Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 5, No. 2, 2006, Page 105
Mark, a man who speaks with an impediment that some women find irresistible, leads the
independent church.
Throughout the book, the author writes Mark‘s words as ―pwetty,‖ ―spiwit,‖ ―pwaise,‖
―pwoblem,‖ and so on. Mark has piercing blue eyes, but is otherwise a frumpy sort of fellow
with a pompadour hairdo. Early in the story, we learn that Mark has illicit sexual encounters
with women in the church, and some of them have complained. Dissidents are ―handled‖ or
disfellowshipped and shunned by the community. Strict about marriage and sexual
misconduct at first, Penny begins to experience changes in the church and herself over
time. She succumbs to these changes as they happen gradually after certain charismatic
bursts that surprise the congregation. She convinces her boyfriend Rick to marry her, drop
golf, and join the church. He does so reluctantly. Part of the reason he agrees to marry
Penny is that he is really horny after not having seen her for some time, and she will not
have sex with him until they are married. Sexual tension is a prominent theme in this
book—sex between Christians who fight their impulses to comply at first with the rules. No
frontal hugging is allowed, for example, until the pastor changes the rule.
During charismatic leadings from ―God,‖ some people in the church begin to dance
spontaneously in an erotic fashion. At first, Mark, the pastor, is confused and wants to stop
this behavior but because of his own lewd propensities, he allows the ―spiritual connection
move‖ to thrive. Mark gets caught up in it, too, especially with a few of his closest female
prayer partners. Mark is married, as are most of the characters, but soon the spirit dancing
leads to illicit encounters. Couples dance and make out in the ―mega connection‖ room, and
many succumb to the ―mistake‖ of intercourse with someone other than their spouse. The
―connections‖ are so powerful that church members enter a kind of ecstasy that they
interpret as God‘s energy flowing through them.
Tragedy hits the congregation when one member drowns her young son to spare him from
possibly becoming an active homosexual like his father. The already-controversial church is
now thrust into the news. Ex-members speak out about the sexual abuse and erotic activity,
some threaten lawsuits, and many begin to doubt the holiness they felt in the group.
Despite her efforts to be a good ―churchite,‖ Penny struggles with the obvious flaws in her
community. She gets away for a while to think. She stays with an aunt who had been trying
to convince Penny to leave the group for some time. While attending to her aunt‘s garden,
Penny picks up an apparently good cucumber that has been hollowed out by a worm. At
that moment, she hears the voice of Jesus tell her that the fruit is rotten, like her church.
She has a disturbing dream about the occult nature of her church. After five years of
devotion in the church, she can finally admit to herself that it is a ―cult.‖ She talks with
dissidents who convince her to leave. She, in turn, helps others to quit the cult.
After the end of her story, Summers offers help through her Web site for people bothered
by cult experiences, but she is nonspecific, save suggesting they contact her through email.
Summers uses an odd spelling of occult for her title, but she clearly intends to convey that
the devil can work through spiritual (occult) experience, even in a born-again, spirit-filled
Christian community. She implies that the devil can turn a church into a cult through occult
experiences that do not square with scripture. For example, illicit sex violates the
commandment, ―Thou shall not covet thy neighbor‘s wife.‖
In my estimation, the book fails as a novel. I did not enjoy reading it. Perhaps the challenge
was the tedious dialog among mostly humorless characters too simply developed. Mark, the
misguided and perverse pastor, remained in caricature throughout for me. I struggled to
believe that any woman would fall for this guy. In contrast, Frank Peretti‘s occult fiction
(This Present Darkness) also feeds the fundamentalist Christian imagination, but Peretti
manages to entertain the reader with his comic-book notion of evil and the occult. I felt
little richness of place throughout the Summers book, so it was less believable.
Mark, a man who speaks with an impediment that some women find irresistible, leads the
independent church.
Throughout the book, the author writes Mark‘s words as ―pwetty,‖ ―spiwit,‖ ―pwaise,‖
―pwoblem,‖ and so on. Mark has piercing blue eyes, but is otherwise a frumpy sort of fellow
with a pompadour hairdo. Early in the story, we learn that Mark has illicit sexual encounters
with women in the church, and some of them have complained. Dissidents are ―handled‖ or
disfellowshipped and shunned by the community. Strict about marriage and sexual
misconduct at first, Penny begins to experience changes in the church and herself over
time. She succumbs to these changes as they happen gradually after certain charismatic
bursts that surprise the congregation. She convinces her boyfriend Rick to marry her, drop
golf, and join the church. He does so reluctantly. Part of the reason he agrees to marry
Penny is that he is really horny after not having seen her for some time, and she will not
have sex with him until they are married. Sexual tension is a prominent theme in this
book—sex between Christians who fight their impulses to comply at first with the rules. No
frontal hugging is allowed, for example, until the pastor changes the rule.
During charismatic leadings from ―God,‖ some people in the church begin to dance
spontaneously in an erotic fashion. At first, Mark, the pastor, is confused and wants to stop
this behavior but because of his own lewd propensities, he allows the ―spiritual connection
move‖ to thrive. Mark gets caught up in it, too, especially with a few of his closest female
prayer partners. Mark is married, as are most of the characters, but soon the spirit dancing
leads to illicit encounters. Couples dance and make out in the ―mega connection‖ room, and
many succumb to the ―mistake‖ of intercourse with someone other than their spouse. The
―connections‖ are so powerful that church members enter a kind of ecstasy that they
interpret as God‘s energy flowing through them.
Tragedy hits the congregation when one member drowns her young son to spare him from
possibly becoming an active homosexual like his father. The already-controversial church is
now thrust into the news. Ex-members speak out about the sexual abuse and erotic activity,
some threaten lawsuits, and many begin to doubt the holiness they felt in the group.
Despite her efforts to be a good ―churchite,‖ Penny struggles with the obvious flaws in her
community. She gets away for a while to think. She stays with an aunt who had been trying
to convince Penny to leave the group for some time. While attending to her aunt‘s garden,
Penny picks up an apparently good cucumber that has been hollowed out by a worm. At
that moment, she hears the voice of Jesus tell her that the fruit is rotten, like her church.
She has a disturbing dream about the occult nature of her church. After five years of
devotion in the church, she can finally admit to herself that it is a ―cult.‖ She talks with
dissidents who convince her to leave. She, in turn, helps others to quit the cult.
After the end of her story, Summers offers help through her Web site for people bothered
by cult experiences, but she is nonspecific, save suggesting they contact her through email.
Summers uses an odd spelling of occult for her title, but she clearly intends to convey that
the devil can work through spiritual (occult) experience, even in a born-again, spirit-filled
Christian community. She implies that the devil can turn a church into a cult through occult
experiences that do not square with scripture. For example, illicit sex violates the
commandment, ―Thou shall not covet thy neighbor‘s wife.‖
In my estimation, the book fails as a novel. I did not enjoy reading it. Perhaps the challenge
was the tedious dialog among mostly humorless characters too simply developed. Mark, the
misguided and perverse pastor, remained in caricature throughout for me. I struggled to
believe that any woman would fall for this guy. In contrast, Frank Peretti‘s occult fiction
(This Present Darkness) also feeds the fundamentalist Christian imagination, but Peretti
manages to entertain the reader with his comic-book notion of evil and the occult. I felt
little richness of place throughout the Summers book, so it was less believable.
