When Truth is Stranger than Fiction

Lately, a book I wrote four years ago called The Christ Virus is beginning to look more and more prophetic. Yesterday, the City of Houston issued subpoenas to a group of pastors demanding they turn over any sermons dealing with homosexuality, gender identity or Annise Parker, the city's first openly lesbian mayor. Those ministers who fail to comply could be held in contempt of court. Fox News reported that Attorney Christina Holcomb from the Alliance Defending Freedom said, "The city council and its attorneys are engaging in an inquisition designed to stifle any critique of its actions."1

This scenario is played out on page 8 of The Christ Virus where fictional character, Pastor Luke Chavez, is faced with a decision of whether to preach the whole gospel or to obey a new law requiring religious leaders to abstain from teaching anything that is offensive to anyone. The new law eviscerates much of the Bible leaving it even thinner than Thomas Jefferson's Bible.

It is no longer a stretch of the imagination to wonder when laws restricting what can be taught from the pulpit will impact Americans. In Canada, it is already considered an anti-hate crime for a preacher to teach anything from the Bible considered offensive to homosexuals.

The only question now is how will you respond?

1Fox News October 14, 2014
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/10/14/city-houston-demands-pastors-turn-over-sermons/

Eerie Parallel Between Ebola Outbreak and The Christ Virus

Mark Twain once said truth is stranger than fiction. We certainly live in times when the unthinkable often becomes reality. But ever once and awhile life and fiction crossover, and it's difficult to tell which came first. It happened 13 years ago when two planes flew into the Twin Towers. Until then, no one had ever thought of using passenger jets as flying bombs. Actually, that's not correct. More than a year before the 9/11 attacks, Joel Rosenberg penned The Last Jihad. In his story terrorists seize a jet with the intent of using it as weapon of mass destruction against the U.S. government. Sound familiar?

The same eerie parallel occurred today when news broke that the nurse in Dallas infected with Ebola received a transfusion from Dr. Kent Brantly, an Ebola survivor. This is ripped right from the pages of The Christ Virus––page 325 to be exact. I had a crazy thought when I wrote this scene more than four years ago: what if in a desperate attempt to save an infected person, a virus survivor donated his blood? In this case, the virus was much deadlier than Ebola. The current Ebola strain has a mortality rate of 60%, but the Zaire strain is fatal 90% of the time. 

The theory behind the transfusion treatment is the blood of an Ebola survivor should contain antibodies. By giving an infected patient the blood plasma from a survivor, those antibodies should help fight off Ebola. It's too soon to tell if such an unconventional treatment will work, but it does in my story. You can order The Christ Virus at amazon.com.