A Religious Spirit

By Rob Summers

Hila Grant attends a charismatic house church that is being taken over by a highly questionable teacher. Because she tends to overdo it when challenging false teachers, she does not want to oppose Mrs. Vortgern. How can she take a stand for her faith without becoming self-righteous and vindictive?
Meanwhile, there are all these weddings going on, and she has to admit that she is a little concerned about still being single at twenty-nine. She could probably lure good-looking and witty Danny Hood away from his girlfriend, but that would not be very Christian. It’s time for a one-person spiritual retreat at a park cabin.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rob Summers
• Release date: Nov 23, 2013
• ISBN: 9781310568824

Rob Summers

The author of the Jeremiah Burroughs for the 21st Century Reader series (and many novels) is retired, having been an administrative assistant at a university. He lives with his wife on six wooded acres in rural Indiana. After discovering, while in his thirties, that writing novels is even more fulfilling than reading them, he began to create worlds and people on paper. His Mage powers include finding morel mushrooms and making up limericks in his head. Feel free to email him at [e-mail]

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A Religious Spirit

Book 2 of the Hila Grant Series

By Rob Summers

Copyright 2002 by Rob Summers

Smashwords Edition

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

No actual persons are represented in this book.

Table of Contents

Part 1 A Silence in Heaven

Chapter 1 The Vortgern

Chapter 2 Matters Unsettled

Chapter 3 Dragging Through

Chapter 4 Staying

Chapter 5 Clobber

Chapter 6 The Retreat

Chapter 7 A Binding Oath

Chapter 8 The Girl in Acts 16

Chapter 9 Bryson Falls

Part 2 Doctrines of Demons

Chapter 10 A Room You’re Already In

Chapter 11 Involuntarily Love

Chapter 12 Collapsing Walls

Chapter 13 End of the Siege

Chapter 14 Fallen Mask

Chapter 15 The Mouse Wedding

Chapter 16 The Elimination Test

Chapter 17 The Hofrider-Marklestan Reception

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Part 1 A Silence in Heaven

Chapter 1 The Vortgern

Dan Kozak drew his wife aside.

Jamie, did you notice that Cora and Hila took off after worship without talking to anybody?

Jamie glanced around to make sure no one was close by. Until a few minutes before their large living room had been the scene of a Sunday morning church service, and most of those who had attended were standing around talking in small groups. A few were removing the folding metal chairs, turning the Word Fellowship house church back into a mere house.

I wanted to talk to you about that, she said. When Hila came in, I told her who was speaking this morning, and after she took a look at Dawn, her face got red and she started saying to me that Dawn shouldn’t teach here.

Dan shook his head with a puzzled look. Why not?

She didn’t say, except that she said she’d read Dawn’s book. She said Dawn shouldn’t teach anywhere.

Not anywhere?

No, and Dan, I was watching her while Dawn was teaching, and she looked very stiff.

Hila always looks stiff.

No, she doesn’t. Anyway, stiffer than usual. And then after we were done she and Cora rounded up Eddie and that Beikreider girl that they brought with them and hoofed it out the door. So Cora may have been upset too.

Why would Cora be upset about Dawn? Dan asked. Hila’s new, but Cora has been here before when Dawn’s come over from Indianapolis to teach. She’s never complained, has she?

No, never.

Dan picked up his Bible from the pulpit. Well, I’ll ask Dawn if she knows Hila. Sounds like I may be making some phone calls today.

When Dan approached Dawn Vortgern, she was deeply into conversation with two of the women of the Fellowship, matronly Annie Rubino and twenty-something Red Hood. Actually, Dawn was doing nearly all the talking, turning from one of them to the other with an unblinking stare straight into the eyes.

And that’s why you need to move on to these deeper truths, she was saying in a gentle voice. You may be just on the doorstep of the Inner Temple. My own daughter was poised on the doorstep for six months before she finally won through. Since then she’s had a continual spiritual victory that I can’t begin to describe.

Annie took this in, nodding, and glanced across the room to a teenage girl. And her so young!

No, not Denise, I mean my daughter, my daughter Anne.

Her that was married last year, Annie said agreeably. and she and her husband went off to be missionaries.

That’s my Anne. Dawn smiled and her fifty-ish face looked more hollowed. I couldn’t have allowed her to go if she hadn’t overcome. Only the manifest sons of God should go into a third-world battlefield like Thailand. I can tell you that no great thing will be accomplished for the Lord by those who are still in the flesh.

How do you know if you’re still in the flesh? Red asked, her young face serious, even troubled.

Let me explain by telling you what happened to me, Dawn said. When I was nineteen I had a vision of the Temple lamp with its seven candlesticks, and the Lord showed me that those flames ascending to the central candlestick are stages of proximity to the perfect enlightenment. The two outermost candles are election and religion. At this stage, which you’ve attained, some feel the first stirrings toward the greater importations…

Dan realized this was going to take some time and, with an unobserved parting nod to the ladies, stepped over to speak to Dawn’s husband Paul. Paul and retired postman Bo Merkison were listening to Jason Burkmeyer, a young man with a shock of black hair and an earring.

He just claimed it, Jason was saying, and he wouldn’t let go. The doctors had said he only had a month to live, but he got up out of that hospital bed and went home. That was five years ago, and he’s still alive today! Whenever they give him tests, he shows all clear of cancer.

The other men said that was wonderful.

Let me tell you something, said Bo, a white-haired, stoop-shouldered man with a permanent, confidential smile. I know you believe God can do anything, am I right? Well, there’s a man lives over in Brazil—I know this man, his name’s Josh Rollie—who has a glass eye. He lost his eye in some kind of accident on his uncle’s farm where he was helping out. Anyway, he went years and years and never thought to pray that God would heal him, because his eye was clean gone. But one Sunday a travelling evangelist came to his church and told him he would be able to see again. As God is my witness, men, he and that evangelist prayed and God gave him the ability to see through that glass eye! See as clear as you or me. He’s up in Chicago now and still seeing through it. A lot of people don’t believe that, but I can confirm it.

The Lord be praised! Paul said. But you two, you’ve heard about the man that was resurrected in Massachusetts, haven’t you? You haven’t, Jason?

The large man finally noticed Dan and interrupted himself.

Heya, Danny, he said cheerily. Jason here hasn’t heard about the man that was resurrected in Massachusetts. He paused, giving Dan a chance to say that he, of course, had heard about it. Dan just shrugged his big shoulders, smiling. You never heard about it? I got it straight from Andrew Morrison, who heads the New Truth East Coast Ministry. This was a few years ago, and there was this very anointed guy living in Boston, and he died. Two men who were members of his church went to the funeral home, and when they were about to go in, they started talking about people being raised from the dead. One of them said, ‘Why don’t we try it right now? Let’s pray that God will raise the dead.’ So they got down on their knees in the parking lot and prayed for a resurrection, because the dead man wasn’t that old and God could still use him on this earth. Then they went in, and when they went in, the man just suddenly sat up in the casket and then he got out of it. I guess people were fainting everywhere and they had forty passed out on the floor. How about that?

Dan, Bo, and Jason said, Praise the Lord!

For his part, Dan wanted to believe this was true, for he made it a rule never to disbelieve anything he heard that was glorifying to God.

After a few more expressions of wonderment, he changed the subject. Paul, do you and Dawn know Hila Grant, the blond woman who was sitting in back?

That very pretty girl? No, I’ve never seen her before. Where is she?

She and her cousin left right away. She’s just been with us for a few months. She seems to either know Dawn or has heard of her.

Paul nodded with a knowing air. You think she left upset?

Looks that way.

He patted Dan on the shoulder. It happens from time to time. Actually, I could feel that something wasn’t right while Dawn was speaking. Some people can’t handle too much truth.

You mean she was getting convicted by the Spirit?

Paul nodded and his bifocals slipped down his nose a bit. That’s how it is with some that are hardened. Their flesh just can’t abide real holiness preaching, and they get out. I’ve seen some literally run for the door when Dawn was just starting.

Dan did not comment that this implied that his own week-to-week preaching as pastor of the Fellowship must be lacking something, for Hila had never run away from his messages.

She’s shaky, isn’t she? Paul prompted.

Well— Dan thought Hila was rather spiritually weak but hesitated to say so.

That’s what I thought. Don’t worry. If she comes back—and let’s pray her in— we’ll have some prophecy that’ll break through to her heart.

That Sunday afternoon, Hila Grant lunched at home with her cousin Cora and Cora’s thirteen-year-old Eddie, for Hila had lived with them since moving from Indianapolis the previous summer. After lunch she walked several blocks to her parent’s house, in the sub-freezing weather of early February, to visit with her brother Bill. A year younger than Hila’s twenty-nine, Bill was on disability due to mental illness and spent a lot of time in his room in front of a computer. He turned from the monitor now, looking like a disheveled and somewhat overweight owl.

What’s up?

By this time Hila had recovered her composure and was showing only her normal image: that is, smart, beautiful, and competent. After brushing some of Bill’s clothes off a chair and onto the littered floor, she sat down.

"Heavy stuff. You remember Dawn Elaine Vortgern, who wrote The Deeper Things of God?"

Of course, corrupter of the otherwise spotlessly pure Ollie Fulborne.

This was humor. Oliver Fulborne was head Elder of River Grove Community Church, the house of worship attended by their parents and until recently by Hila. Ollie had once been accused of being a sexual harasser of young teenage girls, and Hila and Bill were quite sure the charges were true. They also were aware that Ollie had read Dawn’s book a few years previously and that he might have been badly influenced by it. The old man appeared to believe privately that he could sin with impunity, which was just the sort of thing the book encouraged. Dawn taught that, for certain exalted Christians such as herself, God would overlook the sins of the body. Only the soul mattered.

Yes, that Vortgern and no other, Hila said. "The Vortgern. She showed up as a guest speaker at my house church today. Just popped over from Indianapolis in an SUV, with her husband and adopted daughter. It appears she has an itinerant ministry we weren’t aware of. According to Cora, Dawn’s husband is rich enough that he finances her. He must pay for these too."

She handed him a flyer. On the cover was a picture of Dawn, looking well-coifed and capable. The large print at the beginning read:

Sanctification Ministry

Prophet and teacher Dawn Elaine Vortgern, with a nation-wide ministry of spiritual deliverance and physical healing, is available to your church or organization for seminars and prophecy assemblies. Widely recognized as an anointed Bible expositor, Mrs. Vortgern brings to light new meaning and depth while leading others to receive the hidden riches of the Kingdom.

It went on, in smaller print, to describe the Vortgern family, pictured within, and to list seminar topics. Phone and address were provided.

Bill put it down after a quick scan, but knowing him as she did, Hila suspected he had not only digested its content but had recorded it with his photographic memory.

So why doesn’t she mention the book? he asked.

I hadn’t noticed that she didn’t. It does seem odd. We know she was promoting it just a few years ago. Hila shook her head slightly as if to dismiss the matter. What had me spluttering this morning is that Dan and Jamie think Dawn is acceptable, and Cora tells me she’s been coming to teach about every six months. Is this believable? I thought this little house church was a stable place where I could recover some from all the problems I had at River Grove.

Bill leaned back and smiled. Church, stability. Stability, church. Do these two words go together?

Oh, stow it. And now I’ve offended Jamie Kozak by telling her she and Dan shouldn’t have let the Vortgern speak. Hila compressed her lips briefly. Why do I have to shoot my mouth off? Fine, if soothing heresies are what the others want to hear, then what should it matter to me if this woman blows in every six months and then out again? Why didn’t I leave it alone?

Hila, this is not a problem with any reality for me. I can’t relate.

Shut up and relate anyway. Should I apologize to Dan and Jamie?

Since when do you apologize to anyone?

Ouch. Just answer.

I don’t know. But what was she like? Hypnotic?

His sister sat silent for a moment. Hardly. They set up a blackboard for her, and she’s one of these bozos that keep turning to write on it while they go on talking, so you lose half of what they’re saying. If not for what she was writing and drawing, I wouldn’t even have known what she was getting at; but since I’ve read her book, I got the general idea. Whether anyone else did, I don’t know.

Bill laughed. Then what’s the big deal about letting her teach?

"Well! I don’t know. She must be getting something across though, and if she is then…. What would you do if —well, I don’t know if atheists have heretics. Is there some sort of pseudo-atheist that you atheists think might corrupt the flock?"

Yeah, agnostics. Half the time they want someone like me to agree with them that the religions can be positive influences. I pummel them pretty hard in the atheist internet chat rooms.

Then you can relate.

I suppose. Speaking of which, did you know that Eric Donovan is on the University Speakers list this spring?

The famous atheist? No, I didn’t know.

You want to go hear him?

Me? Of course not, and let’s get back to my problem. Or have I solved it?

Right. The Vortgern speaks to the blackboard, ergo is harmless, and so you should apologize to the church people and then turn to consideration of my concerns.

Not so fast. I’m still thinking it over. If she doesn’t come back till midsummer— Hila stood and looked out a window at the quiet city street —then I guess I can pretend I don’t care about her peddling her poison. I’m just too tired and too discouraged to take on the establishment at another church, anyway, even a small one. I’ve had enough of trying to change people who are comfortably addicted to church-ianity. She turned to him. So what are your concerns today?

You know, wanting you to come hear Donovan with me.

Are you still trying to convert me? You know that’s against our rules.

Bill waved this away. No, I’m playing fair. I just thought you’d find it interesting. He’ll field questions after the talk. Might be some good debate with Christians.

It wearies me to think about it. No, it’s not for me. She sat down at Bill’s other desk and opened a large, flat volume. Both sides straining for a throttle-hold, she went on, bending and breaking the rules of proof, of debate, certainly of courtesy. Where were we? She had come to the last filled page in the book, a page densely covered with handwriting.

Oh, you know, we couldn’t agree whether Sir Miff and Amelia would actually get married this time.

We couldn’t? Which side did I take?

Since childhood, they had been writing stories of a pretend land called Bafilia (they called this Baffling), and the characters Miff and Amelia were talking mice, long engaged. Two previous attempts at holding their wedding had been foiled by evil enemies.

You wanted the wedding to go on because you’re invited to it and I’m not.

The previous year they had tried the experiment of writing themselves in as visiting characters in Bafilia. It was then that the gentle Mouselady Amelia had invited Hila to the wedding.

Now I remember. So since I’m already on record, I must argue unyieldingly for a wedding. But actually I’m not sure I should go.

I don’t see why not.

And anyway, she said, reverting without warning to their other topic, you don’t like being in crowds, so you probably won’t go yourself—to hear Professor Donovan, I mean. Besides, you already know everything he’s going to say. Haven’t you read all his books?

Bill gave her an odd look, as if he had been caught in some misdemeanor or weakness. Right, he said without energy. Yeah, I already have heard it all. So we’ll see.

Chapter 2 Matters Unsettled

The mouse wedding question was settled that afternoon and a date of March ninth decided upon for the writing of it (with accompanying illustrations to be prepared by them beforehand). In Bill and Hila’s minds this was the date of an event and not just a flimsy story. Miff, Amelia, and all the Bafilians were that real to them. They were, they felt, not so much inventing the Bafilians’ history as observing and recording it as it unrolled before them on the book’s wide pages. It was great fun.

But as Hila walked back home she reflected that other matters were not settled. Since her ‘downsizing’ from a secretarial job at Indianapolis University the previous summer, her life had been in flux. She had returned to her hometown of Viola, Indiana, to take care of Eddie while Cora was away for a few months on a missionary trip. She had then briefly worked as part-time secretary of her family’s church, River Grove Community. But her intense opposition to the election of old Ollie Fulborne as an elder had led her to send anonymous mailings to the church members. Eventually she had confessed the matter and had resigned. (Fulborne was elected as elder anyway.) Since that time, she had continued to live at Cora’s, paying a small rent, and had taken a number of brief secretarial assignments from the Viola Temps Company.

Some of the temp jobs were maddeningly difficult, others boringly easy. What they had in common was that they all forced her to constantly readjust her life. Her days had no pattern, no regularity, such as she had known during her years working for the University. It did not feel right. She no longer enjoyed work.

She had begun in secretarial work thinking of it as a stopgap until she would marry. Somehow, the stretching of this stopgap into several years had not much bothered her. She was still very good looking, and fellows were still interested. She had never been the sort to question her own adequacy or the sure felicity of her life. Now the temp jobs were forcing these questions upon her. She didn’t like being a temp. She could find nothing else.

She had also left behind in Indianapolis a church she had liked and friends who attended there. In Viola, after leaving River Grove, she had settled for the Word Fellowship house church, though she was not a charismatic, simply because Cora went there. In her mind it was another temp position.

Job, church…and then there was her singleness. Whether it was that her nearness to thirty had finally alarmed her, or that her mother’s nagging about it had won through, she was at last a little concerned. Yet she was presently dating no one. At long last she had begun to wonder about that which had often puzzled her friends and relatives: that is, what was holding her back? Was she afraid of commitment? Too perfectionistically demanding? She had dated many men of good Christian character and had passed on all of them. She told herself that none of them had understood her, that if you talk with a fellow for an hour and he hasn’t a clue about the things you care most deeply about, then two hours or a hundred could make no difference. She even had a name for this: the Magic Wish Elimination Test. This was based on a question she had sometimes used to screen the guys. If you found Aladdin’s lamp, she would ask, and had one wish, what would you wish for? The right answer for a Christian, she felt in her bones, was to wish nothing, to use the lamp not at all. For Christians rely on God alone.

In recent years she had not usually asked her dates this question; usually she could tell without trying that they would flunk. Of all those she had asked, not one had even come close to the answer she wanted. They just weren’t on her wavelength.

Hila was at home with Cora and Eddie later that Sunday afternoon when Dan Kozak called. She chatted with him patiently while he slowly found his way to his real subject.

I gather you’re not a fan of Dawn Vortgern, he said at last with a chuckle.

"No, I’m not. But I want to apologize to Jamie for offending her