Review – The Last Christian

Thirty-four-year-old Abigail Caldwell’s eyes slowly opened. An urgency to remember drifted just beyond memories reach. She felt the bed’s softness against her body, so unlike the village sleeping mats she normally slept on. Touched the tubing attached to her right arm then surveyed white sterile walls and lighted metal boxes near the bed that offered nothing familiar. Twinges of panic arced across her nerve ends.

A dark-skinned nurse entered the room and Abigail tried to sit up with a loud groan. The nurse helped her lie back down and assured her the doctor would be in soon. Without warning Abigail’s memories flooded her mind with visions of death, stricken villagers and her comatose adopted daughter. She remembered finding a canoe and leaving the village for help, then passing out. With blinding force she grabbed the nurse’s arm, and said “…my people-they’re dying.”

Thus begins David Gregory’s new release The Last Christian, a futuristic techno thriller set in A.D. 2088. A time, seventy-five years into the future when cars drive themselves, people “tap” to talk to one another, traverse virtual reality VR without leaving home, and anything Christian is called “hate speech.” Also where cutting edge technology offers the ability to transplant silicon brains into humans, but at what cost?

Gregory uses Abigail’s simple worldview of God and the jungle against the sophisticated backdrop of science, technology and lack of faith she finds in America to discover that cost. He explores what effect sophisticated future science and technology might have on God and faith through adept characterizations. He weaves theories of Darwinism, suppression of intelligent design, and situation ethics into the plot, characters and situations and makes them realistic and believable. In a narrative that sounds frighteningly familiar to what’s currently stirring in our nation.

The author’s use of story to explore brain transplants, artificial intelligence, trans-humanity, and nanotechnology against the backdrop of God and faith is excellent, especially the contrast of science’s quest for advancement and meaning with “God’s path to eternal life.” I would have liked to see a stronger romantic element and a more defined evolutionary debate, but the surprise ending is a definite treat!