In this last installment of my interview with fellow author and blogger Paul Hair, we discuss some of his books, the illiteracy/dumbing down of our culture, comic books, the author business, and a little more theology.

Be sure to check out Part One, Two, and Three. Also consider reading some of Paul’s work. It’s rare to find any work in the entertainment industry not crafted by people who hate you–why give such people your money? Virtual Pulp has undertaken a quest to find entertainment by people who don’t hate you, and Paul is one of the authors we’ve found.

Enjoy:

HANK: Talk about your writing: what have you done; what are you working on now; what kind of projects do you anticipate taking on long-term?

PAUL: I encourage everyone to visit my Amazon author page. Please buy, read, and tell others about my books. Also, don’t forget to click on my author name here at Virtual Pulp. I’ve published some wonderful flash fiction and short stories here.

The first, major book I was involved in writing was a nonfiction book I co-wrote/ghostwrote with Matt Barber. It’s called Hating Jesus: The American Left’s War on Christianity. The book was published in 2016, but it’s still relevant today. I encourage people to pick it up.

Hating Jesus was successful. But it was also a lot of work because it was nonfiction. Nonfiction means a ton of citations. And that is a massive amount of work—a job that is so big that it could be a separate job onto itself when writing such a book. But it wasn’t. It was a job we undertook ourselves.

So after that, I thought about doing fiction instead. Fiction means no worrying about citations—no worrying that you are quoting people accurately, correctly representing what they mean, or appropriately using sources. It’s so much easier and shorter. And it’s a lot more fun.

The first fiction I published was Mortal Gods: Ignition. This is an anthology of three short stories that takes place in a universe where superhumans exist in a real-world setting. The book shows that this was my first time writing fiction. I’ve learned a lot about the craft since then. But it’s still good and a quick read.

Then it was onto establishing the Appalling Stories series with authors David Dubrow and Ray Zacek. The first and second books in the series were anthologies. The third is a novella. We’re working on a fourth one now, which will be another anthology of short stories. We have a fantastic group of authors (including you) contributing to this one. I believe it has the potential to be the best yet. I’m certainly excited about the story I’m writing. It should be one of the most fun stories I’ve written; an adventure story with a twist.

HANK: That’s right: we both have a story in the anthology! Will it be coming out late this year or early next year? David said something that made me think late in 2019.

PAUL: Late 2019 is our plan, so we hope to have it published soon.

Beyond this, I’m co-writing/ghostwriting two novels with two people. I won’t reveal their names right now but I’m excited about these novels, and will promote them heavily once we’ve published them. Additionally, I’m working on a young adult novel (or novella) where a teenage boy is struggling with coming to terms with his younger sister who has declared herself to be “transgender.” Through the course of the story, he finds out why she has decided to pretend to be a boy, and from there he works to both address that, and protect her as she deals with issues of self-loathing.

Longer term goals include writing more Mortal Gods tales (again, that’s my universe where superhumans exist in a real-world setting—read a few Mortal Gods short stories here at Virtual Pulp), speculative fiction tales, contemporary tales, and more. I don’t have a particular genre that I enjoy.

HANK: I have too many that I enjoy. Pretty much everything except horror, chick-lit, and the sexual deviancy genres. From a practical business standpoint, I need to just pick one and write series in that genre. But there’s just too many kinds of stories I want to tell.

PAUL: I like working in different genres too. And I think we can successfully do it (including writing series of books).

HANK: What inspired you to write prose tales of superheroes?

PAUL: I have tentative plans for superhero tales, but right now I’ve written superhuman tales. What’s the difference? My Mortal Gods superhuman tales take place in a real-world setting. No one dresses up in costumes and fights as a vigilante (unless he wants to be arrested and imprisoned).

As far as why I write prose tales about them: it’s much simpler than a comic book, and prose allows for a more cultured way of telling a tale than a comic book.

If you want to do a comic book, you have to find an artist capable of doing the artwork. That takes time and money. Fine, if you want to do it. But that’s hard to do. People are turning to crowdfunding to try to do their own comic books. Some succeed, others fail. And if you’re taking two or more years to deliver the final comic book (if at all), are you really succeeding? So from that perspective, it doesn’t make sense for me to do a comic book at this time.

Also, prose is more cultured than a funny book with pictures. I’m not against comic books, but I understand that you can do more from a literate perspective with prose than with a comic book. That’s attractive to me.

Again, I’m not against comic books. I have ideas of what I’d like to do if I ever got the money to do so. But I’m not planning on that right now. I’m enjoying writing prose tales of superhumans; creating the universes and offering a new and exciting vision through prose that no one else is offering.

HANK: Describe the audience you envision for your fiction, past, present and future.

PAUL: Everyone. But to start out, people who are right-of-communist and right-of-satanic are the target audience. Seriously, the mainstream entertainment world isn’t just ignoring this group of people; it has declared war on them.

I’m serious when I say I don’t want to continue supporting them. I imagine others feel the same way.

HANK: Yeah. Me, for one.

PAUL: Going back to my previous comments on theological matters, I’m under no illusion that my works will be read 100 years from now. (I’ll be doing well if I can continue growing the amount of people who are reading them right now.) That’s okay, of course. Everything will eventually pass away. This also means I’m working under the 70% doctrine. I know I’m not going to be the next Shakespeare or literary master. So my goal is to try to publish works that I’m at least 70% satisfied with at a relatively high rate. It makes no sense to try to publish the Perfect Work if it takes forever to publish it. Produce. Get works out there that earn money and create intellectual property. No, I’m not suggesting I become some sort of corporate mill. But I know that I have to earn money to continue writing, and I have to produce stories if I ever want to consider myself an accomplished author.

(Seriously, if one isn’t producing works on a regular basis, and if few people are reading said works, then one isn’t an author; he is effectively a teenage girl who writes in a diary and keeps it under a mattress at night. Both have the same amount of people reading their works.)

HANK: Ouch.

I don’t know if I could stick to the 70% doctrine. It turns out I’m a compulsive editor, revising and rewriting as I go. Even after publishing, sometimes, I go back and tweak.

PAUL: I know what you mean. But for me, it comes down to forcing myself to say something is finished. Yes, there will always be room for improvement. (AARs show us that.) But, again for me, that needs to occur in the next tale. Publishing quality material on a regular basis is a must in my plan.

HANK: Do you have thoughts on the epidemic of illiteracy in our country in recent years?

PAUL: Mass media entertainment has contributed to this. People are simply turning their attention to forms of entertainment that only require passive participation. But I think the aforementioned war on normalcy from the entertainment industry have played a part in this too.

I don’t want to read any of the things that big publishers are producing. I suspect a lot of other people feel this way too. Add in the fact that so many people are now condemning American history and culture, and you have a society that actively is discouraging a lot of people to read. (A lot of fine literature is American. Beyond this, a lot of fine literature can be classified as being part of Western Civilization. And since our betters also condemn Western Civ as well as American culture and history, you have a lot of literature now that people are being told they shouldn’t read.)

Regardless, I spent a better part of a decade writing a lot of nonfiction opinion columns and articles on the decay of culture and society for some pretty well-known websites. That accomplished nothing. So I’ve abandoned that and now am focused on writing fiction instead of complaining. And that’s the best thing one can do when it comes to the state of literacy/illiteracy (or for anything for that matter): do instead of talk.

HANK: Sage advice, for sure.

I appreciate you taking the time for this dialog. Is there anything you’d like to add before we sign off?

PAUL: Buy my books and read my stories here at Virtual Pulp!

Again, I thank Paul for his patience and willingness to answer my questions so candidly. I’m thankful to have men like this out there fighting alongside me in the culture war.

In Part One and Part Two, we’ve talked Christianity, books, and raising kids. In this part of the interview, Paul talks a little about the military and Judgment Day:

HANK: Tell a little about your experiences in Military Intelligence, why you chose that MOS and what effect, if any, it had on your worldview.

PAUL: Everyone (enlisted, at least; likely officers too) who joins the armed forces takes the ASVAB—the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery. What you score on that determines what MOS—Military Occupational Specialties—you’ll be eligible to be considered for. I scored high enough on the ASVAB and there were enough military intelligence slots left for that fiscal year (which was just at the end of FY2004) that I grabbed an all-source intelligence analyst MOS.

I was old when I enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve; late 20s. It was only a few years after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S. During those three years between the attacks and when I enlisted, I had thought about where I was going in my life (which was nowhere, really). And I thought about all the people (including people much younger than me) who were serving—who were risking their lives and even dying on the battlefield. Those two separate thoughts converged and I concluded, “Why am I not part of the armed forces too?” Thus, I enlisted.

Mind you, joining the Armed Forces goes against pretty much everything that is natural to me. I like to sleep. Some people would describe me as an introvert (others would not). I was not a hard-charging-I-can-conquer-anything person. I’m not big on camping out. I had lived a fairly sedentary lifestyle during the decade or so prior to enlisting. I had not done much traveling prior to enlisting. I had never considered joining the Armed Forces prior to 9/11. And so forth. So that was a massive decision for me. It was life-changing.

As far as how being in military intelligence changed my worldview, I don’t know that that did specifically. It was an interesting and rewarding experience (just going through the arduous process of obtaining a top secret security clearance was an experience). But that didn’t necessarily affect my worldview. Being in the Army Reserve did, though.

Being in the Army Reserve exposed me to more types of people than I had ever had the chance to engage with over extended periods of time. It wasn’t that I didn’t know such people existed, but I didn’t know how to act—to react—to them. I used to think that if one behaved properly and did all that he could to get along with people, then harmony would ensue. I was wrong, of course. That was a learning experience—an unlearning of what society had taught me and still teaches. There will never be harmony on earth because that is not what mankind wants. It goes back to the sinful nature of man. So without going into a lengthy theological explanation for all that, suffice it to say I learned that sometimes you cannot get along with others, that you cannot control others and sometimes (particularly in the Army) you’re just going to have to accept that you will suffer the consequences for others’ bad behavior despite it having nothing to do with you, and that sometimes you just have to fight for what is right.

HANK: I’m glad you shared that. The Army taught me a lot about human nature, too. Also group dynamics. I imagine myself to be an armchair social anthropologist ever since my active duty.

There is no telling what kind of chain-of-command you’ll be dropped into in the military. At best it will be a benevolent dictatorship. At worst…well, a living nightmare that can crush hope more thoroughly than an American female. And speaking of that: how far had the feminist social experimentation gotten by the time you entered the Armed Forces?

PAUL: Interesting comments about chain-of-command. Very true. As far as the feminist social experimentation, it’s like the rest of society. PC controls the armed forces. There is no pushback nor can there be. For to push back against progressivism is to be “hateful” and “wrong.” And so feminism and progressivism advance without opposition.

My military experience also taught me that one should never expect justice, pretty much anywhere in this world. I spent eight years in the Army Reserve as at least half of my own nation backed our enemies in war. Not only have they succeeded in helping our enemies kill troops and defeat us in war, but they’ve been rewarded for it; have convinced others that the U.S. was the bad guy for going to war. There have been no consequences for them and there will be no consequences for them, either.

Working against America and/or to help her enemies is the path to success and prosperity in the 21st Century—whether that path is military, civilian, political, private sector, and even in the Church. Anybody who denies this is part of the problem.

I also learned a lot of humility from my military experience. When I graduated from high school, I thought I was smart—smarter than most. I gradually learned how wrong I was after that, with the capstone being going through Basic Combat Training and Advanced Individual Training. It’s not that I believe I’m stupid, but by the time I went through Initial Entry Training for the Army, I learned there were a lot of people who were either smarter than me in general, or smarter (and better) than me in all things military. You’re not really supposed to admit this. When you admit that you have flaws or aren’t the best at something people beat you over the head with it and use it to say something to the effect of, “See? Even he admits he’s incompetent!” This isn’t what I’m saying, of course. What I’m saying is that (again) my military experience affected my worldview by showing me that I had to rethink my beliefs about myself and others. Just as I learned to see the true negative aspects of others, I also learned to see the true positive aspects of others (and a lot of negative aspects of myself).

HANK: Ahh, humility. My best two-mile run ever was a 10:25…but that wasn’t even the best time in my platoon.

PAUL: I know what you mean. There are a lot of people with a lot of athletic ability. And many of them choose to do something other than professional sports. There are some exceptionally talented individuals in the Armed Forces.

So, to sum up how my military experience affected my worldview, it altered how I interacted with fellow human beings, altered how I perceived justice (the world is full of injustice), and altered how I view my fellow human beings. And it taught me a lot of humility.

HANK: Do you believe justice is even possible, at this stage, under human leadership?

PAUL: I don’t know. I certainly don’t expect to get it or witness it. So that either makes me an unwarranted cynic or I’m being realistic.

HANK: What is it that makes you tick, now?

PAUL: Judgment Day. As I get older, the day of my death inevitably grows nearer. So I am thinking a lot more about the day when I stand before God and He judges me.

This has made me reevaluate what it means to be a Christian. God sent His only Son Jesus to earth, born of the Virgin Mary as fully God and fully Man. He lived a sinless life, was crucified and died for our sins, and rose in the eternal defeat of said sin. He paid the price so we do not have to experience eternal damnation.

Christ’s death and resurrection is the only source of salvation. We cannot earn it. We have to have faith in His death and resurrection if we want salvation. Yet the Bible also says faith without works is dead. So I’ve been meditating on that a lot lately. What have I been doing in my life to show that I am a follower of Christ? Is my life showing that my faith is not dead?

So I think about that every day—pretty much all day. And when you consider that—when you consider that one day you will be judged to spend eternity in Heaven or eternity in Hell, pretty much everything else becomes meaningless.

Thus, many things that used to mean a lot to me no longer do.

HANK: You said a lot, right there. When we stand before the Creator of the Universe, we will not be judged by the ever-shifting goalposts of the world’s moral relativism, but by a righteous God who does not change. What we do in this life has eternal consequences, and only a fool stores his treasure where moth and rust destroy. When Jesus returns, I want to be busy doing my Father’s work

PAUL: Exactly.

HANK: How would you assess the entertainment industry in the current year; and fiction publishing in particular?

PAUL: If one is right-of-communist; right-of-satanic, the entertainment industry hates you. And anyone who pays a decent amount of attention to the entertainment industry should have this figured out by now. If one hasn’t figured it out, there is something wrong with him. And there’s nothing anyone will be able to do to change this fact.

This is not necessarily a depressing thing. Or, at least, it shouldn’t be. This is an opportunity for authors (like me!) to take advantage and to provide quality entertainment to a large group of people.

So as the fiction publishing industry ramps up its hatred of everyone who refuses to fully embrace evil, I’m not wasting my time complaining about it. I welcome it! I welcome the self-destruction and I am creating new tales for people to read and enjoy.

HANK: That is such a simple, and wise, strategy. I need to do the same, while we still have the ability to get anything published that does not conform to The Lie.

PAUL: That’s a good point. It really is a race against time.

HANK: Is there anything currently being published that you enjoy?

PAUL: No. And that goes back to what I wrote above. The publishing industry—book publishing, comic book publishing, and so forth—just hate my guts by way of hating what I believe. Why would I want to support them? Why would I want to fund them and thus fund their war on me?

Plus, I have plenty of better things to do.

HANK: I can’t argue with your logic, though I am always on the lookout for a good book that doesn’t sucker-punch me with the obligatory leftist messaging. And there is almost no escape from it. You can find books by a “conservative” (whatever that means) author, and you’re just as likely to wade through feminist and LGBT-pandering as you would have to when reading books written by their SJW competition. Read something by a “Christian” author—it will be seasoned with worldly rationalizations dressed up in spiritual semantics to scratch the itching ears of their Churchian audience. Find any author that rejects some aspect of The Narrative, and you will discover any number of other cultural Marxist messages sprinkled throughout.

I say “almost no escape from it” because Virtual Pulp authors are an exception. There might be other exceptions out there, and I’m always hoping to find some.

PAUL: That’s one of the things that drew me to Virtual Pulp. If we don’t become the innovators, no one else will.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Last time, in Part 1, we covered Christian upbringing out in the country, and opined on a possible connection between morality and rural or urban locations. In the continuation of my interview with author Paul Hair, we talk Christianity, child rearing, and books worth reading.

Where I left off, I had just diagnosed Paul’s upbringing as “sheltered.” He disagreed, and went into some detail. We’ll pick up there:

PAUL: Public school exposed me to the world and worldly ways.

So I really didn’t experience culture shock when I hit the world…with one exception: professing Christians weren’t necessarily all that Christian outside of church (and this is what I meant when I mentioned my one major shock was sort of connected to Christianity). I continued realizing this throughout my 20s and even 30s. I think by my late 30s I fully realized that the people I worshiped next to in church weren’t necessarily the allies I thought they were. This isn’t to say I view fellow churchgoers askance; only that I do not assume that the person to my right and to my left believes what the Bible and God teach.

HANK: I’ve discovered through experience that most self-proclaimed Christians don’t study or believe the Bible. IOW, they don’t study or believe the teaching of Jesus. Therefore they don’t follow Christ, and therefore are not Christian. This is why I have begun calling them Churchians.

Of course, actual Christians will remember that we were warned a great apostasy was coming upon the Church. Message confirmed.

PAUL: In short, my upbringing was an advantage. It taught me the right way to live. So even when I chose the wrong thing as an adult, I always knew what the right thing was, which helped bring me back to the correct path.

As to if I would raise children the way my parents raised me: no—because it would be next-to-impossible to do so.

Our world is one where if your son declares he’s a girl you risk having the government take him away from you if you refuse to indulge that lie. Now imagine trying to raise a child in today’s world where you won’t allow him to listen to popular music, go to movie theaters, or watch disrespectful TV. Now throw in refusing him a cell phone and connectivity. On top of that, try spanking him or administering other types of corporal punishment.

How long until the government would take him away from me?

Perhaps the only place I would be able to try to raise children the way my parents raised me would be if I removed to some really remote place like Alaska, where even today the government would have a slightly harder than normal time accessing my children on a day-to-day basis. It might be possible to raise children like that without losing them. But even then it would be iffy.

That lifestyle is odd to the world; people view that as being a “Religious nut.” It wasn’t, of course. But, regrettably, I’ve let the world influence me too much instead of the other way around. I’ve lost a lot of those positive habits and practices, exchanging them for some worldly ones. That needs to be corrected.

But the only reason I know they need to be corrected is because of how my parents influenced me.

HANK: You just identified, in my opinion, a huge reason why the Church has become apostate: it has let the world influence it, rather than the Church influencing the world.

PAUL: Yes. And I don’t see much pushback on this.

Reading-wise (I didn’t forget about that part of the question), I read books that everyone knows (such as “The Hardy Boys,” The Island of the Blue Dolphin, Sounder, and so forth) and books that no one has heard of (such as “The Sugar Creek Gang” series of books).

My parents encouraged reading. Also, because my TV and video game time was limited, and because I didn’t listen to music or go to movies, that was a great thing to do when I was bored or when I needed a break from working and playing outside in the heat of summer or the bitter cold of winter.

School also provided me with an opportunity to read. That exposed me to Shakespeare, which I discovered I enjoyed. We read Beowulf, Chaucer, Austen, Dickens, and at least one of the Brontë sisters. Jane Eyre remains a book I enjoy. I also learned to like American literature. We read books such as Call of the Wild, Of Mice and Men, The Martian Chronicles, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and so forth.

For the longest time, Huck Finn was my favorite book. But then, as an adult, when I realized that teachers and scholars liked it so much because it was “an indictment of America,” I lost a lot of respect for it. I lost even more respect for it when I discovered that Samuel Clemons was a less-than-decent guy. (Yes, I know, we’re not supposed to judge books by the authors’ lives. If we did that, we wouldn’t be able to enjoy any book. Nevertheless, I remain firm in my reassessment of Huck Finn for my stated reasons.)

HANK: I wonder how old you were when the revelation occurred to you about Huck Finn. I’m guessing that, in addition to all their other villainy, your parents also raised you to (gasp! The horror!) love your country?

PAUL: Probably older than I should’ve been. Definitely in my thirties and perhaps mid to late thirties. And, yes, my parents did instill in me that patriotism is valuable.

Your question doesn’t address which books I enjoy as an adult but I’m going to throw a few in here anyway. I read both Frankenstein and Dracula, and liked them. (Specifically, I initially read the Bantam Classic editions of them. I was introduced to Bantam Classics by way of high school because the books are cheap. I’ve come to love these old books—the introductions to them, highly politically biased as they are, the smell of them, the feel of them, and the way they read.) Neither of the books is like any filmed adaptation available. Both books are much better. I later read the Cliff’s Complete edition of Frankenstein. Teachers hate Cliff Notes for good reason. But as an adult, when you’re committed to reading the actual book and not just the notes, Cliff Notes are quite helpful. And when you find a book that you enjoy, reading the Cliff’s Complete version of that book is an exceptionally enjoyable experience. It provides a wealth of background information and insight that expands the reading experience.

If you’d ask me to name my favorite book right now, I don’t know what that would be. In the past year I read A Princess of Mars (Penguin Classics edition—another good series) and liked that. But I’d probably go with A Light in the Forest by Conrad Richter. It’s a novella written in the 1950s. It’s an easy read but also very literate. Exceptional ending that is tragic and yet very satisfying.

HANK: I’m glad you talked about your current reading proclivities despite my failure to bring it up. It sounds like you rather enjoy “literary” fiction as well as some genre work. By the way, I also quite enjoyed A Princess of Mars. If you are ever again in a mood for some classic pulpy sci-fi, you might want to check out Armageddon: 2019 AD by Philip Francis Nowlan. It’s the original Buck Rogers novel.

PAUL: Armageddon: 2419 AD. I think I heard of that before but I wouldn’t have remembered it if you hadn’t mentioned it. I did some quick internet research on it and apparently it and The Skylark of Space by E. E. Smith both debuted in August 1928 in Amazing Stories magazine. The Skylark of Space is said to have originated the space opera genre.

TO BE CONTINUED…

The world of Indie Publishing is one of the only mediums in which self-identified Christians and right-leaning thinkers still have a voice and an opportunity to express their ideas. It’s the last outpost in the entertainment industry for ideological mavericks. However, these mavericks are committed to nothing as fanatically as they are to noble defeat.

They prefer to surrender rather than contend for their faith or conserve anything of value from our way of life. Their version of Christianity, for instance, believes that gender roles (assuming they still admit there are only two genders) should be the opposite of what the Bible teaches and what biology indicates. Were one of these typical mavericks to attempt explaining the concept of sin, they would likely list “homophobia” at the top of God’s list of unforgivable crimes. They disagree with the devil only by degrees–not in principle. They are most angered by Christians who fight; who rebel against the god of this world; who call out evildoers and hypocrites the way Jesus did; who don’t conform to the Terms and Conditions of Churchianity (as dictated by the enemies of Christ).

The “Christians” and “conservatives” who have the most clout, the loudest voices, and the best-defended platforms, are the most likely to cuck; the most likely to shrink in the face of evil; and the most likely to condemn those who don’t make the same compromises.

With allies like this, who needs enemies? But we have them, in spades, and their advantages are considerable. It can be very lonely when you refuse to bend your knee to Baal.

I’ve learned all this the hard way, via experience.

Virtual Pulp remains small because I’ve been very selective in who I allow to sport our brand. I used to dream of having a huge stable of authors, and enjoying literary success (to the extent it’s possible in the 21st Century); but it may be likely that there’s never more than a small handful of authors who want anything to do with me and my narrow-minded, puritanical vision. I piss people off and step on toes pretty much everywhere I go–not because I “can’t play nice with others;” but because I want to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem.

But solutions are sexist. And homophobic. And Islamaphobic. And, of course, racist/Nazi/white nationalist/blah blah blah fear blah blah blah hate.

Paul Hair joined the small team of bloggers at Virtual Pulp a while back after I failed to scare him away with my puritanical hateful hot hate, and I saw evidence that he doesn’t want to be part of the problem. He has contributed some articles and fiction here at VP that has added quality to the site. I’ve just finished an interview with him that covers a range of topics of interest to Virtual Pulp readers, and here is Part One:

HANK: Let’s start at the beginning: childhood, formative years…what were the most important influences on you, looking back? What did you like to read? Why did you like to read?

PAUL: I was born and raised in a rural life. Like any kid, I didn’t realize the full extent of my childhood until I was an adult. So I didn’t realize how rural my life was until I grew up. As a child, I knew I was “country,” but I didn’t realize how much so. For instance, I thought going to the Big City was going to a small city that was 15 miles away. (And it was something we rarely did, so much so that it was at times viewed as a vacation.) The city (then and now) doesn’t even have any true skyscrapers. It’s small geographically and by population too. Less than 50,000 people to this day, I believe.

On top of this, my family didn’t have any next-door neighbors. The closest neighbors were a tenth of a mile or so away. No neighbors across the road (just thick woods) and no neighbors behind us (a gigantic farmer’s field). And then there was a buffer of field and woods on both sides of the family property.

HANK: So you’re a country boy, like me. I didn’t appreciate my rustic upbringing at the time, but now I sure do.

There are exceptions to everything, of course, but I’ve noticed a definite correlation between stacking multitudes of people on top of each other, and moral implosion. It could be argued that talented people tend to be drawn to huge population centers (for whatever reason). It could also be argued that an individual is much more likely to be handed over to a reprobate mind after living in a city for a lengthy time period. Lot in Sodom (for all his failures) would qualify as an exception to this rule, but his wife and daughters were poster children for it. Have you noticed this same correlation? If so, why do you suppose it works this way?

PAUL: I would add the Tower of Babel and even the prophesied Babylon in addition to Sodom. As far as if I’ve noticed the correlation between urban areas and moral implosion…I’ll leave it at I’ve certainly been thinking about it a lot lately. I won’t say what I’ve concluded because I want urban and rural readers alike to purchase and read my books.

But so as to not entirely weasel out of the question (even as I go in a slightly different direction), I’ll say this: urban versus rural is an interesting topic, and definitely one that is very important to our times. It’s becoming increasingly relevant to political and cultural life. The Journalist-Democratic Party (which is now transparently communist) has taken over every institution of America. It runs everything in the nation. And this is particularly true in urban areas. That saturation of power in urban areas has become a focus for the communists, who are now frothing at the mouth about abolishing the Electoral College so that their urban centers can determine every future presidential election—so that they can prevent we “hicks” from ever having any say in anything significant in the nation again.

We’ll never see this change in our lifetime either. Urban areas are, by their nature, places where there will always be more government involvement. It’s inevitable. A larger amount of people means a larger amount of conflicts. And who do people expect to solve conflicts? Government. And when it comes to larger government, who is better at convincing people to put them in charge of it? Who is better at manipulating it to favor them and their agenda—better at manipulating it to crush their enemies? The communists or the GOP / conservatives—their ostensible opponents? The communists, of course. So the communists’ center of power in urban areas is only going to grow. As that occurs, of course, their power in the cities and nationally will grow. Big government is never going to go away. It literally can’t because of the nature of America in the 21st century. As soon as big cities became a thing, the country changed for good. Communists control it now. And it’s pretty easy to see where things go from here.

So urban versus rural is an important topic for contemporary times, and anyone who is interested in how things are going should be paying attention to it and thinking about it.

Conflict between American urban and rural has been brewing for a long time too. In the 1970s, there was the Rural Purge on TV. The powers that be (whether TV execs, advertisers, a combination of both, or other parties) wanted to get away from appealing to “ignorant country folk” in favor of urban viewers. Perhaps the conflict goes back even further.

(By the way, this conflict between urban and rural provides an opportunity for authors to explore it. How can the urban versus rural conflict factor into themes and motifs? Settings? Into entire plots? I can think of a few good ways to use it.)

I’ll conclude my answer on this subject by going back to where I started on it. I won’t answer on if I believe there is a correlation between moral implosion and urban areas because I want readers from both types of places. But I also don’t want to answer because I don’t want people who live in urban areas to think that they’d be better off in rural areas. One of the big reasons I like rural areas is because there are fewer people there, and if I convince people who reside in urban areas to move to rural areas, those rural areas cease to exist and instead become urban areas. So for all those who live in an urban area, I support you living there. I’ve lived in urban areas and I understand your reasons for doing so. I hope you’re happy and live a fruitful life. (And I write that with all sincerity.)

HANK: I lived in urban areas for many years, which is how I came to formulate my theory. I’m also thankful I had that anchor from a childhood spent mostly outside the high-population moral cesspools.

PAUL: I’m extremely happy I had this childhood, by the way. It’s something I look back on fondly. And it influenced me; helped shape who I became.

My parents were the single most influential people in my life. That is, I had a father and mother. Who were married to each other. And who had never been married to anyone else. Strange times, they were. But I digress. They influenced me by being certain that I was taught about God and the Gospel for my entire childhood. Again, I thought it was very normal during my childhood and even into my early adulthood. Now I know that’s not true. We went to Sunday school and church on Sundays (often listening to sermons by James Montgomery Boice during the car trip), had Sunday evening “house church,” went to Wednesday night services, prayed before meals and incorporated prayer into our lives, regularly read the Bible, read devotionals, and so forth. My father also worked at a Christian business. We weren’t allowed to swear, weren’t allowed to listen to secular music (until we were about 15 or 16), and weren’t allowed to watch crude or disrespectful TV shows. (They didn’t even allow us to watch much of “The Dukes of Hazzard” because of how it portrayed police—not cops—in a disrespectful manner.)

HANK: So this brings up something else I give a lot of thought. It sounds like you were sheltered—very sheltered, by non-Amish standards. (In fact, your parents might have been charged with child abuse in some jurisdictions for the care they took in raising you.) They eased up a bit in your teen years, but I’m guessing the culture shock was heavy when you did venture out on your own eventually. Was that youthful sheltering an advantage, or disadvantage, ultimately? In retrospect, would you prefer they had let you see reality in all its ugly horror at an earlier age, while using it as a perpetual teaching opportunity about right and wrong? Assuming you have kids of your own some day (if you don’t already), would you follow your parents’ model?

PAUL: I don’t necessarily believe I was sheltered. For one, going to church meant I knew about suffering and evil. It’s in the Bible. But the Great Commission also means that Christians go out into the world. And that’s often realized as missionaries. So I heard plenty of accounts of suffering and evil across the world by way of hearing the stories (firsthand or otherwise) of missionaries. There were also the stories of Christian converts with whom I ran across by way of attending church. My parents also had done mission work (youth work) on Long Island in the 1960s and early 1970s. I heard some of their stories. So I knew evil existed by way of being a Christian; I wasn’t shocked in that sense. There was only one major shock about the world that was sort of connected to my Christianity. More on that in a bit. First, though, here is another reason I don’t believe I was sheltered: I attended public school.

TO BE CONTINUED…