Review by Pinkrose353 -- The Covert Messiah by J R Lankford
-
Pinkrose353
- Posts: 32
- Joined: 10 Aug 2016, 13:02
- Currently Reading: Of Faith and Freedom
- Bookshelf Size: 17
- Reviewer Page: onlinebookclub.org/reviews/by-pinkrose353.html
- Latest Review: "The Covert Messiah" by J R Lankford
- Reading Device: B00I15SB16
Review by Pinkrose353 -- The Covert Messiah by J R Lankford
[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "The Covert Messiah" by J R Lankford.]
3 out of 4 stars
Share This Review
The Covert Messiah by J R Lankford is the fourth book in The Jesus Thief series. It can be read as a stand-alone book, because the author skillfully weaves the background of the previous books into the story.
The book starts in an open Saturday market in Italy, where Maggie Johnson Duffy Morelli, alias Hetta Price, suddenly meets her son Jess Johnson again, who died eight years ago at the age of ten.
Jess is the result of a cloning by Felix Rossi, who stole DNA from the Shroud of Turin (the supposed burial cloths of Jesus Christ) and implanted the embryo into his black housekeeper, Maggie, with her consent. The birth of Jess created quite an uproar, which resulted in the kidnapping of Rossi's eight-year-old daughter Ariel, and the stoning to death of Jess. The book doesn't go into those details, since they are in earlier books of the series. To keep the baby safe, they had moved Maggie to a small village in Italy, along with Rossi's sister and his Irish doorman Sam Duffy. After Jess' death, Maggie married the doorman and had another child with him by the name of Peter, which she claimed to be Clone II, and spread this rumor all over New York. This caused Felix Rossi to cut all ties with Maggie, change his last name to Fubini and move his family to Connecticut. After Maggie's husband Sam was murdered, she married Adamo Morelli and remained in hiding with him and her son Peter in Italy.
The reappearance of Jess creates quite a stir in the marketplace as Maggie faints when she recognizes him, and due to a healing miracle of a person bent over with scoliosis, Jess' appearance becomes world news. The author uses first-person when she writes about Maggie's events, third person when dealing with the other characters of the book.
Zach Dunlop, founder of OLIVE, (Our Lord in Vitro Emerging) used to hold now-outlawed prayer vigils all over the world and helped fund the whole cloning and hiding of Jess. He is a wealthy and kindhearted Wall Street broker, married to beautiful Zenia. Zach is good friends with his Muslim work colleague Ahmed Bourguiba, who claims to be from Tunisia, but in fact is Hanif Hassan, the son of an Egyptian terrorist involved in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Africa. Ahmed secretly oversees Jihadist accounts on Wall Street.
Udugu, (meaning brotherhood), a village in Tanzania, East Africa, becomes the center of the story where all the main characters of the story independent of each other converge.
Udugu has made news on the stock market because Amercan, an American-Canadian mining company wants to start operations there. Both Ahmed and Zach are aware of Amercan's planned venture, and Ahmed predicts trouble brewing for that place.
Paul Joseph, pastor of a wealthy church in New York, had done short-term mission trips to Udugu over the past five years and converted most of the village to Christianity. Before embarking on his upcoming mission trip, he is invited to meet the President at the White House. Unbeknownst to Joseph, Amercan heavily funded the President's election campaign and now the President encourages Joseph to pave the way with the villagers for the mining operation. The mining company offers to dig a well, for the drought-stricken village, to make them willing to give up their land for the company's desired mining project.
Zenia Dunlop, Zach's wife, always eager to make the news, sees Joseph's visit to the White House as another step to climb the social ladder, and persuades Joseph to let her accompany him to Udugu without her husband's consent. She and Joseph already have an illicit relationship and so he gladly takes her along. As they arrive in Dar es Salaam, they are met by mining, embassy, and Tanzanian government officials, along with a reporter, and are escorted to Udugu.
Jess and Maggie had arrived in Udugu via non-physical means. They are hosted by Babu, the aged village healer, and his orphaned granddaughter Suma, who are the only natives who didn't convert to Christianity. Jess joins forces with Babu to reintroduce the sacred circle with all its drumming, swooning and ancient African religious traditions. They are trying to create a spiritual frequency that will save the world from destruction.
Ahmed Bourguiba is in love with the Tanzanian, Muslim, Taarab singer, Ajia, who grew up near Udugu. She made him aware of the robbing and exploiting of Africa by Western companies and is passionately angry about that. In order to earn Ajia's love Ahmed plans to kill all the people related to the mining venture, and so save the area from being exploited and polluted. He ends up being on the same flight to Tanzania as Paul Joseph and Zenia Dunlop. Ahmed secretly meets with Ajia, she allows him to deflower her to kind of buy his commitment to save Udugu, and then they travel together and camp near Udugu under the pretense of a private safari adventure.
Zach Dunlop, in fear for his wife's safety, follows her to Africa the next day. On the plane he meets Ariel Fubini, who just recently had learned the story of her father's cloning work and the cause of her kidnapping. While on campus at Choate, her prestigious private boarding school, Ariel learned that Jess and Maggie have probably relocated to Udugu and decides, without her parents' knowledge, to fly there and meet Jess, who she believes is Jesus returned to earth.
Through her conversation with Zach on the plane, she becomes aware that her father and Zach have a mutual history and so trusts him to help her get to Udugu.
Will the mining team succeed persuading the villagers to start their operation there? Or will Ahmed's "safari team" be able to kill them all and thus preserve the village's natural environment and life style? How will Zach and Ariel's appearance at Udugu interfere with the plans of these two opposing groups? And what influence will Jess, Maggie, Babu and Suma have in all these events? You'll have to read the book to discover all the captivating twists and turns this story takes.
The author is an excellent writer, describing people, places and religious traditions well, with only a few mistakes in her writing (like saying Descartes is Greek, when he is actually French). All the mistakes I found I already submitted to Amazon. The writing is captivating and kept my interest.
The only thing I disagree with the author is her worldview. Unlike the real Jesus, who claimed to be the ONLY way to God, this author's Jesus clone propagates an all-religions-lead-to-God worldview. The REAL Jesus said that a person has to repent and be born again to enter the kingdom of God, whereas this writer claims that "the kingdom of God is within you"-- you just have to open yourself up to it, and if you have enough faith, nothing will be impossible for you. So, her covert messiah is really a false messiah.
Although I cannot approve of her theology, I would like to give her four out of four points for her writing skill, but because of the mistakes in the book I give her 3 out of 4 points. I wish the author would use her skill to proclaim truth instead of esoteric mumbo-jumbo that will lead her readers down a dead-end street.
******
The Covert Messiah
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Like Pinkrose353's review? Post a comment saying so!
3 out of 4 stars
Share This Review
The Covert Messiah by J R Lankford is the fourth book in The Jesus Thief series. It can be read as a stand-alone book, because the author skillfully weaves the background of the previous books into the story.
The book starts in an open Saturday market in Italy, where Maggie Johnson Duffy Morelli, alias Hetta Price, suddenly meets her son Jess Johnson again, who died eight years ago at the age of ten.
Jess is the result of a cloning by Felix Rossi, who stole DNA from the Shroud of Turin (the supposed burial cloths of Jesus Christ) and implanted the embryo into his black housekeeper, Maggie, with her consent. The birth of Jess created quite an uproar, which resulted in the kidnapping of Rossi's eight-year-old daughter Ariel, and the stoning to death of Jess. The book doesn't go into those details, since they are in earlier books of the series. To keep the baby safe, they had moved Maggie to a small village in Italy, along with Rossi's sister and his Irish doorman Sam Duffy. After Jess' death, Maggie married the doorman and had another child with him by the name of Peter, which she claimed to be Clone II, and spread this rumor all over New York. This caused Felix Rossi to cut all ties with Maggie, change his last name to Fubini and move his family to Connecticut. After Maggie's husband Sam was murdered, she married Adamo Morelli and remained in hiding with him and her son Peter in Italy.
The reappearance of Jess creates quite a stir in the marketplace as Maggie faints when she recognizes him, and due to a healing miracle of a person bent over with scoliosis, Jess' appearance becomes world news. The author uses first-person when she writes about Maggie's events, third person when dealing with the other characters of the book.
Zach Dunlop, founder of OLIVE, (Our Lord in Vitro Emerging) used to hold now-outlawed prayer vigils all over the world and helped fund the whole cloning and hiding of Jess. He is a wealthy and kindhearted Wall Street broker, married to beautiful Zenia. Zach is good friends with his Muslim work colleague Ahmed Bourguiba, who claims to be from Tunisia, but in fact is Hanif Hassan, the son of an Egyptian terrorist involved in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Africa. Ahmed secretly oversees Jihadist accounts on Wall Street.
Udugu, (meaning brotherhood), a village in Tanzania, East Africa, becomes the center of the story where all the main characters of the story independent of each other converge.
Udugu has made news on the stock market because Amercan, an American-Canadian mining company wants to start operations there. Both Ahmed and Zach are aware of Amercan's planned venture, and Ahmed predicts trouble brewing for that place.
Paul Joseph, pastor of a wealthy church in New York, had done short-term mission trips to Udugu over the past five years and converted most of the village to Christianity. Before embarking on his upcoming mission trip, he is invited to meet the President at the White House. Unbeknownst to Joseph, Amercan heavily funded the President's election campaign and now the President encourages Joseph to pave the way with the villagers for the mining operation. The mining company offers to dig a well, for the drought-stricken village, to make them willing to give up their land for the company's desired mining project.
Zenia Dunlop, Zach's wife, always eager to make the news, sees Joseph's visit to the White House as another step to climb the social ladder, and persuades Joseph to let her accompany him to Udugu without her husband's consent. She and Joseph already have an illicit relationship and so he gladly takes her along. As they arrive in Dar es Salaam, they are met by mining, embassy, and Tanzanian government officials, along with a reporter, and are escorted to Udugu.
Jess and Maggie had arrived in Udugu via non-physical means. They are hosted by Babu, the aged village healer, and his orphaned granddaughter Suma, who are the only natives who didn't convert to Christianity. Jess joins forces with Babu to reintroduce the sacred circle with all its drumming, swooning and ancient African religious traditions. They are trying to create a spiritual frequency that will save the world from destruction.
Ahmed Bourguiba is in love with the Tanzanian, Muslim, Taarab singer, Ajia, who grew up near Udugu. She made him aware of the robbing and exploiting of Africa by Western companies and is passionately angry about that. In order to earn Ajia's love Ahmed plans to kill all the people related to the mining venture, and so save the area from being exploited and polluted. He ends up being on the same flight to Tanzania as Paul Joseph and Zenia Dunlop. Ahmed secretly meets with Ajia, she allows him to deflower her to kind of buy his commitment to save Udugu, and then they travel together and camp near Udugu under the pretense of a private safari adventure.
Zach Dunlop, in fear for his wife's safety, follows her to Africa the next day. On the plane he meets Ariel Fubini, who just recently had learned the story of her father's cloning work and the cause of her kidnapping. While on campus at Choate, her prestigious private boarding school, Ariel learned that Jess and Maggie have probably relocated to Udugu and decides, without her parents' knowledge, to fly there and meet Jess, who she believes is Jesus returned to earth.
Through her conversation with Zach on the plane, she becomes aware that her father and Zach have a mutual history and so trusts him to help her get to Udugu.
Will the mining team succeed persuading the villagers to start their operation there? Or will Ahmed's "safari team" be able to kill them all and thus preserve the village's natural environment and life style? How will Zach and Ariel's appearance at Udugu interfere with the plans of these two opposing groups? And what influence will Jess, Maggie, Babu and Suma have in all these events? You'll have to read the book to discover all the captivating twists and turns this story takes.
The author is an excellent writer, describing people, places and religious traditions well, with only a few mistakes in her writing (like saying Descartes is Greek, when he is actually French). All the mistakes I found I already submitted to Amazon. The writing is captivating and kept my interest.
The only thing I disagree with the author is her worldview. Unlike the real Jesus, who claimed to be the ONLY way to God, this author's Jesus clone propagates an all-religions-lead-to-God worldview. The REAL Jesus said that a person has to repent and be born again to enter the kingdom of God, whereas this writer claims that "the kingdom of God is within you"-- you just have to open yourself up to it, and if you have enough faith, nothing will be impossible for you. So, her covert messiah is really a false messiah.
Although I cannot approve of her theology, I would like to give her four out of four points for her writing skill, but because of the mistakes in the book I give her 3 out of 4 points. I wish the author would use her skill to proclaim truth instead of esoteric mumbo-jumbo that will lead her readers down a dead-end street.
******
The Covert Messiah
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Like Pinkrose353's review? Post a comment saying so!
Latest Review: "The Covert Messiah" by J R Lankford
