First Light (Of Saints & Sinners, Book 1)

Abram White is determined to flee the poverty and hardships of eighteenth-century Ireland and begin a new life in the New World

Harold Fickett's family has been at the heart of the evangelical Protestant experience for generations. With a grandfather and father who were Baptist ministers, a great aunt and uncle who were part of the China Inland Mission, and a host of preachers, evangelists, and missionaries among his more distant relatives, Fickett's life has been shaped by people whose lives have been dedicated to evangelicalism. It's no surprise then that in the series Of Saints and Sinners, he has embarked on a monumental tribute to evangelical Christianity and its role in the American experience.

But Fickett, trained in secular universities by outstanding writers, is also aware of the contemporary scene and its skepticism. He understands people's disdain for televangelists and the marketing of religion. Like other observers, he sees contemporary culture divided into two camps; those who are still guided by the Western tradition, and humanists who are reaching for a new age globalism. He is interested in setting forth the evangelical Christian experience from an inner perspective in a such way that the widest possible audience will find it beguiling. He wants to use his novelistic talent to compel both camps into rethinking their assumptions, and give them a chance to re-examine biblical patterns of conduct.

Fickett is writing Of Saints and Sinners to accomplish these ends, as well as for the sheer joy of invention and his delight in fictional entertainment. The series is meant first to entertain as well as to teach, for he says, "Art never teaches anything, if it doesn't first delight."

Harold Fickett is a graduate of Brown University and The University of California at Los Angeles where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He has written for such publications as The New Oxford Review, Christianity Today, Leadership, Publisher's Weekly, The National Review, Christian and Literature, God's World, and Christian Scholar's review.

He is a member of The Chrysostom Society, a national writers group, and is the co-editor of Image: A Journal of the Arts and Religion. He is presently the Executive Director of the Milton Center at Kansas Newman College.

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