Jonathan

Jonathan Bark is a young Southern Baptist minister living in Coral Gables, Florida. But he's not a normal pastor. Indeed, he believes that God is calling him to a special life of radical spiritual discipline. As this strange project unfolds, it profoundly disturbs his ministry, his family, and especially his wife, Jana.

Jana is a traditional Christian wife but with strong leanings toward feminism. She struggles mightily with Jonathan and his supposed holy vocation. But when he insists on introducing celibacy into the matter, she fights to keep her head barely above the water. And, of course, their two children suffer greatly.

Because of his righteous call, the Evil One storms Jonathan's dream-life. Indeed, these reality-bending visitations are a frontal assault on his friendship with God, and manage at times to deeply shake his faith.

Jonathan's best friend is a rowdy agnostic shark expert named Stephen. He works out of The University of Miami Oceanographic Center where he is obsessed with large bull sharks. He does his best to inform and protect the Bark family from their primordial wickedness. Yet, even he cannot shield them from a primal fate.

Theodicy is a major theme: With evil all around us, how can we say that God is good? No ready answers are forthcoming. But throughout, the reader is given ample grist for their personal search and encouragement to work out their own salvation with grace, fear, and trembling.