The City of God

About the Book

The story covers the entire life of Louisiana evangelist Teddy Brockhert: born in 1909 (d. 1986) into the decaying atmosphere of his grandfather's house and church. He receives an education and religious training in an old Baptist mission, which caters to orphans and delinquents and a colony of black lepers of former slave stock or their descendants. It is operated by a Christian cult embracing Coleosashism, a rare secretive denomination whose camp is reminiscent of an 11th century cloister. Teddy's adventures there bring him local notoriety. He duplicates an apostolic feat by healing a pagan leper; or so it appears.

His successes and failures as he comes into his own in the southern Baptist evangelistic community - and eventually the world - are followed carefully, but we note the pitfalls - catastrophic or subtle - which seem malignant, yet steer him in a certain direction. His sexuality is explored carefully. Eventually he marries and has a family. He often and foolishly refuses sound advice from those close by because he believes in the direction of holy words. He raises money through his ability to preach unfalteringly and heal believers, including (at one strategic time) a fat, ancient, Christianized, Turkish prince in a burlesque of religious hypertrophy, and builds a successful university. But he is still guided onward often through tragic and humorous ironies. What is it that drives him? Why is it that another stumbling block tips into his path even when he retreats and stays out of the world?

His (second) wife, Lydia, a doting gentle kind of farm girl, guides the family in Teddy's absence, but for the most part obeys his mandates until she is forced into a chasm by a liberal minded daughter, Ruth, who wishes to attend college in the northeast. Ruth's independence pays off in wealth and acclaim though certain of her business affiliates are disreputable. Contrary to Ruth, her brother, Robert Lloyd, fawns over the father whom all members of the family call Daddy. He is a furtive egoistical youth who tries, as he will to stand up to Teddy as a preacher and gospel singer. The wedding of Robert Lloyd to Meri Lee Selkirk, a student at Brockhert Baptist University and daughter of Louisiana's governor, is the focal point of the oddity that prevails in the Brockhert lineage. One begins to sense that the holy spirit is not Teddy's mentor; while the story's narrator seems omniscient, and speaks with unusual insight and authority.

Teddy is confronted by individuals including a bizarre doctor (when he is confined to a sanitarium) who question his piety, considering his self-proclaimed quandary with other than holy spirits. It is revealed that Teddy is descended from the unforgivable biblical lineage of Eli, the priest at Shiloh, whose house was forever disgraced in First Samuel. Enough happens to convince him that diabolical influences are around him, but through his own piety (which is strongly developed) a combination of conviction and idiocy, he believes he can vindicate his soul, but the reader is never sure he/she believes that.

Like Mann's Adrian Leverkuhn in Dr. Faustus, Brockhert's soul is similar regarding the question of redemption, yet he is prompted to save more souls than ever before; set a great Christian example; heal the multitudes all. Teddy Brockhert will build one of the great medical and healing complexes in the world called The City of God near the college campus on the grounds of the old mission where he had been raised: territory which his association had been buying up for years.

Guided all of his life by the forces of darkness, though he preached and entreated in the name of Jesus Christ, he is left to himself upon the completion of his mission. Decadence surrounds his personal life when he begins to see the conclusion of the Christian age: the beginning of the tribulation with his own estranged daughter-in-law carrying the new Immanu

About the Author

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