I featured Ryan David Gerard on 31/08/19 in another blog, now defunct.
Today’s
guest is novelist Ryan David Gerard. His trilogy, The Baptist is one
very edgy, speculative and edge of your seat reading. Ryan explores in
this post depicting Christian fiction realistically. It is an issue that
Christian authors have battled with and readers have criticised authors
for either not depicting it as such or for having done so! Where is the
happy medium? Is there one?
Now
Ryan, has a lot to say, so this post is lengthy, but if you are
interested in this topic, read on and be patient with Ryan! He delivers!
He raises some valid and controversial points; I can vouch for these as
I have experienced what he describes below in his novels.
Definitely grab a coffee or preferred beverage and dive in here. Let’s go! Over to you, Ryan!
The Baptist
is a book series that is a modern-day reimagining of biblical events.
In the near future, a time travel experiment goes wrong and an anomaly
in the space-time continuum creates a time shift where history is
jumbled up and certain biblical time periods happen in our day in age as
if for the first time ever…In this modern setting, God and the devil
agree to a cosmic rematch for the souls of humanity when the devil
thinks he can defeat Christ if he had a second shot. In the midst of
all this, one rogue cop must battle his way through street crime and
evil on a larger scale as life and the human condition hangs in the
balance.
This series is written specifically for the world, not the church. It’s not a typical, wholesome piece of Christian media. It comes with one of those “explicit content” warnings on it. There is violence, in lots of police-action-style shooting and fight scenes and there is language. Because it’s all about the human condition, it is not a very pleasant subject matter. There are prostitution and drugs as well as gang and criminal activity. None of the characters is Christian and, as such, they are written that way. It’s a story about how the rest of the world goes through life, popular beliefs about how good and evil should be handled, and how the average citizen would deal with God showing up in their life.
So as a Christian, I wanted to write a story that would not just be for Christians as most Christian media is if we’re honest with ourselves. I guess I reached a point where I saw how ineffective Christian media was—now…let me pause because I want to clarify: I’m not saying that Christian media isn’t useful. It’s good, wholesome entertainment for kids; it’s good for sermon illustrations or bible study type stuff for youth groups or anything that is within the church, for teaching and possibly strengthening believers—music especially! I’m not saying it doesn’t have its place…it does. But here’s the real kick behind my writing: I was honestly tired of hearing all my friends say how much they didn’t like church and how cheesy, annoying and lame Christian media is. The worst part, I came to realize, was that this wasn’t coming out of a place of defence, but because I really couldn’t disagree with them…the production values are poor, the acting is bad, the dialogue is worse because it’s written very carefully to be safe and non-offensive, therefore it’s unrealistic, the situations are likewise and unrealistic, the characters’; reactions are disingenuous, even when they try to be “:…and show a little anger or passion or something, it’s unbelievable, the music sounds like Full House”—I could go on…basically I find it grossly unrealistic and therefore not relatable.
The bottom line is that I thought to myself; “Why can’t Christians put out a better product—a more realistic, gritty, raw and unvarnished piece of media? A well written and well-produced story, and wouldn’t it be awesome to not worry about being safe” or “So I began to realize that I should be the one to produce something like this, instead of waiting and criticizing.”
Now, I’m not naive enough to think that I am the only Christian who’s ever lived to think and feel this way–do a bit of research and you’ll find many groups and cliques out there–but I think what happens is that other authors write a rough manuscript, with the desire to be more gritty and raw as I’ve been illustrating, but then second guess themselves and begin to edit everything out! Anything potentially offensive or “and I think you’d find their intentions in doing so are not as pure as you would think”. How do I know this? Because this was me. I am just as guilty of trying to please the church and have had this false sense of obligation to the Christian religion when my only obligation is to God and honouring Him. My intentions, when editing all the “garbage” out of my books, were based on fear of what my church friends would think of me for writing them and not because I didn’t think the content would really make an impactful statement. I heard their voices in my head asking, ‘how I could call myself a Christian if I wrote a book like this?’ One of the promotional posters I made for this series was a mock 80s/90s style gimmick poster. It mimicked the poster for Big Trouble in Little China and it included a lot of pop culture easter eggs (because I’m a pop culture nerd).
The Bible is a no holds barred, epic story about the worst evil villain, to top all evil villains, attacking the prized treasure of his enemy, in the ultimate betrayal, causing a chain reaction of events that ripple down into the state of the world and sin and the human condition. Then, after a long exile and when it’s seemed as though evil has won, the fearless hero comes after his enemy, in defence of his beloved, and he kicks his ass!! He mops the floor with him, but not before being broken, beaten and bloodied, fighting through to rescue the girl (us) and restore justice to the world. It’s no mambie-pambie story, and neither is He! Read the description of Him in Revelation when He comes riding on a horse, wearing a robe drenched in blood and blazing eyes! He’s a badass!! And it’s the most epic of revenge and rescue stories to ever happen! That was the intention around my poster but as I was releasing it I admittedly cringed because I’m still fearful of the voices saying, “How can you blaspheme the Bible like this and portray it as this violent and gritty story, and portray John the Baptist as a violent man, with blood on his shirt and holding a gun?” The Bible is supposed to be all about peace and love and charity and selflessness, and all that…
1. The character in the book is not actually the real John the Baptist. He’s a comparison.
2. The Bible is all about love and all that.
But it is also full of war and violence, betrayal, sexually perverted societies, murder, and every evil thing under the sun. Love is the final outcome and the main message, in spite of society and in spite of a hateful world. It’s about all that and how we overcome it. Every character in the history of the book is a loser, nobody, outcast, reject, failure, and on some occasions evil person, and they are all offered salvation, through…what?…the most violent and gruesome form of torturous death and through the blood!
Our freedom was won through great tribulation and war, as outlined for us in Revelation. It talks about multitudes of angels and demons battling in heaven, great beasts out of the earth and sea, about the great dragon ready to devour Mary’s baby, and about the same dragon being defeated and hurled into hell! Also…it is just a poster, and I obviously do not believe that the Bible should be done over again. The images are meant to be an illustration of everything mentioned above. I am trying to make a statement, but it is simply satirical, to make a point, that if you want a good action story…
I know my books turn heads and raise eyebrows and I honestly am terrified of “making it big” or my books growing in popularity because of the controversy I know it will cause in Christian circles. It’s still safe for right now, tucked away in my little pocket and only kind of out there on a small scale. But I’d love it to grow and spread and be celebrated and loved by everyone, and debated over. But it scares me. On the other hand, I am also terrified of being discovered as being a Christian in the spotlight because of how the world does hate Christianity, but I should not be scared of the world and I think it’s time to try something different. Something new, that breaks some rules but hopefully breaks down some walls and builds some bridges and opportunities. It’s time the Christian world put out something that people we claim to love have something real to relate to. We have enough edification in our circles to keep us going, and more will be produced, but we need to put stuff out that actually impacts the world around us and doesn’t become a piece of the Christian clubhouse library. Something that a real person would pick up off a shelf and want to read.
My books are about a bunch of regular, real people, unpolished and raw, and how they react to evil and the human condition and how they might react to the Bible unfolding in front of their eyes today! I couldn’t write that story with safe language and clean content. These characters are dealing with deep and dark feelings, wrestling through profound situations and battling inner demons. When that happens, it’s not pleasant language and it’s not nice thoughts. Anyone going through something hard will tell you that being holy isn’t the first thing on their mind while they’re going through it. I get it, and I know most Christian media is meant to shine as an example of how we should respond, an example of how it is possible to react differently, how biblical values should and can be applied to difficult situations, yes! I get it…but there is also so much failure and heartache and beating of chests in between all the times we get it right.
In real life we often don’t respond the way we are supposed to, and the moment we don’t respond the way Kirk Cameron or Mr Whitaker does is usually when the outside world says our media is B.S., or we’re B.S., but that’s another topic…again, I don’t think Christian media does not have its place, but I want to put stuff out there for adults that is realistic, relatable, provocative, and impactful. I’ve seen some Christian media outlets try to accomplish this but still fall short because you can tell by watching/reading/listening to it, that they’ve edited and censored the content to remain safe.
For anyone who is feeling conflicted about this style of writing, or worried that if you’d like to write unhinged, but feel like you’re somehow dishonouring God, don’t. Even though I wrote a gritty, raw, unpolished story, I was very careful about how I wrote about God. The characters all make horrible decisions and they all fall and stumble and fail miserably as they go through the events, as we all do! But I strictly used the scriptures and did my best to honour His character and emulate the love and patience and overall integrity of what I know, believe and adore about Him. Everyone else?… I just wrote them as real people. How I observe everyone around me act and speak, and how I am a lot of the time, to be completely honest. here’s a scene in the books where the characters figure out who the Christ character is, and in their excitement they go, “Oh-ho”; and then they stop short, realizing they just swore in front of God, and apologize profusely, but the Christ character just patiently smirks and then the two of them share a vulnerable laugh about the whole situation.
The world just needs to see that Christians are real people, and we’re not polished and carefully written, holy characters, or least that by writing something like this, it can show we are connected to the world and not removed from it; that we live in the real world with them and understand it, that we understand and can relate to the things that are hard, that we don’t believe things are a fairy tale and sit up on high horses, that we are in the trenches right along with them, that we are part of the grime and the grit that is life. That just like every other human, we are trying to find our way through the human condition and that we all commonly share one enemy of life and that we are all in this together! Not removed…because I guarantee if you ask anyone else what they think about Christians it’ll be all the opposite of everything above.
When they react to hurtful things or experience hardship, just write them real…think about how you would respond, before you stop and think of that popular 90s WWJD, think about how most normal human beings might feel, and then write that…make it real! If the character has to say “damn”, let him say it. Let your characters fail miserably when they are challenged. Let your characters be weak. Don’t edit everything out of your book because, “oh, that’s just not very Christian”. In my book, none of the characters are Christian so why would they do Christian things? And if you’re writing Christian characters only in Christian settings and only acting Christian all the time, then your book is for the church, and that’s fine, but don’t expect anyone else to want to read it. The thing is, we want people to enjoy our stories and we want them to impact people, but as soon as you lose your audience because your writing is too cheap then it’s too late, if they’ve even bought your book in the first place. People want to read something they can connect with and relate to. They want to read complex and flawed characters. You can still honour God and write imperfect people going through imperfect situations. Make the focus of your story, ultimately, redemption and salvation. Don’t curse or slander God’s character.
Speaking of Quentin Tarantino, his Oscar-winning screenplay for Pulp Fiction goes down in history for being violent and chocked full of colourful language, and I’m neither condoning it or condemning it, but it’s a film all about gangsters and seedy people from the criminal underworld. On the surface, it may seem like an awful, nasty story, but if you can get past the language and some of the situations and Mr Tarantino himself has said this, the film is all about redemption. Every one of the characters is offered redemption, and even though it may not be spiritual, they are all offered a second chance. There even is a large spiritual chunk when Samuel L. Jackson turns from a life of murder and crime and finds God. And please don’t take that out of context. I’m not saying to look to Tarantino for theological purposes, but it just illustrates the point. And sometimes we can just write, create or enjoy stories for what they are and not always have to be looking for the “Christian meaning”. It’s ok to like secular bands and enjoy secular movies. I love the Avenger movies and all kinds of other movies without this whole, “what does this say about Christianity?” notion. Sometimes stories are just stories and entertainment. Write passionately, honestly and from the heart. Don’t take yourself too seriously that you miss the point.
Ryan has included an excerpt from the third novel in this trilogy, The Baptist: Revelation and his reason for including this:
The following excerpt is taken out of the final instalment in my novel series. For context, the protagonist, John, has gone through the first two books trying to figure out the human condition and fix crime as a vigilante. He has fought and even killed in the name of good to reach this point in the story. Realizing that he was wrong in his methods, and after meeting the Christ character face-to-face, John is left feeling helpless to do anything about the grand scheme of evil itself in our world, besides some type of love in action. He had previously tried to convince his friends to join his fight, but at the time they didn’t understand things fully. At this point (and I’m not giving anything away, because most people know what happens to Jesus in the Bible) the Christ character has been killed and John is devastated. World War has broken out, and it’s pretty much the only option left, to go into the war-torn remnants of Washington D.C. and fight the devil himself and everyone who has chosen to side with him. John is still passionate enough to join the fight that’s now in front of them, but in this scene, he is arguing with his friend, where the roles have now reversed. I chose this scene because I think it reflects the gritty language and nature of the series, and it also highlights important points about sin, evil, choice, the human condition and how the world views these things. Enjoy!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Start of Excerpt ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ridley sighed a huge sigh and looked at me, his face full of nostalgia.
“I can’t believe you’re here man.” He said warmly and he thudded my chest twice with his fist.
“Me!?” I replied. “What about you guys!?” I went on, gesturing towards him and G.
G slapped his hand on my shoulder from beside me and I looked at him.
“We’re all happy to see you, brother.” He said with a smile. “And we’re all very lucky to be alive.”
I sighed and lowered my head. “That we are.” I said with a nod and I looked back and forth at both of them.
There was a pause in our conversation now. After telling all our stories and catching up, we were left with this moment. A moment that allowed the reality of our current situation to seep back into our brains. We looked at each other and our smiles began to fade and our eyes grew dimmer and more serious.
Thinking about my history with both of these men, I had a moment within myself.
“I never thought it would go down like this.” I said. “To be honest I never really had a clue how this would all end.”
“Well you wanted to fight evil, bro.” G said. “Now you can.”
“What’s the play anyways?” I asked Ridley. “Do we know where Ranston is?”
“We have scouts who came back from D.C.” He answered. “And our group shares information with other cities.”
“Wait” I said, “other cities?”
“Yah. Baltimore isn’t the only city affected by this war, John. This is international. This is global. Everyone has some stake in this thing, and we’re all fighting the Lung in our own way. Other cities are cooperating with us, even joining us. We’ve been gathering Intel from everywhere.”
“And where does Ranston play into all of this?” I asked.
“He’s the ring leader, man.” Ridley answered. “The whole world saw that…” Ridley grew a little grimmer. “…the day The Stranger died.” He said sadly.
G and I both lowered our heads in remembrance.
“When he went on TV and declared himself.” Ridley went on. “He’s facilitated The Lung coming to America. He’s backed them all the way. But he’s gone into hiding since that day.”
“Yah, cuz he’s scared of us!” G cut in angrily.
I looked over and saw the confident sneer on his face. “Is he though?” I asked. “Is he really, G?”
G’s brow furrowed and he cocked his head.
“If he’s really who we’re saying he is” I went on, “he’s the opposite side of a supernatural mega-force. I mean, c’mon guys! Why would he be scared of us?”
“Because of The Stranger!” G said.
Ridley suddenly grabbed his arm and G looked over at him. Ridley was looking at G like a parent looks at their child when they want them to keep their mouth shut.
“The Stranger!?” I asked. “He’s dead, G!”
G settled down and he and Ridley looked away from each other.
“I watched Him on a TV and you two were right there with Him!” I was raising my voice now and I cut myself off, taking a deep sigh. I looked at the ground to compose myself.
“Look, Rid,” I said slowly, still looking at the ground. Then I looked up to go on. “I’m with ya’ either way man. You know that. I stood up in that crowd for you and I’m with you! No one wants to see Ranston go down more than me. I just wanna make sure we’re not underestimating him, or…I hate to say it, playing into his hands.”
G and Ridley looked at each other and then back at me.
“What do you mean?” Ridley asked me.
“I mean are we really doing this?” I began. “Going to war?! With the devil himself!? And all those people…everyone that he and The Lung have recruited to their cause…we’re just gonna go and slaughter them all?!”
“This is war, John,” Ridley said. “People are gonna die.”
I was suddenly reminded of the conversation I had with Laz in prison about this. But I also remembered something else.
“I remember something The Stranger told me,” I said. “A word. Influence. We’re all victims of it. Most of the people they’ve recruited…they’re probably scared shitless. The Lung gave them a pretty grim ultimatum and that’s their influence—I mean…don’t get me wrong; I hate evil! I started all this to stop evil, but…everything I did…everything I stood for in the beginning was to protect and save people who couldn’t protect themselves…including against a terrorist threat like this.”
I could tell from Ridley’s face that he was annoyed with my statement.
“So what are you saying then?” He asked.
“Have we considered all our options?” I asked. “Is there another way we can do this?”
Ridley’s face was all screwed up now as he listened to me. “John, when did you become such a bleeding heart!?” He demanded to know.
I rolled my eyes and looked away.
“What do you want to do?” He went on. “Peace and love, is that it!? Is this the new John Revele!?”
“Rid…” I began to interject.
“Save it, man!” He hollered. “Why did you even stand up in that crowd!?”
“Because I love you, Rid!” I yelled. “Because you’re my boy!” I added, taking a step closer to him. “We’re still partners, man. All of us.” I said, looking to G too, who smirked.
“Love…” Ridley scoffed. “So that’s the answer then is it?”
I stared at him with pleading eyes and a long moment passed before he said anything. Then he slowly shook his head.
“Nah…” He began. “I don’t buy it. It’s too easy. It’s dismissive!”
“Dismissive? How can you say that love is dismissive, after everything The Stranger taught us!?”
“Does it not seem like the easy way out to you? When faced with real problems and hard situations, to just say; ‘ah, don’t worry’. Are you gonna tell me that in my lifetime I could have just walked up to a drug addict or a prostitute and told them; ‘Hey, there’s a God and He loves you! He’s got a plan!’ and, what…they would then say; ‘oh! Really!? Are you serious!? Wow, thanks for telling me, let me stop doing drugs right now, that makes all the difference in the world!’ No…they would probably laugh in my face and tell me to go fuck myself!”
“No.” I said. “You can’t just tell them that! I loved Maggie, Rid! I loved her myself, when no one else would! And that saved her!”
Behind this, Maggie heard our words and tears rolled down her cheeks. Clare listened on intently as well.
“Your actions saved her, John!” Ridley said.
“My love in action!”
Ridley rolled his eyes. “Right…” He said. “So are we gonna love the terrorist army to death!? What would you have me do, man? March this army over to D.C. to give them all a hug!?”
“Pah!” I passed my hand in the air at him and turned my back.
“And they’ll just lay their guns down and surrender?” He went on. “You used a word, now let me use another word. A big one, John…choice!”
I sighed with my back to him and that word pierced my heart. I looked to the ceiling with anguish as my thoughts conflicted.
“Choice!” Ridley repeated. “All those men who’ve sided with Ranston made their choices. And we’ve made ours! We’re standing here, on this side of the line!”
I closed my eyes now, allowing his words to seep in and infect me. I couldn’t argue with him anymore.
“This is my love in action!” Ridley went on. “I’m making sure that people are safe again! I’m making sure that love survives rather than hate! Rather than evil, John…C’mon man!”
My friend was pleading with me—begging.
I agreed with him, I really did…
I guess I just needed the right push to side with him.
The right influence, To make the right choice.
“That’s Babylon out there!” Ridley shouted.
My eyes now opened and he had my attention.
“Babylon, the great evil empire!” He continued.
I lowered my head back down and saw Clare standing across the room. She was staring at me. She had written to me about Babylon falling. Ridley and I used to talk about Babylon in the police cruiser.
“The Babylon, John!” He said. “This is it! We go!”
I began to turn back around to face him.
“We crush it!” He said. “We crush Ranston!” His voice cracked with a sudden onset of pain, and I watched him stop himself short. Ridley took a moment to compose but the tears came too quickly for him to hide, and several fell out of his eyes. “I should’ve been there for Him, John.” He forced out.
I faced him completely now and stared back as he spoke.
“He wouldn’t have died.” Ridley said, his voice full of remorse.
I shook my head. “You would’ve died with Him, Rid.” I told him.
“Then I would’ve died honourably.”
I lowered my head and sighed.
“John…” He went on. “I can’t do nothing! Not again. If we have the chance to end it…we have to take it don’t we?”
There was a long pause between us before he spoke again.
“Babylon…” He said. “It’s predestined to fall. You read it yourself.”
My face broke into a chuckle and I looked away. After a moment I looked at him again and he was smiling too.
“We can’t lose.” He said.
The three of us stood there for a good long while more.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ End of Excerpt ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ryan can be found at the following social media platforms:
Facebook: Renegades Creative – Twitter – Author website – Instagram – Pinterest
For those who want to investigate more of this trilogy, Ryan has many videos and trailers about the characters, the novels and Ryan talking about its background. Click on the link below to be taken to his Video Gallery on his website:
Book Trailers and Video Gallery
About Ryan David Gerard:
My name is Ryan and I am a lifelong writer but first-time novelist. I am a husband and father of five, living in Ontario, Canada.
Though this is my first venture into the publishing world, I have always been a storyteller at heart. At a young age, I discovered my love of the movies and just had this urge to write stories and even produce my own movies with all my little buddies. It was just me and my imagination and a video camera back then.
All of my schooling background reflects creative arts in some way or another. I was accepted into the Visual Arts program in high school, which included sketching, painting and sculpting to name a few mediums. While going to school there, I became involved with the Audio/Visual team, which opened up a whole new medium of storytelling to me. It was the end of the nineties and going into the two-thousands which were spawning whole new technological advancements in amateur video production. Because of the opportunities that opened up in video production, I fell more in love with the type of medium and really started to focus my efforts in this field. It was fun! It was exciting! When I sat at the computer to either write my amateur scripts or edit a scene we had just filmed, it was sheer freedom! I could create whatever I wanted, despite what I was used to and what every English or Art teacher told me I couldn’t. English class for me, ironically enough (as an aspiring author), was one of those things that I wanted to like but just couldn’t. In theory, English was everything I wanted but I just found myself being bored. There were too many rules. Too many do’s and don’ts. In terms of storytelling, I always considered myself to be a little more unorthodox than the norm. If an artist can’t break the rules, just a little bit, then what’s the point of art?
So, after high school, I did two years of College in Saskatchewan. Without going into too much detail, it was a much-needed retreat away from my life in Ontario. While there, I studied video production and a little bit of sound design and music, though most of my time was spent sharpening my video skills. I met my wife there and we started our life together back in Ontario. We got married pretty quickly and a construction job was only a means to and ends for me. The plan was to work there for the time being, to pay the bills while I strove towards my goal of breaking into the film business. I even had several interviews down in the film district of Toronto at video production studios as an editor. Before I knew it five years had gone by and my dream was proving more and more difficult. The opportunity with my current job came around and with my wife and two daughters, a house and all that real-life stuff; I would have missed out on the incredible chance I had in front of me had I not taken it. I am thrilled that I accepted the offer, and I now work as a Special Constable, in law enforcement, for the city of Toronto. Not only is it a great and rewarding career, but it afforded me so much more valuable time with my family and also the means and time to start writing my story. The premise of it was something that was in my head from my teen years but I only then started to put pen to paper and begin creating this world of characters. I started writing in 2013 and actually finished the book’s first and very lengthy draft in 2014, which included three main sections or acts. Over the next few years until now, I was convinced to split the work into three separate novels and it has gone through extensive editing and revising on the advice and reads of other helpful people.
