Lamb of God

Lamb of God was inspired by a news story about a man claiming to be Jesus Christ. Even though the Second Coming is prophesized several times in the Bible, and billions of people fervently believe it will happen, no one believed him. His name became yet another added to the long list of people who have struggled with that (presumed) delusion. Dozens are alive today, and like all the hopefuls through two millennia, have failed to convince anyone. This book is a story about how the Second Coming might be believed and succeed on a scale for the modern world. It starts in 1968, a year that started out badly for student activist Joe Dioletta. His mind was barely hanging on after losing his great love, Fiorella, his soulmate since childhood. Then he watched from the prison of his broken body when Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King were murdered, and the dream of his generation to save the world by making love not war was reduced to childish naivety. "And they say the devil doesn't exist", his mother would always say, when she really meant he does, and Joe would always have rolled his eyes dismissively in response. But now he believed every word, that all of it must have been Satan's cruel hand at work. Joe wanted only to stop living and rejoin Fiorella, but instead something happened that would make anyone believe there truly is an ancient, mystical battle of good vs. evil playing out behind the scenes, and that a higher power had reached out to Joe. It happened at the Vatican Archives. Joe had been rescued from his isolated misery by a job as a researcher there. He was together with a powerful Cardinal and another priest examining artifacts when they made the stunning realization that Joe was holding the preserved DNA of Jesus Christ in his hands. He shot to his feet looking skyward with a transfixed gaze and then fell to the floor, having fainted as the implications hit him hard. They were furious with Joe's explanation when he awoke, but after finding reassurances in scripture, and despite their complete aversion to the notion, they concluded that Joe had experienced a vision from God, and they'd been chosen to save mankind in a way that no one had ever imagined. When they realized that it is not for mortal men to decide how the Second Coming will occur, that it is for God alone, they made a secret pact to use that DNA to recreate the Saviour, to clone Jesus Christ. They also knew that if they really had been chosen, it meant that God could foresee that within their lifetime mankind would finally succumb to its virulent moral decay, and it was time to send His Son, once again. It was a time when even the word clone was new, and now they had to somehow perfect the science, secretly raise Him to manhood, then take control of the Vatican in order to have the only person people might believe introduce Him to the world; the Pope. When their unwitting benefactor, the Pope, dies, they almost lose the battle before it starts. His successor furiously vows to see them thrown in jail then mysteriously dies that very night, only thirty-one days into his Papacy. It was a troubling reminder that the battle was real, and dangerous, and they would have to prevail over many unforeseen threats or fail humanity. As the story moves from the recent past and present into the near future, it crescendos with plot twists and turns while the planet endures its darkest days. In a crumbling world economy, a vengeful psychopath of unlimited wealth is corrupting one bankrupt country after another, and finally conspires with powerful government allies to murder the reborn Savior before He can restore peace and prosperity to everyone.