Divine Wings, written by Abraham Oluwafemi Adebo (2023, Xulon Press, Florida), is a work of fiction on the rapture of the church. It is a work written by an ordained pastor and prolific writer and project management specialist, whose forte is writing about faith, redemption, and the place of the church in contemporary times. Divine Wings is a 23-chapter novel set in Kenya and the United States of America.
The author tells us the story of Wacera, the protagonist in the novel. He is a farmer who is also recently converted to Christianity. Wacera abandons the Ogale priesthood and his training towards taking the position of chief priest.
The Ogale priesthood is his family’s legacy, one which brings so much prestige and honour to the family of his father.
On the flipside we are exposed to the story of Johnson McIver Shelby, a recalcitrant son of a pastor and his struggle with life. After one of his frequent debates about the scriptures with his wife, Tracey, he experiences a soul searching and gripping encounter leading to his conversion on his way scouting for a new job. Soon after, Johnson is convinced that God is calling him to be a missionary to Africa. And he and his wife Tracey arrive at Kenya for their missionary work to the unbelievers there. And their ministry will be to the Kikuyus in Kenya. At their point of entry to Matunga, their path crosses with that of Wacera. Wacera is on his way back to the village after over three years in Mombasa, and the loss of his uncle’s entire family in an auto accident. In what looks like an unlikely scenario, Wacera leads the Johnsons to his village, first to the palace of the king. Having been educated in Mombasa and on the verge of a university admission, Wacera volunteers to serve as interpreter to Pastor Johnson McIver Shelby before the King of his village, a village that is obviously hostile to missionaries for bringing a “foreign god” and strange culture.
Soon after, Wacera is banished from the village along with the Johnsons. The king of his village banishes them to Mukatenge, an evil forest where people are sent to death in the hands of gods of the land. But the missionaries miraculously conquer the evil spirits that lurk around the forest, and they set up a camp there. Wacera gets saved, becoming the first convert of the Johnsons. Consequently, his father, the chief priest, disowns him for embracing Christianity, and putting the legacy of his family into jeopardy. But the ministry of the Johnsons finds Wacera and his friend helpful. And the ministry becomes great and it expands the frontiers of Christianity among the Kikuyus of East Africa.
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Wacera’s son is born and is named Johnson Jr. Wacera, in honour of Pastor Johnson McIver, and his father dedicates him to the service of God. And things begin to happen in the life and ministry of Johnson Jr. as he grows in his academic and pastoral life. The more Johnson Jr. grows his academic prowess, the more intolerant he becomes of conservative reading of the Bible. He rejects the inerrancy of the scripture and questions, like the liberal teachers of his day, the veracity of the scriptures.
As pastor of the local church in Colorado, United States, he slips into liberal theology and modernist strands of doctrines and beliefs. And the board of his church is displeased with this introduction of ultra-liberal teachings, some of which they find heretical. Thus, Johnson Jr. and his supporters reject “the tyranny of right-wing members of the church who persisted in ignoring the new trend in Christianity,” and embrace “young men with plaited hair and earrings and young women with very short skirts and elaborate makeup, every Sunday.” (p314)
Over time though, Nancy comes to the knowledge of the purity and inviolability of the scripture. She is convinced that she and Johnson Jr., her husband have been feeding the people with the corrupted perspective of the word of God, through their modernism.
Eventually, the rapture which Johnson Jr. has repeatedly denied happens. His wife and two of his three children are gone from his presence. And the world around him experiences cataclysmic disasters. He and his cohorts are left behind and they suddenly come to their senses, and regret their liberal modernist teachings. But it is too late. And they now have to pay for their costly errors.
In the novel Divine Wings, the author underscores the critical role of missionaries in spreading the gospel to the world, particularly to the continent of Africa, with the support of their home churches and dedicated congregations. This he does with surplus attention to the processes, rigorous training and sacrifice put in by individuals to the missions work.
This book, Divine Wings, also discusses in detail the role that extreme liberalism can bring into the Christian faith when people are exposed to too much of modernism in their pastoral training. Indeed, we read in the book, how the doctrines and beliefs of a religion experience change and become swallowed by Universalist, liberal beliefs across generations.
In this 385-page novel, the author creatively and delicately meshes the gospel message with a racy narration, and beautifully gives the reader pure entertainment and soul-searching warning of the danger of ignoring the warning of God to a digressing world.
. Olatunbosun is a broadcast journalist, fact-checker and book reviewer at Splash FM 105.5, Ibadan. He can be reached via molatunbosun@splashfm1055.com, and on X and Instagram @miketunbosun.
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