Shadowlands’ Edge
What the Name Means
Shadowlands’ Edge represents the hypothetical point at which God fully withdraws His hand of blessing from our nation, as Paul describes in Romans 1:18 through the end of the chapter. While there is no doubt that we are already under His fierce judgment, I believe a time may come when He turns His back on our nation once and for all.
He will not abandon those who are truly His own, but the nation itself will suffer the full consequences of being abandoned by Him.
Why I Wrote the Series
The Martyrs’ Path series honors those who have run their races, finished their courses, kept the faith, and stepped through heaven’s portal into Glory.
The prequel, Christmas at Shadowlands’ Edge, honors my own wife and son, who have done so. The trilogy honors the memories of those who were martyred during three different periods of history.
The idea for the trilogy came to me more than thirty years ago, while I was studying early church history. I began wondering what those same sacrifices might look like if they took place at the outset of this millennium.
I therefore reimagined them while keeping the fictional characters distinct from the historical martyrs out of respect for those who truly suffered and died. I coined the phrase transhistorated fiction—think transliterated—to describe this approach. I have searched many times, but I have not found another novel or trilogy that does exactly the same thing.
The Alternate History
The story takes place in a recent alternate-history timeline.
In the tightly contested presidential race of 2000, a mysterious Utopian party runs an independent candidate against Al Gore and George W. Bush. Social unrest on both the left and the right, combined with the rhetoric of the Utopian platform, allows its candidate to squeak past the other two and win the presidency.
The social, political, and religious landscape changes radically when he takes office. His first act as President is to declare martial law against what he calls a divisive and militant threat to the nation’s survival. He vows to stamp out this threat before returning the country to constitutional rule.
The people he targets for genocide he calls militant Christians. They are, in fact, faithful, Bible-believing Christians.
Radical Islamic interests become deeply entrenched within his administration. A widespread financial downturn worsens under his leadership, but he blames it on the so-called militant Christians, who are later rebranded as atheists.
He also lays blame for animal attacks, severe-weather outbreaks, infectious diseases, rising crime, worldwide political turmoil, and wars at their feet. Public opinion turns against them, most visibly by setting neighbor against neighbor.
The President hijacks a legislated catastrophe called the Interfaith Coalition for the Restoration of Religious Freedom to carry out his schemes. Claiming that the organization operates under a First Amendment religious exemption, he bypasses constitutional protections and enacts his policies.
He creates the Federal Law Enforcement Agency to serve as the enforcement arm of the I.C.R.R.F. Its ruthless agents, known as F.L.E.A.s or drones—all of them human—are charged with carrying out his agenda.