Galilee Portal: Ichthus Chronicles

By J. A. Bouma

The Church's Future Is History

 

The year is AD 2124. Apostasy has bloomed throughout Ichthus, the remnant of future Christianity. Solterra Republic has launched a campaign of state-sponsored persecution against the Church. And a newly formed Resistance searches for a strategy of survival while one of their leaders is nowhere to be found.

 

Giving the Ichthus remnant, an idea: exploit newly discovered time-travel technology to jump back to the time of Jesus to retrieve the memory of the Gospels in vivid immersive detail.

 

Coming between Season 1 and Season 2 of the celebrated Christian apocalyptic science fiction Ichthus Chronicles episodic series, Galilee Portal takes the reader on a page-turning adventure through the earliest days of Christianity like never before. With expert historical detail and thrilling action adventure, J. A. Bouma weaves together five original short stories giving readers what they've come to expect from his books: riveting entertainment and insightful inspiration for the journey.

 

Join John Mark Ford and Luciana Jane on an exciting, nail-biting adventure to retrieve the memory of five crucial events from the Church's past. From the Church's birth to the teachings of Jesus to the foot of Christ's cross—witness up close and personal the Church's history unfold for the sake of the future!

• Language: English
• Publisher: EmmausWay Press
• Release date: Mar 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393800705

Book preview

Introduction

Fiction writers live and die by what if questions. They are the springboards fiction writers use to spin their yarns.

A few years ago, I had one of those what if moments. Several of them, actually. All leading to my science fiction Ichthus Chronicles series, of which this collection is apart.

When I was toying with the idea of branching out from my action-adventure thriller series, the Order of Thaddeus, I still wanted to write about the efforts by well-meaning Christians to guard and protect the once-for-all faith entrusted to God’s holy people, as Jude 3 says. So given I was contemplating writing a sci-fi series, set in the future, I wondered: "What if we could not only guard and protect the vintage Christian faith, but go retrieve it? Like, actually retrieve it by traveling back in time?"

As you can imagine, this one question led to not a few rabbit-hole moments of research, deep-diving into theories of time and time travel, the nature of time itself, interesting discoveries with quantum mechanics and theories of relativity. A fun-filled few months for sure!

Much of that initial question came from my background as an academic, with a Master of Theology in historical theology, as well as my background in ministry making the vintage Christian faith relevant. For a decade now, I’ve sought to help others retrieve what Christians have always believed in order to contend for the faith today, as Jude exhorts. Like my series tag says: The Church’s future is history. This series seeks to do that through entertaining thrill and adventure, with a dose of insight into Church history and inspiration for the journey, as with all of my books.

Alongside this first question, I wondered a second: What if Christ didn’t come back for another 100 years? The idea was that every generation seems to think their generation is the one when Jesus will return in his second coming, making all things new. And the 22nd-century Church would need to leverage the technology of time travel to retrieve the vintage faith in order to survive rising apostasy from within the Church, and political and cultural threats from outside.

These twin what if questions formed the basis of the first story season in the series, Apostasy Rising.

But then there was another question close behind these first two: "What if when Jesus did return, it wasn’t like the pop-culture phenomenon Left Behind series, where unbelievers were left while Christians were beamed up to heaven, but instead had to endure the apocalypse like the rest?"

You see, this one flowed from my own background in a particular vein of Christian theology, dispensationalism, that I’ve since left behind myself (no pun intended!). Interestingly, no early Church father understood the end times in the way the Left Behind authors did, and there is a good case to be made that believers will indeed suffer through the great tribulation, being called on to endure and remain faithful. After all, the Antichrist will indeed come for the Church, as the Book of Revelation teaches, waging war believers to try and turn their hearts toward his idolatrous ways.

Apocalypse Rising is the second story season that picks up where the first left off, which will carry the series into the third and final season, Antichrist Rising.

But then I had a dilemma: season one ends on a cliffhanger with over a year gap between season one and two. What happened in between?

And while time traveling back to retrieve elements of Church history is cool, why not go back farther to retrieve elements of New Testament history?

That’s how this collection of five stories was born. Two of the main protagonists in Apostasy Rising volunteer for a mission of great importance to jump to the past to retrieve five key moments in the story of Jesus in order to answer the rising apostasy of the 22nd-century Church and prepare her for the coming apocalypse that unfolds in season two.

These were immensely fun and satisfying to write. While my specialty is in Church history, it was a joy to visit the time of Jesus, listening in on the teachings of the Son of God himself that are vital for our own era of Church history.

Because during these fraught, chaotic times, I wonder myself what to do about the rising apostasy in the Church, and what the Church itself should do about a rise in false teaching and false teachings from across the right-left spectrum. Further: I wonder how I myself would survive the coming apocalypse if the Great Tribulation were to arrive, in all of its Book-of-Revelation fullness. What is the Church supposed to do about it all when it does hit, and what should average Christians do when the seals are opened and the seven trumpets of judgment are let loose?

That’s what story seasons one and two try to answer. But this collection is meant to add to that conversation—the one I’m having with myself about these questions, which is why any storyteller tells stories anyway; I tell the stories I want to read, diving into the heads of characters wrestling with things I’m wrestling with. And what it adds, what I hope it adds, is what the series promises: the Church’s future is history. So let’s go retrieve it—whether in the earliest centuries of the Church or the earlier years before the Church was officially born at Pentecost.

May these five original stories curated from the New Testament entertain and thrill, while giving you insight and inspiration for your journey of faith in Christ.

---

J. A. Bouma

February 2021

Story 1

/ The Church is Born /

Somewhere off the Coast of Palestine. AD 2124.

No way, Jose. Anyone but John Mark Ford!

That’s what I said when I was told about the cockamamie plan to jump my backside hundreds of phases back in time—for the third time!

Said it was for a good cause. Preserving and contending for and propagating the faith during these crazy times with the Church under the Republic’s thumb. Said it would be fun traipsing back to the time of Jesus and the Apostles to witness what they witnessed, live what they lived, hear what they heard—all to retrieve it through that neural core sensory receptor doohickey to load up onto DiviNet for Christians to view and remember and feed off from while underground after Solterra Republic’s recent Purge campaign to rid the world of Ichthus.

Good cause, my backside! And fun? Last time I’d lost my lunch in some backwoods pasture after the jaunt through time, or jump through time, or whatever.

And yet…

Something about it did make sense. Made sense to go back farther than we’d gone yet through the Church’s history. Back to the founding events themselves to experience them firsthand in order to retrieve them for Ichthus.

Then there was the part of me—a part, I tell you—that did like the thrill of jumping phases. Liked the idea that it was one small jump for man, one ginormous leap for mankind and all that jazz.

A sudden shudder through our hydrocraft zipping through the Mediterranean reminded me why I had complained the first time. Lose my lunch once, shame on you. Lose my lunch twice, shame on me!

Really, really didn't want to make that mistake again. Not to mention the prospect of ending up in the past as one big pile of wormhole-infused goop!

But I knew Doc Sasha Pavlovich had been chompin’ at the bit the last several months since the last time the Ministerium used his time travel doohickey to jump back to the past. Father James Ferraro had been reluctant to do anything that might draw the Republic’s attention to the Ministerium—what was left of it, anyway—yet even he was revving up for a third or fourth or whatever act it was after jumping however many phases now.

But we were far from having the same wherewithal we did those other times the Ministerium had sponsored the travel through time. Solterra sure had done a number on our former HQ, leaving us without many options. Or perhaps I should say Father Jim did, activating his Armageddon sequence to bring the whole dang thing crashing down in a heaping pile.

Which was why we’d been sailing the underwater seas for what seemed like an eternity, stuck down in that yellow submarine of ours after everything went to hot Hades months back. There was me and Sasha and Father Jim. Then Luciana Jane and Rebekah—who I later learned was a Kony, as in the daughter of the former Alkebulana overlord turned Minister of Peace with the new imperial government post-Reckoning.

Then Jin Sun, our fearless techie. Plus our final member, the newest of our merry band of Ichthus resistance members—who I later found out was now officially Resistance with a capital ‘R’—Kareema Salam. And a Remnant of the Order of Thaddeus to boot!

Of which her Master went fleeing down that Mediterranean beach after learning his dead-as-a-doornail pops wasn’t in fact dead, but was helping the Republic to lead some newfangled religion, called Panligo.

Yeah, makes my noggin’ spin as well.

Yet it was in the midst and mix of all this crazy that Father Jim hatched the plan that brought us back to the edge of Solterra Republic.

The plan to jump phases of time back to the time of Jesus.

Sort of made sense, now that the Ministerium was in tatters, and all of Ichthus was now persona non grata. All Christians had been officially labeled Unfits by our Patron, Dear Leader Lucius Severius, the detritus dredges of Solterra that presented a particularly pungent and imprudent threat to the Republic. So any bone we could throw to our brethren and sistren would be right nice, particularly the kind that would nourish and sustain their faith. What better than a front-row seat to that faith to offer such nectar during these desperate times?

Of course, Sasha was ecstatic—the crazy physicist who got us into this mess with his time travel business in the first place those many moons ago. And I’d been commissioned by the chief himself to headline our first concert back to the rock of ages, with Lucy as my co-pilot.

Should be our fearless leader, Alexander Zarruq, Master of the Order of Thaddeus—supposed ancient defender of the Christian faith, of Ichthus. Not me, John Mark, who was less than your stellar Sunday school kiddo. But noooo. The fella had to go running off like a crazy person into Lord only knew where on that beach those many moons ago—leaving me to fill his time travel belt!

Sure, I’d grown up on old-time religion deep in the heart of Noramericana, my memaw serving up the Jesus juice as raw and potent as Grandpappy’s moonshine. But not the finer points of Ichthus doctrine and the Church’s belief system!

What the hot Hades was a guy like me jumping back to the day of Jesus to retrieve the vintage Christian faith?

There was a sudden shift in our forward momentum, and I suddenly felt heavier, as if I’d gained eighty pounds in no time flat.

John Mark… a voice lilting Britannia called.

I knew exactly what it all meant. We’re here, aren't we, I groaned, eyes clenched with stubborn resolve.

Perhaps if I can’t see Father Jim, he can’t see me…

I heard someone else come up behind Father Jim’s shoulder, slapping his hands together and rubbing them like a sci-fi villain. That we are being, Ford. That we are being.

Taking a breath, I sat up now, glimpsing Sasha’s devilish grin peeking behind Father Jim’s shoulder.

We’re here. Yay me.

I flashed the doc a smile before sighing with resignation, standing as the fish surfaced and sauntering past the pair on toward destiny.

Down the gangplank I went that was the length of our sardine to the front of the hydrocraft. Surfacing, the brilliant azure of the Mediterranean Sea shifted to a blinding daylight sky, cleared of clouds and Tracker drones. At least we had that going for us.

The others were at the front with Jin, either waking from similar slumber or waiting out the journey with crossword puzzles on slate devices and headphones connected to DiviNet.

Hey, there, partner, Lucy said, sounding too chipper for her own good. Ready to make history? Or rather, jump to history. Because making history would probably put a monkey wrench in the whole time-space continuum thing, wouldn’t it, doc?

It is being space-time continuum, Sasha chuckled nervously, coming up from behind. And it doesn’t work like that.

I just hope, Kareema said from next to Jin, feet propped up on the digital dashboard, that you two are able to retrieve the sounds and images of the past with that cockamamie invention with the way the Republic is bearing down on the Church now. Ichthus’s future is history more than ever.

She took a breath and shook her head, blowing out a breath through pursed lips. Time travel. I’ve seen it all my forty years, but never anything close to that!

Don’t worry, sister, I said. No worries there. We’ll bring home the bacon.

"It is being my invention, by the way, Sasha said. I can share more about the cockamamie invention, as you are putting it, if you like."

I turned toward the doc, suppressing a grin. Trying a bit hard with the newcomer who was way beyond his league, but points for trying. I sat in the open seat next to Jin, joining Kareema with my feet as the man taxied us through the clear azure waters toward a pretty desolate, backwater beachhead. Which was a good thing, considering the last thing we needed were eyes on our jump through time.

Kareema shrugged and yawned, stretching and settling in for the ride herself. Sure. Why not? What’s with this time travel device of yours, anyhow?

Sasha grinned and rubbed his hands together, the fella clearly relishing the opportunity to school our newest member in the finer art of time travel.

He took a seat near her along the side of the fish. Most people think of objects as having length, width, and height, right? Think of a book, with length and width, then the spine is being the height.

You are speaking about an object taking up space, right? she asked.

"Da! But what most people don’t realize is that the book also occupies a place in time. Which I calling phasement."

He lifted his hand upward and traced an imaginary line downward. "Which means you can travel along this line down into time. When you are taking a book from the bookshelf, that’s one phase. Then when you are placing it on the couch, that is being another phase in time. The fourth dimension is recording this placement along time in the past, just like the x, y, z dimensions record its occupancy of space in the present. We used to be thinking that solid, liquid, and gas were the only kids on the physics block. Not anymore. A new phase of matter called time crystals was discovered."

Kareema pivoted toward him with interest now, scrunching up her face. And what is this…time crystal as you are calling it?

A totally new state of matter whose atomic structure repeats through time as regular matter repeats in space—or even changes, which is where things get remarkable.

She stared back at him blankly.

Lucy came up behind her and leaned in. Don’t worry, sister. Went right over my head the first time I’d heard it, too. And I’ve got advanced degrees from Stanford!

Sasha waved his hands in the air. "Let me try this. At the normal state of water, it’s a liquid. Add energy to it, and you have steam. Reduce the amount of potential energy, you are having solid ice. So three states of matter and its placement in space. But a professor from California theorized that if you could move the atoms from their original position in some way, then it would break time-translation symmetry and transform its phasement as well."

And it wasn’t until the good ol’ doc here— I said, slapping at