The Ecclesia: Historical Fiction Series

The Ecclesia series follows the adventures of pastors throughout American History.  Each character is as unique as the ministry they are called to and the means God uses to bring them to serve in Word and Sacrament.

Reverend: An Anglican Pastor struggles between his loyalty to Church and England and an intriguing appeal by close friend, George Washington, to serve his innovative vision for a Chaplain Corps that is far more than morality police for the rag-tag band of traitorous rebels called the Continental Army.

Parson: In the aftermath of Indian wars and uneasy peace, pioneer towns teeter between boom and bust, famine and fortune.  Congregations are pastored on the circuit. Miles on horseback leave church properties at the mercy of local politicians and parishioners without ethical and biblical mentorship in an era of cold racism and rugged individualism fueled by survivor instinct. Can the Parson fight the inner pressure to give his own family a stable home by returning to millwork or will he find the power to persevere in a fruitless, underappreciated religious work to godless lumberjacks, pompous politicians and spiritually apathetic parishioners?

Preacher: A Civil War veteran is hardened by the war and copes with its devastating effect on his family and future. Grace finds the hardcore assassin and so the gunfighter finds himself the frontier preacher at war with the expectations of the Church, the vengeance-seekers of his self-serving, rage-filled past, and the stony hearts of those who are just as he used to be.

Chaplain: World War II turned a page in the military chaplain corps.  Now the military would train its ministers for the unique work of pastoring soldiers. An infantry soldier in the Great War, Mark Peterson’s intelligence and courage nearly won him a commission, one he turned down to become a seminarian to follow a different calling.  Now the Army is calling again. Mark finds himself facing the same crises of war but this time he must face them without a rifle and as an officer without command authority, and, he discovers, often without respect or credibility among the ranks.