I didn’t realize I had to bring Christ back until the very last chapter of The Delver of Purgatory. I know that sounds strange, because the life, crucifixion, and resurrection was covered pretty extensively in the retelling of Lucifer’s Gospel, which was, pardon my pun, a hell of a thing to write.

Like any good second act, I end on a down note with a hint of the things getting better in the third book, which is titled The Saints Come Marching. Patrick breaks open Purgatory to free the ancient Irish gods, including the mythological demigod Cu Chulainn, to help in the battle against God’s archangels and the Devil’s demonic forces. I won’t say what the down note is, but in the midst of figuring out the tunings, I had nowhere to go.

And then Jesus Christ, just… *sighs* came into my life again.

It would be a website to itself to explore the journey and end of my Christian faith, but needless to say, the short version will rely on reason, not beliefs. We can spend all day splitting hairs about beliefs. But what I watched growing up: the evangelical protest against Harry Potter (which, in retrospect…), the evangelical protest against the success of Dan Brown’s books (which, you know, I could only hope to have), and the general protest against anyone that did not fit their worldview, it all convinced me that for a group of people that are so dependent on the belief that Christ is literally coming back in the flesh, the opportunity, the challenge, and (honestly) the nightmare of placing Jesus right there into the narrative was kind of written beforehand. I had seen people dare to include Christ in fiction in a meaningful way, only to get shit.

So I decided to get knee deep.

I have an academic background in History and Religious Studies, much of it focused on the Early Christ Movement to the Arian Controversy, which kicked off the formation of “the Church” at the Councils of Nicaea. I have read multiple modern translations of the Bible ranging from Revised Standard to King James to the Catholic Teaching Bible (my favorite from a scholarly standpoint and what I used for The Blessed & Possessed) to the Septuagint Texts and Tanakh. I have also read The Synoptic Gospels multiple times to help in the formulation of Lucifer’s Gospel in The Delver of Purgatory. We’ll talk about The Book of John near the end, which makes sense since it is (in my opinion) its own thing somewhat-written counter to Luke and Matthew. In fact, Mark and John were like the two gospels favored by the early Church, but let’s not tarry too long on this.

I think several people have already tried their hand at Biblical fiction and done incredibly well with it. I mention Dan Brown, which while not “biblical” in the sense that he was using theology and narratives from the Bible, uses the idea of Christ as a compelling idea and even figure to spark conversations within the story. What if Christ and Mary Magdelene were married? Jewish men of his age were likely married. Does that honestly take away from the idea of God, who tells us to wed the ones we love and commit ourselves to them? I think Christopher Moore’s Lamb does a great job of depicting how difficult it might have been to be around Christ in his lifetime, and how weird he might have been having to react to so many different things if he was truly God-incarnate, like modern worshipers wish to believe (though Mark and John gospels don’t necessarily back that either.) Of course, Kevin Smith nails how people attempt to use the image of Christ and the ideas of his ministry to manipulate the best outcomes for the selfish, like Bartleby and Loki as they try to use Biblical legalese to get back into Heaven in the classic film Dogma.

I’ll even give credit to Mel Gibson and Jim Caviezel—we absolutely do not agree about anything politically and likely spiritually, but his portrayal of Christ in The Passion of The Christ is captivating, as is Gibson’s attempt to render the event in cinematic form.

(I just don’t trust actors who believe they became Christ-like on a production set, Jim. That’s cult-shit.)

But the challenge for me, in writing Christ, was not just trying to portray him honestly in The Delver of Purgatory, but answer the complicated question posed by The Saints Come Marching:

What if the fucking guy actually came back?

Like, for real?

What if Christ just showed up somewhere, someday, and there was no question about it?

Evangelicals love the idea, but I think if anyone has a close reading of the Gospels under their belt, and an honest one—GOD is just going to show up and things will be fine?

Not just fine, but great?

Stepping back from the miracles, the parables, the sayings (Gospel of John), and Resurrection a moment because those are the only events that matter in the story of Jesus, and putting aside the medievalism and the modern heresy we see from charismatic preachers and prosperity worshipers (who are today’s usurers and money changers), there is no indication from the actions of Christ (and Mary Magdelene, who should be right up there with him) and his immediate twelve disciples that such a paradise would occur.

The ethos, philosophy, and morality of the Personification would likely be in direct conflict with the modern global state, i.e., nobody is just going to up and hand over power, agree to change what is working for them, or simply say “Yes, Jesus!”

At the same time, there are ideas that a late-Iron Age Jew from Palestine pushed that might not float in the modern world’s vast ocean of ideas, belief, and opinion because the idea that Jesus proposed are dated to the time he lived, which is around 30-40 AD depending on the source material. For example, Christ did not speak on homosexuality, nor did he thoroughly expand on the role of government in private and spiritual lives as Republicans pretend to believe he did, and he never touched a series of modern day issues the Bible simply does not have answers for. Christ never talks about nukes, or climate change, or genetic engineering, or the rights of human beings against the sovereignty of the state (because he was pretty unconcerned about the state, or material things), and he never had to debate his points outside of his confrontation with the Sanhedrin.

What does it look like if Christ goes on Bill Maher, or had to be grilled by Richard Dawkins? What does Sean Hannity do in front of Almighty God, besides combust from his sinfulness?

What if Christ had to go up against those prosperity preachers, or the institutions claiming him as their Lord and almighty god?

But no, never mind. I’m sure it would just be the easiest-peasiest thing.

However, this is (Urban) Fantasy, and it begs the question: what would happen? And I can attempt an answer!

First, I think save for the people who get to be there in person or have some form of direct witness, a lot of people will raise shields and set their phasers to kill. I don’t think a single Church would lay out the welcome mat or rush to have him host Sunday services. Not when their paychecks and rents are at stake against a guy telling you that your rents and paychecks don’t matter next to the godliness within you.

Could you imagine Christ walking around the Vatican? It would probably freak him out a little bit.

“And there’s still starving people?” he’d asked, gazing up onto the roof of the Sistine Chapel. He might even point to a panel and say, “And it didn’t happen like that.”

Could you imagine Christ revealing the cure for cancer? Because why not? If he’s the real deal, then asking for the cure for cancer seems like an obvious thing. Or answering direct questions on the conception of human life. He could rule, then and there, on when it is right to perform abortions. Think about what the impact of that would be.

But what if Christ came back and didn’t just heal all the sick and feed all the poor and end all the wars? What if, on some level of understanding known only to him, he refuses to do so out of the right reasons that only God can understand?

And, pardon me for asking again, but what if this fucking guy really *is* G-D?

Chaos. It’d be chaos.

There’s no sunny one thousand years of peace just like *that*, and to honestly think there would be when all signs point in another direction would be intellectually dishonest for me as a deep reader of the Bible, and it would also be dishonest to my readers, be they Christians or people simply looking for a good yarn.

Second, I don’t think Christ would be self-reverential. The Christ written in the Gospels is not walking around going “look how great I am.” He’s not even going around outright saying “I’m God”, but “I’m the son of the Father”, which is its own can of theological worms.

The Christ in the Gospels would probably be a great guy to meet, have supper with, and then go on about your life knowing “hey, good dudes are out there.” I think someone who puts forth the idea that children need to be guarded would be affable and open to all, but especially children. There’d be no hard-nosed cruelty about him. He’s speak with some mystery, but not in an unkindly manner, and perhaps with some humor because humor can be kind, and I wanted to write a character who uses humor kindly at a time where people think being funny is, on some level, being mean. He’s not mean unless you give him good reason to be, like the usurers and money-changers obviously did.

If Christ was truly worthy of his mantle, I can’t bring myself to believe he’d be mean for the sake of the yuck-yucks. One brilliant thing I thought Kevin Smith did with casting Alanis Morrisette as God in the film Dogma was make her quirky but silent, gentle but firm, yet allowed Alanis to be the Alanis we all love with her easing presence. As wild as it will sound, I attempted to let Christ be Christ from the many Bibles as I read him—bold, challenging, but incredibly kind and far more considerate of the world than his children around him. “Forgive them, for they don’t know what they do.”

He understands that humanity is working with a limited perception next to his, and has a sense of fairness not to punish us for it, but to guide and teach.

And that’s the most important thing I tried to keep in mind when I dealt with the writing of Christ, or with any character within The Blessed & Possessed series—From Michael the Protector to Gabriel the Messenger to St. George the Dragonslayer, I tried to say true to who those characters are in the source materials, because there is enough of a story in every telling that some pretty basic things about them could actually be nailed down. Michael is a militant by his very nature, as the commander of God’s forces would likely have to be, but militancy can constrain people to think and act in tyrannical ways. Gabriel is kind, because they know they carry often carry doom in the messages God asks them to deliver, and I can imagine that means living with a lot of doubts in between taking up the message and delivering it.

St. George is/was fearless, almost suicidally so. I think you’d have to be to fight a dragon that breathes fire, or an army of demons, or simply for the fact he was a knight and it was what his duty called for.

But Christ is love. The character I think we get in the Synoptic Gospels and is given better resolution in the Gospel of John through his says reveals a shrewd, piercing, but ultimately very caring man who seems to want to do well by others and give his children relief.

I will concede on thing because it was an intentional decision and there’s a deeper philosophy behind it—Christ sounds like me in the text. The way I speak, the way I answer, the way I kind of draw on meta elements that the other characters have no connection too—that’s me. That’s my voice.

I use my voice because I’m not Christ. (Obviously.)

However I am a child of God, and if God resides in all of us, we can find the voice of Christ within ourselves. It is impossible for me to speak for the Lord, because the Lord would obviously be able to speak for himself (if he is as he says he is), but I think all of our voices make up the great voice singing through the cosmos, bringing light, life, and cognition to an empty universe God awoke in alone and likely very scared as any child would be if there was no discernable beginning for them to define themselves by. That’s what a parent is there to do, and it seems as if God has no parent in the Old Testament.

I believe in God, but I don’t believe in perfect beings. What I do believe is in trying to see God for what God is instead of how we want God to be.

Imagine for a second being a kid with no real dad, a very young mom that spontaneously grew you in her womb, and a foster-father already as old as the dirt they lived on and all the knowledge of everything and the ability to know it down to the infinitesimal. You live in a society that calls your mother a “whore” and at any time that foster-father can stone her to death for adultry and send you away. (Of course Jospeh doesn’t because he’s Jonathan/ Pa Kent.)

I tried to give that scared little boy, who turned into a brave man, then a father willing to die for his kids, a voice that I hope does him justice.

But in the end the only way I will know if I failed or succeeded is by what the readers tell me. And despite some trepidation, I look forward to the discussion, debates, and outright accusations I’m in league with the Devil. Which, you know…

I’ve seen worse company, but after all this and the work I put into this series, I think I might have the best at my side, and I’m his.

I hope I am.