08-20-2009, 10:42 PM
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| The Discipling of Mytra by Rich Coffeen
DOES CHRISTIANITY HAVE A FUTURE?
“Our mission board is unique. We do not evangelize the lost, we do not plant churches. IPM exists for this purpose only: to open planets by peaceful means.”
This is the premise for The Discipling of Mytra, a recently-released science fiction novel by Christian author Rich Coffeen, a reformed pastor with a vision for using fiction for the kingdom of God.
The novel’s premise is that Jesus has not come back, but instead that Christian missions have continued into the space age with mission groups like IPM (Inter-Planetary Missions) helping to further the Church’s mission to reach the whole universe with the Gospel.
However, when it comes to Mytra, an isolated planet whose closed society was designed seven hundred years before by fifty-six homosexual geneticists, even IPM’s advanced technology cannot cope with the problem. Only the grace of God lies between success and disaster……
Rich Coffeen has envisioned a future almost as realistic as that of the ill-fated Firefly series. The characters are anything but perfect (even the Christians) and thus are quite realistic in their humanity. Though the author has a tendency to go into theology, the points he makes are crucial to the story and to developing who the characters are.
Where Coffeen is at his best, though, is in envisioning technologies like quantum-phase armor, reproducing factories, even gross genetic experiments. Concepts like a radical rethinking of faster-than-light travel are mentioned only in passing as mere footnotes to the real spiritual battle.
In essence, Rich Coffeen has created a reformed alternative to the Left Behind books and their attempt to dramatize dispensationalism. Most will end up disagreeing with Coffeen’s theology at points (I certainly did) yet on the whole, the book glorifies God and yet manages to entertain.
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