How Crazy Were Sherry Shriner's Beliefs Anyway?

And other questions about what we all "really" believe

One of my greatest failings as a person (as well as as a writer) is working under the assumption that people know the same things I do. It’s easy enough to fix in my writing by having someone else look at my work, but even then there are gaps, especially when it comes to religion. Dragged Into the Light has been out for not quite a month, and I’m starting to field follow-up questions and legitimate criticisms about how I addressed the cult’s beliefs.

I had, if not a spectacular, certainly a better-than-average religious upbringing. I went to Catholic school for 12 years and to a Protestant Vacation Bible School for something like eight. The Protestant movement literally came out of the demand that “regular” people be allowed to read the Bible, so my education there was Bible-story heavy. Catholics (at the time) were really more about memorizing all of the various foundational rules of the One True Church and celebrating the lives of the saints, some of whom (as I would discover studying religion in college) were inaccurately purported to be historical figures rather than personified local deities co-opted as the Church extended its global reach. 

As far as I can tell, the Catholic plan was to establish a strong enough faith that the lies it was built upon could be easily forgiven and the Protestant plan was, given that the Bible was no longer forbidden, people wouldn’t bother reading it. I’ve written about this before in my story of Elisha and the Two Bears.

Because I’m constantly reminded that this is a Christian Nation, I keep bumbling along thinking most people have a working knowledge of most Bible stories. I know this isn’t true but it’s something I forget a lot of the time. 

Something that I skirt over in the book is that Paul the Apostle wasn’t actually an apostle. In fact, the Gospels (which are the four books that purport to tell Jesus biography) don’t all name the same apostles. It’s details like this that make me appreciate why the Catholic Church was reticent to just let any schmo read the Bible. After all, what if some idiot takes it all literally?

Enter Sherry Shriner and her ilk.

The main problem with trying to take the Bible literally is that the commentary about an all-loving, all-forgiving God is wrapped up in the new testament writings of people who didn’t ever meet Jesus, particularly “Paul the Apostle.”

This week, I wrote a defense of Sherry’s rational belief that Paul the Apostle was an unwitting agent of Satan. If your eyes are starting to glaze over already, you’ll get a sense of why I skirted this discussion in the book. Some esoterica is just the wrong combination of kooky and boring. Dragged Into the Light could’ve been three times as long and completely impenetrable.

Still, this is about my failing.

While leaving out a deep dive into all of Sherry’s beliefs was an editorial choice, it has come to my attention that people are interested. In both emails and even a couple of positive reviews, people wished there was more about what else Sherry and her followers believed. I’ve decided to write occasional blogs on that topic. You can follow along on Medium if you like, but as always the stories will be linked here. 

That said, if you are reading the book and have any questions or things you’d like to hear more about, let me know. I could talk about Sherry and her folks all day. 

Speaking of talking all day

I’ve been honored to have several book clubs adopt my book and a few of them have invited me to come talk about it. If you’re in a club that’s reading this, I’d be honored to talk to you about it virtually or in person. If you want to be, reach out as well. I’ll have a virtual book club set up by the time I’m back.

I’m leaving tomorrow for a month-long trip across the country and back that will include (at the very least) a book event in Billings, Montana. If you are in Billings or know anyone there, I’ll be at This House of Books on July 6. If you’re coming, please order the book from them here.

Look! I made a book trailer!

Lastly on the talking front, the podcast component of this newsletter is ready to go and set to debut August 2. I’m pretty excited about it. 

Book Business 101

I keep learning about the book business as I go. Although I endorsed (and will continue to endorse Bookshop.org) if you have a local bookstore, check out their website for ordering options. As it turns out an increasing number of small places will order books to ship to you. They get a better cut that way and you get to have a bookstore in town whenever you’re comfortable going back out. If you don’t have one in your town, pick one you like and set your Bookshop.org account. 

That said, Amazon is still a thing and a lot of people still buy books from it. If you’re one of them, please consider leaving a review and an appropriate number of stars. I’m not throwing any shade at all at indie bookstores, but almost all of them don’t sell or carry my book and I haven’t given them reason to. Amazon is a different animal altogether. They let the readers choose which books other readers see. If you read ebooks, I have a promotion coming up, so feel free to hold off pulling the ebook trigger for another week. I’ll have the specifics in next week’s mail. 

Keep the faith,

Tony