For many years, people in the U.S. were generally oblivious to many of the "deeper" problems that face humanity -- the problem of war, of the suffering that comes from that, and of how this fits in to God's governance of things.  The events of "911" have changed that for a lot of people.

Nine Months is a "fantasy" that looks at many of these questions and of people's response to these events.  Set in a Texas which had gone a way the real one hadn't, it looks at a group of Christian people and the world around them caught up in a war very close to home.

Nine Months is only in PDF format -- click below to download the entire book.

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INTRODUCTION
WHY THIS THING WAS WRITTEN IN THE FIRST PLACE

Christianity is both an objective and subjective experience. On the one hand it involves factual events and real truths that need to be assented to and understood. On the other hand it is the story of what God has done for each and every one of us who call His name. Emphasis of the one to the exclusion of the other is dangerous for very different reasons.
A large portion of the subjective part of Christianity deals with testimonies; Christians who have experienced the love and power (and sometimes the judgment) of God in their lives telling what they have experienced to others who might need to hear it. It is important, though, that a meaningful testimony also set forth some of the objective truths of God and His plan of salvation through Jesus Christ. If we have both then we have the ingredients for something that can edify, educate and even help to change people's lives in the positive way.

Although there are many "stock" ways and venues in which people give their testimony, others are available too, especially in unusual situations. It was just such a situation I was faced with in 1977 when, having just gone through the tremendous move of God which took place in my life at Texas A&M University through the Newman Association and the Answer coffeehouse ministry. How to express this to others? Would others even care? Was it possible to meaningfully reconstruct the events?

Others caring about anything is an iffy business at best. As far as reconstruction was concerned, such became next to impossible very quickly because I moved twice in two years, the second time out of state, thus ending any possibility of meaningfully discussing the events. With these restrictions I came to a rather unusual conclusion: the best way to convey to others what I experienced, both on an objective and subjective level, was to do so in fiction.

Nine Months, originally started in 1977 and completed the following year, was the result of these contemplations. But a few other things need to be explained.

ABOUT THE SEVENTIES

One of the delights about our culture is the way in which eras of the past get "revived" from time to time. The 1970's are no exception and Nine Months certainly has a "retro" feel to it. In editing this I have made every effort to retain that. Although nostalgia might be reason enough, there are two other reasons why this was done.

The first is that many of pastors and other Christian leaders who are now coming into positions of prominence in Christianity had their formative years in the 1970's; this obviously has moulded their thinking. Although the conditions -- institutional and otherwise -- depicted in Nine Months were not universal then, there are some distinctive issues that are important and these are dealt with.

The second is that many basic Christian life issues have not changed in the last twenty-five years. This is important to remember because we live in a culture where we keep "discovering" things that we think are new but in fact are ongoing.

ABOUT BEING ROMAN CATHOLIC

When I wrote Nine Months, I was Roman Catholic; how this spiritual adventure came out is documented elsewhere. The Roman Catholic church looms large in this work, although my approach to Roman Catholicism will be an eye opener to both Catholic and non-Catholic alike.

One question that will inevitably come up from some non-Catholics is, "Since you wrote this as a Roman Catholic, doesn't that create doctrinal problems for you now?" As a Pentecostal, my answer to that is no. Perhaps the work itself will explain why.

ABOUT THE SCENARIO OF THE BOOK

The one thing that needs more explaining than anything else is the scenario that this book contemplates. Although the geographical setting is very real and specific, the actual political scenario is very different from what was and is in force.

This story assumes that the U.S. has disintegrated and that Texas has done so as well, leaving 254 county-states to fend for themselves. In west and south Texas this situation pretty much stabilized with the disintegration of the state government and the independence of some of the state's previously state run institutions (like the university systems). The situation here is almost feudal and there are no states strong enough or willing to establish empires over the vast territory. So counties stay independent and brigandage is not infrequent, although oil exploration continues and the rest of the state is able to get what it needs.

East of the Fort Worth-Austin-San Antonio line the situation is different. After the initial confusion the large cities -- Houston and Fort Worth in particular -- organize on a county level and establish spheres of influence around them. Dallas is economically and nominally one but does not spread out its influence like Ft. Worth does as it is still very divided by its suburban system. The cities still hold economic dominance over the state and it is this economic hegemony and homogeneity that insures their ultimate triumph and Texas' continued economic survival in the face of a politically confused situation.

Most of Texas accepted this situation but there were some revisionist powers. Most prominent among these was San Antonio, which built around it a tightly held empire and supported itself from it. This brought it into conflict with Austin, which although outnumbered tenaciously holds on through a series of terrible wars. When Nine Months begins the situation is stable at Buda, south of Austin.

More important to our story is Waco. An ally of SA's, Waco, although not an economic maverick like San Antonio, also built a very centrally run military state sun by a central council, a pattern repeated by many others, Falls County went over easily but Waco had trouble in the north with Hill and Navarro County, the latter being another ambitious state. Waco succeeded in taking Hillsboro but stalled against Corsicana.

In the south things started off well enough for Waco but there was resistance soon. Most dangerous was Temple (Bell County). However this county too was caught in the middle, between Waco and Austin, which wanted Williamson County. Temple was never a great military power and never wanted to be and finally merged with Waco in what amounted to a dual state, not unlike old Austria-Hungary.

Not every ambition in the south was so easily fulfilled. For one Limestone Co., after initial vacillation, decided against Waco's rule. But by that time most of the county was under Waco military domination and so a guerrilla war ensued. But worse Waco's ambitions in Milam and Robertson Counties were thwarted by a new power -- Brazos County (Bryan.)

Bryan was relatively new to the colonial scene, starting off with their disastrous defeat in the Grimes County War. But Houston, which had come to Grimes' rescue, saw the value in Bryan's position in keeping Waco out and, with a new regime in Bryan, began to help them build the kind of military and colonial regime that would stand up to Waco's expansion. Bryan built an essentially decentralized and democratic empire. Burleson County came in at once followed by most of Robertson County, as they feared a Waco takeover. Milam County held out but expansionism particularly on Temple's part forced them to join in.

Meanwhile Bryan and Waco came eye to eye up north of Calvert and Cameron. Bryan, with Houston's aid, began to seek allied to try to complete its holdings in its counties. They naturally allied themselves with the guerrilla forces in Limestone County but also with Navarro and to a lesser degree with Austin, which also had irredentist feelings about the Waco-Temple empire. It is this situation that starts the events on the nine months...

One thing that I need to say about this is that this scenario was constructed before either the collapse of the Soviet Union or the start of the militia movement. More specifically it was constructed before the Branch Davidians' last stand against the FBI and ATF. So it is innocent of influence of any of these.

ABOUT GETTING IT INTO DATA FORM

Nine Months was typed onto paper for its first original. The first text format the book was converted to was HTML; this was done in the fall of 1997. The obvious way of getting this into HTML or any other computer readable format would be to use OCR and then add the HTML code. Carrying this out for this work was more complicated than that.

To begin with, the manuscript was not in the best condition, even as it was written in 1977-8; parts of it had to be retyped completely, and others extensively edited for missed characters and formatting.

A more serious problem was the literary state of the manuscript. It was reminiscent of G.A. Williamson's description of Eusebius' History of the Church (from the introduction to his translation of same):

...he is guilty of quite needless obscurity. He is inordinately fond of long and involved sentences, and he lacks the skill...to keep them under control...He loves to jumble his sentences, placing his words in the most unusual order and separating as widely as possible those that must be taken together...He uses strings of unnecessary words: 'Josephus writes somewhat thus word for word.' Pleonasm and tautology abound: 'They were of necessity compelled'; 'topsy-turvy head downwards'; 'most solid in the highest degree'.

Nine Months became the second major work to go up on the newly started "Pentecostal Layman's Page" towards the end of 1997. But it was soon evident that HTML was not the best vehicle for such a work, so the work was prepared for the present PDF format in early 1999. In the process more of the same kinds of problems that plagued its conversion to HTML were discovered and corrected.

But enough of introduction; it is time to commend this work to you, reader, that God through His Son Jesus Christ may be glorified and that we may live in love in His name.