Prophet- A Summary

Peretti, Frank. Prophet. Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books. 1992.

I was quite impressed with Prophet. I had only read two other Frank Peretti novels and both dealt with the battle between angels and demons. Half of the characters in those two books were humans and the other half were angels and demons. The spiritual persons actually had names, characters, personalities, descriptions, etc. I expected the same from this book. I figured that angels and demons would play major roles in the story. However, I was mistaken. Although there is certainly spiritual battles going on throughout the book, the angels and demons are not made into characters.

The basic story focused on a news anchorman, John Barrett. He was frustrated with his father, John Barrett Sr., due to his religious fanaticism. He was regularly seen preaching the truth of God whenever Governor Hiram Slater was doing another campaign rally. Dad, as he was called in the book, seemed to have a special interest in Governor Slater (who was currently running for mayor again) and he felt the need to get across a certain message to him. However, his attempts were drawing too much attention finally ending him on the news as his son, John Barrett Jr. had to do a story on him. John needed to get across to his father that he was coming across as a crazy, old, religious judgementalist who was anti-abortion. Basically, he was seen as a kook and it needed to come to an end

John went to the familiar plumbing warehouse that was owned and run by his father. He was humiliated as he had to report on a crazy kook that started a riot that happened to be his father. He had to talk with his father to stop any further incidents. However, when John entered his dad’s office, he seemed to be hiding something. He had a mysterious tape player that he tried to hide but desperately wanted to share with his son. However, Dad kept saying that John wasn’t ready. John was perplexed at his behavior, but he mainly focused on making sure that his father knew that he was making a fool of himself and that he needed to stop. John and his dad had not gotten along with each other for several years, and this particular visit was no different.
John was surprised to hear a day after their meeting that his father was killed in an accident in the warehouse. Apparently a pipe rack had fallen on him. Dad always came to work early, so by the time anyone else arrived at work it was too late.

John attended his father’s funeral, but he was surprised to see his ex-wife and gothic son there. He was not able to talk to his ex-wife at all, but he did talk to his son, Carl, afterwards. The reader finds that this mysterious Carl will be staying in town for a while as he had worked out a deal to stay with John’s mom. Carl was a lost and confused young man, trying to figure out who he was, and who his father was.

One evening after the funeral, John began hearing thousands of voices from outside his apartment. They were voices of panic, pain, and they all seemed to be screaming, “Help me!” He went to investigate, but the voices died away and there was no sign of any real people ever being in the area. John was afraid that the effects of using drugs in his college days, topped with the added stress of losing his father, was causing him to hallucinate. But then it happened again, but in a very different way. He was eating a casual dinner with his son one night after work. It was already slightly awkward since John didn’t know his son very well and his son kept asking very personal, difficult questions. A young waitress came up to take their order, but John saw two faces rather than one. One face was the normal face of a young girl asking their order. Another face seemed to be looking from behind this face. This second face was crying, repeating the word, “Annie.” John told Carl to ask the waitress if she knew an Annie. Once he asked the girl brightened and quickly asked how they knew Annie and how they knew that she was thinking about her. John couldn’t explain himself, but this waitress, Daniel, explained the mysterious Annie. Annie was one of her high school friends. Annie found out that she was pregnant and didn’t know what to do. The school counselor who had given Annie the pregnancy test told her to get an abortion and set up an appointment. Annie was excused from her midday classes on Friday and taken to the abortion clinic in a brown van along with two other girls. Annie had her abortion done and then returned to school to recover for the last couple of classes before going home. This allowed girls to get an abortion without their parents ever finding out. Unfortunately, it seemed that the doctors were in too much of a hurry with Annie’s abortion and caused an infection that spread throughout her body and killed her two days after the procedure. The death certificate said that it was due to an infection, but it did not say that it was from an abortion. Rachael knew that it was from the abortion and she desperately wanted to tell someone so that more girls did not go to that clinic and get hurt. However, there was no way to explain it.

The story begins to get very complicated as John and Carl talk to Annie’s parents, the Brewers. Annie’s father, Max, was actually a close friend of John’s father.
John tried to establish the story well enough to make it onto the news. Annie’s mother and Leslie Albright, a close friend of John and reporter for the same news station, went to the abortion clinic to find the records that proved that Annie had an abortion. Unfortunately, the clinic had a tip surprisingly from John’s boss at News6, Tina Lewis, and erased the records. So, Mrs. Brewer and Leslie came up dry. However, Tina still ran a story making the Brewers look anti-choice fanatics attempting to discredit abortion but ending up making a fool of themselves. This obviously caused the Brewers to no longer trust John and Leslie, but then John and Leslie were able to get the original autopsy of Annie that clearly stated her death was from a botched abortion.

After all of this excitement, John and Carl were talking together in Dad’s old workshop. Carl had set up his painting projects in a corner of the workshop. Everyone was amazed that Dad had left his workshop so clean. Everything was in order, and the order didn’t end there. Before his death, he had taken care of all of the bills, he was sure to pay all debts, he had put everything away. Mom said that he was ready to go. No one knew how, but somehow Dad knew that he was going to go when he did. Anyway, John and Carl were talking about the legacy that Dad had left. John remembered that Dad would make a Christmas present for him every year and that he would hide it in the same spot. Suddenly, a thought occurred to him. He raced to the back of the workshop to the familiar hidden door where his Christmas presents used to be hid. He opened the door, peered inside, and found a manila envelope with his name on it. It was recently placed there as there was no dust or cobwebs covering it. He took out the envelope and looked inside. The contents of the envelope seemed random. There was a death certificate of Hillary Slater, the governor’s daughter. She was reported to have been killed because of taking the wrong medicine. She was trying to take medicine for menstrual cramps, but accidentally took her father’s blood thinning pills. She bled to death as a result. An audio tape slid out of the envelope as well. John took the tape and played it on a tape player in the workshop. He suddenly flashed back to his last conversation with his father. He had a tape player in front of him and he was crying. He hid it, but said that he wanted to share it with his son, but John wasn’t ready to hear it. The tape began playing. John and Carl could hear a teenager’s frantic voice. Then a dispatcher’s voice saying, “This is 911.” This young girl explained that her friend had had an abortion, but something was wrong. She was bleeding profusely and it would not stop. Her breathing was very laborious and she was beginning to turn blue. Then the girl’s voice stopped and the governor’s voice came out of the tape player. He said that it was her daughter that was bleeding to death. Hillary Slater had died because of a botched abortion, not because of an accident! But the governor had covered it up. Why?

Through much investigation, John and Carl found the girl who spoke first on the tape. It was Shannon DuPliese. She had apparently been given a scholarship that sent her to a college far away. But she received at least one phone call a week from Martin Devin, the governor’s Chief of Staff and Personal Assistant. Devin wanted to make sure that Shannon was not going to talk and that she would stay far away. By the time that John contacted Shannon through Mrs. Brewer and Leslie, she was quite tired of feeling pressured by Devin. She decided to quit school and come home. She needed to tell her parents the truth of Hilary’s death and let people know that she was right there with her through the abortion and as she died. Mrs. Brewer and Shannon decided that this abortion clinic (the same clinic operated on Annie and Hilary) must be stopped.
As all of this was developing, John was beginning to wonder whether his father’s death was really an accident. Everyone knew that those pipe racks wouldn’t fall spontaneously. Maybe the governor had something to do with it. The governor knew that Dad had that tape and Dad was certainly not getting on the governor’s good side by preaching at him at every political rally.
All of the facts, interviews, and paperwork from Annie’s death and Hilary’s death finally came into a story that was ready to be released to the public. The news director was not happy to report this story as he was friends with the governor, but he allowed it. John reported the story by himself, but that action led to his being fired as news anchor for News6. John wondered whether reporting this story was worth his job, but he felt that it was his duty to report the truth and try to protect young girls secretly getting abortions.
The story ended with the news that Martin Devin was being arrested for setting up the murder of John Barrett Sr. Devin was given a very secretive tape by the governor which he was supposed to destroy. However, Devin decided to not destroy it in case in could be used as leverage against the governor sometime in the future. However, the tape was stolen and given to Dad. Devin then hired two hit men to take care of the matter. Dad refused to give the tape back, but this obstinacy ended with his death. John’s suspicious were justified. Therefore, the matter of Dad’s death, Annie’s death, and Hilary’s death was finally out in the open.
An underlying theme to this book is what is truth and do we have a commitment to protect it? John Barrett Jr. did not know who he was. The only thing he would protect was himself. He was empty, heartless, without beliefs or convictions. Carl was empty, wandering, wondering who he was and who his father was. And yet, John Barrett Sr. knew exactly who he was and what he was fighting for. He stood up for his beliefs. He risked everything, including his very life, to protect the truth. He knew who he was, what he was doing. He had a sense of control that John and Carl seemed incapable of grasping. The media, music, shopping, distractions, noise, advertisements, etc. seemed to be what was in control. Men were no longer acting like men but were allowing media to decide their lives for them. The media was described as a large beast, a fish, or a machine that was heading one direction and if you were wise and valued your position would not fight with the flow. You would not break the unwritten laws of asking pesky questions, searching too much for the truth. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but it, is not always welcome. John and Carl began to wonder, where was this machine heading?
John had to face the truth head on. Is there really truth, or does “truth” simply change with the culture? Is what is considered terrible today going to be considered acceptable tomorrow? If so, why would it be worth fighting for? If the truth is simply going to change, it’s not worth risking your career, or life, your happiness to protect it.

John came to the realization that truth must exist. He could not be human without believing in something solid. He felt that to be truly human is to take a stand, to being thinking for yourself, not allowing the machine to decide for you. This would mean going against the flow which would take sacrifice, but it was worth it to truly live. Although John did not want to say the whole truth at times, he felt that he had a commitment to tell the whole truth, no matter how unpleasant or unpopular.

John also found that God will chase after you. He deeply desires you to come to the Truth and He will not simply give up if you do not cooperate the first few times. By the end of the story you can definitely tell a difference in John’s character from the beginning to the end. God kept speaking to John through several different ways, through visions, people, circumstances, etc. until He got his attention. Then, John was able to find who he was and what he believed. He became more of a human than he ever was, being in control of his own decisions once again, freeing himself from the machine that was destroying mankind. That machine no longer had control over him, distracting him from his doom with one more add, one more thing to buy, one more song to listen to, one more show to watch. That machine never allowed for silence. Never silence, always noise, busyness, action. Never a moment to consider what is coming, to never realize how empty we are.