit Christians to "indulge in reading good horror/adventure stories without the pangs of guilt they might feel reading secular stories".^{[citation needed]}

Much of the negative reviews of Peretti's work are targeted at his earliest novels. Steve Rabey has criticized the novel for its "simplistic approach to good and evil" and "overdone" descriptions of New Age characters, but positively indicated its effective technique in heightening the story's tension by portraying the plot in the levels of human interaction and angelic-demonic influences.^{[citation needed]} J. Lanier Burns has found the style to be "engaging" with a vivid plot, but argued that the world view presented "is dualistic to an implausible, unbiblical extreme" and found a "disturbing lack of emphasis on the almightiness of God".^{[citation needed]}. Michael Maudlin appreciates Peretti's works and fast-paced plots, but faults Piercing the Darkness for its "forced apologetics, stilted dialogue, and stereotyped characterizations".^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Theological criticisms

Peretti's fictional portrayal of spiritual warfare reflects in part his background in the Assemblies of God and the contemporary focus of Pentecostal writings on the demonic. His concept of Territorial Spirits reigning over cities is paralleled in non-fiction works in theology and missions by Pentecostal writers such as C. Peter Wagner, Larry Lea, Ed Silvoso and Ed Murphy.

As his novels have been widely sold and read throughout Evangelical, Charismatic and Pentecostal churches, Peretti's fiction has excited the imaginations of pastors and non-clergy alike on the subject of spiritual warfare. Michael Maudlin reports that some readers have been so enthused they have declared that This Present Darkness is the best book ever written after the Bible. Others have added the novels to the list of textbooks recommended for use in Bible college courses on non-Christian religions.^{[citation needed]}

Some critical reservations have been expressed by a number of Evangelical and Pentecostal writers that many readers are using Peretti's novels as manuals on prayer, exorcism, spiritual warfare and as guidebooks about the New Age. For example, Kim Riddlebarger expresses alarm that many readers have "redefined their entire worldview based upon a novel" and insists that the Bible does not call upon Christians to "engage in spiritual warfare as a combat between angels and demons." ("This Present Paranoia", pp 278 and 279).

Irving Hexham rejects Peretti's depiction of the New Age as confirming a negative stereotype. Hexham observes that Peretti's novels reflect the anxieties that many fundamentalist and evangelical Christians have about secular society, the mass media, the social sciences and tertiary education. He is also disturbed "to see the way Frank Peretti has become a popular and oft-quoted authority on the New Age" because "his actual qualifications in religious matters are minimal". ("The Evangelical Response to the New Age", p. 157).

Scholars in the field of Christian missions, such as Paul G. Hiebert and A. Scott Moreau, detect an unbiblical theology of demons in the novels. Hiebert indicates that Peretti's novels reflect a much wider cultural problem, namely the lingering influence of pre-Christian religious ideology.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Cooper Kids Adventure Series

[edit] The Veritas Project Series

1. Hangman's Curse (2001)
2. Nightmare Academy (2002)

[edit] Adult Novels

• This Present Darkness (1986)
• Piercing the Darkness (1988)
• Tilly (1988)
• All Is Well: The Miracle of Christmas in July (1991)
• Prophet (1992)
• The Oath (1995)
• The Visitation (1999)
• Monster (2005)
• House (2006) (with Ted Dekker)

among the (series)

[edit] Non-fiction

• The Wounded Spirit (2000)
• No More Victims (2001)
• No More Bullies (2003)

[edit] Filmography

In addition to his appearance in Hangman's Curse, Peretti has had a voice role in Flo, the Lying Fly, the second computer animated entry in the Hermie and Friends series for children. He has also made a number of videos (and associated audio tapes and books) in which he takes on the persona of Mr. Henry, a slightly eccentric inventor and Bible teacher. While the format is unusual, it contains none of the controversial theology of his adults' books. House, a book he co-authored with Ted Dekker, is also being filmed and is in post-production.

[edit] External links

• Official site