Jan Dunlap's Blog - Posts Tagged "heaven-s-gate"
Is the medium the message or the messenger? (Or how I got started writing a supernatural thriller series...)
I just finished reading Jodi Picoult's "Leaving Time," and once again, I am blown away by this author's creative depth. I keep thinking she can't get better, but with every book, she does!
The fact that one of her primary narrators is a psychic who is a medium particularly caught my attention, since my new book releasing in June also has a character who is a medium. Part of the story's thesis is that heaven exists, and the presence/ability of mediums proves the existence of life after death since they communicate with those we know as 'dead' on earth.
This idea had been nagging at me for years before I began writing this new book - titled "Archangels Book I: Heaven's Gate". More than 10 years ago, my son Tom took a course in college that required him to read the book "The AfterLife Experiments"; his instructor was the author! Tom told me I had to read it, and I did, and it lit explosions in my imagination about the spiritual realm and life after death. I suppose that was the seed of my book, along with my own fascination with string theory from quantum physics, which predicts 11 dimensions to reality. A whole lot of research and reading later, I felt compelled to write "Heaven's Gate" as I sought for myself a synthesis of faith and science; I believe they are two sides to God's own coin, instead of opposing endeavors.
Of course, I realized that a lot of Christians aren't going to agree with the theology that underlies my books, but then again, many Christians and non-Christians alike are going to find (I hope!) much to reflect on in the course of my Archangels series, which takes different fields of science and interprets them as the work of God. As my fictional medium, the devout Khristina Tupikova, reminds physicist Dr. Michael Carilion in Book I with a quote from Hamlet: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
And so, in "Heaven's Gate," Khristina and Michael push the boundaries of what we think we know...
The fact that one of her primary narrators is a psychic who is a medium particularly caught my attention, since my new book releasing in June also has a character who is a medium. Part of the story's thesis is that heaven exists, and the presence/ability of mediums proves the existence of life after death since they communicate with those we know as 'dead' on earth.
This idea had been nagging at me for years before I began writing this new book - titled "Archangels Book I: Heaven's Gate". More than 10 years ago, my son Tom took a course in college that required him to read the book "The AfterLife Experiments"; his instructor was the author! Tom told me I had to read it, and I did, and it lit explosions in my imagination about the spiritual realm and life after death. I suppose that was the seed of my book, along with my own fascination with string theory from quantum physics, which predicts 11 dimensions to reality. A whole lot of research and reading later, I felt compelled to write "Heaven's Gate" as I sought for myself a synthesis of faith and science; I believe they are two sides to God's own coin, instead of opposing endeavors.
Of course, I realized that a lot of Christians aren't going to agree with the theology that underlies my books, but then again, many Christians and non-Christians alike are going to find (I hope!) much to reflect on in the course of my Archangels series, which takes different fields of science and interprets them as the work of God. As my fictional medium, the devout Khristina Tupikova, reminds physicist Dr. Michael Carilion in Book I with a quote from Hamlet: "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
And so, in "Heaven's Gate," Khristina and Michael push the boundaries of what we think we know...
How to be both Christian and a science nerd
Being a closet science nerd, I love reading about cutting-edge research in any field: quantum mechanics, neurobiology, nutrition, veterinary medicine, geology, astrophysics, genetics. As a former college English major turned college English instructor, I also love Shakespeare and classic literature. So it was with great delight that I combined these two loves in my latest suspense novel titled “Heaven's Gate: Archangels Book One,” giving two of my characters a scientific profession, and another two an intimate familiarity with the Bard and other great writers. In fact, one of my favorite lines in the book is a direct quote from Shakespeare’s Hamlet and comes during a heated discussion about the possibility/reality of life after death: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio/Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”I think that is a fitting description of much of today’s scientific discoveries – hard-working researchers are teasing out the secrets of life that surpass even what we might have imagined or predicted in theory. Every new development leads to more inquiry and speculation – a hundred years ago, who could have imagined that MRIs or angiograms would become such common procedures in the medical practice of diagnosis? Or who would have thought that we’d be gawking at photos of galaxies light years away at the touch of a few keys on a tablet-sized computer?
As a committed Christian, I also think Shakespeare’s line is an insightful expression of the omniscience and omnipotence of our wondrous God. There’s a reason that Paul poses this question in I Corinthians 2:16: For, "Who can know the LORD's thoughts? Who knows enough to teach him?" God alone knows everything, and even the most dedicated scientist’s efforts to see into the mind of God will fall short. No human can possibly instruct the Lord who created all things in heaven and earth and even beyond! Personally, I get annoyed with anyone who claims to have all the answers, or even THE answer to any one riddle of life. Our God is infinite and full of infinite possibility, which means, to me, that His imagination has no boundaries. All any researcher can do is explore a small piece of creation in hopes he might learn something about it and be able to add it to the store of human knowledge about life. And that’s not a bad thing, because wisdom grows from knowledge, especially when it is tempered with the love of Jesus Christ.
Likewise, to think that science has nothing to do with God is, for me, ludicrous. God gave us intellects to know Him and His creation. Why wouldn’t we use the awesome gift of our thought processes to discover more about our Maker and his work? Doesn’t the Lord charge us to use the gifts He gave us? And don’t we know God and each other through our works? Whether it is through service, or science, or simple obedience, God has blessed us with many avenues for approaching Him, and I, for one, am grateful for them all. May each of us reach beyond our philosophies to seek, and ultimately find, our God.Jan Dunlap
