A Christmas Tale

Yes, I recently wrote that I’m swearing off Ted Dekker; no, I’m not a glutton for punishment. My apologies if this review seems to trash your favorite author or Christmas story.

It’s December, and I’m trying to go through the few remaining Christmas books I have on my shelf before family arrives for the holidays. This short book about a 10yo boy near ancient Bethlehem just fit into the schedule for reading to my kids, and while it’s not as bad as Dekker’s Adam or The Greatest Christmas Ever (thankfully), it’s also decidedly not great.

The story introduces us to Reuben, a mute orphan, whose adoptive mother is dying. On her deathbed, she gives Reuban a shawl and a promise of hope, that the One who accepts this shawl as a gift will be the King who will heal his voice. Reuban believes this woman, the only ever to love him, while her husband and the community are incredulous.

As the weeks and months pass, Reuban ventures out into the streets every time a traveler makes his way through their village of shepherds. He offers the filthy shawl to each and every one, while the townsfolk laugh and mock, thinking he’s lost his mind with the loss of his mother-figure. The woman’s husband and Reuban’s legal guardian, Jude, feels the shame and threatens publicly to beat him. Ultimately, Jude keeps Reuban like a prisoner in the tent during the daylight hours, but then one night sends him on an errand get money in Bethlehem, either by working or stealing, it didn’t matter. While there, Reuban unexpectedly meets a man who needs the shawl as swaddling clothes for his newborn son.

Now I can’t fault Ted Dekker for his writing ability. He’s built a full-blown career by putting his overactive imagination to use in gripping stories and thrilling novels. My experience with him, though, has been very hit-and-miss.

I find Dekker’s image and books off-putting—and yes, this is totally just my opinion based on not knowing the guy and only watching (from a great distance) his public persona. I read a lot, mostly books that fall into the two broad categories of Secular and Christian. My beef with Dekker is that his books are purportedly “Christian,” while most of the ones I’ve read are definitely not Christian—spiritual, yes; ultimately moral, sometimes; kinda-sorta about Jesus, I guess maybe occasionally. But most of them are not Christian, no matter who publishes them! The horrific novel, Adam, proved that to me.

This book of course is Christian, giving us a unique angle from which to watch the story of Jesus’ birth, yet still I have to take issue with it. Maybe I’m too snarky and I can’t let it go, but that’s sort of why I do what I do in this book-review blog! I try to bring a biblical perspective to most of what I read. I tried not to be too cynical in front of my kids as I read this aloud to them, but I did point out the fallacies at play here.

While it’s nice to comes across some fiction that acknowledges the birth of Jesus in a way that’s mostly biblical, this book is also incredibly extra-biblical. I have no problem with books that fictionalize biblical stories—books like The Bronze Bow or The Man in White, for example—but when any book adds miracles that never happened or prophecies that were never uttered, or when they twist facts from the inspired Word to fit their fictional narrative, I do have a problem. The prophecy from this woman that a King would soon come, the healing of the boy’s voice on Christmas night, and the twist of the angel’s words “fear not” all rub me the wrong way because they’re twisting Scripture to fit Dekker’s story.

The incarnation of the Lord Jesus—God who took on created human flesh through the miracle of a virgin-birth as declared by the angles—is miraculous enough. Why add to it? Doesn’t it minimalize the event? Doesn’t it bring into question (at least for nonbelievers and the unengaged) that, if we can make up stories like this to entertain, then maybe other portions of the story are made up too?

Not only that, Dekker is branching into the heretical territory of baby Jesus being able to perform miracles, much like the fictional stories from the Gospel of Thomas and that ridiculous bird of clay. Of course, Dekker doesn’t say that the newborn Jesus performed this miracle, but via the woman’s promise and Reuban’s declaration, he might as well have: “My King, My King, you have made me whole! I will praise you. I will praise you!”

Good for Reuban, I guess, to acknowledge that baby Jesus is the miracle-working King, but I’d have been much happier to have seen Reuban wait 30 years and be one of many nameless followers in Galilee healed by the ministering Jesus who He had compassion on the multitudes. It could have still been a Christmas story—the miracle and fulfilled promise could have fit nicely as an Epilogue in 2-3 paragraphs max. It would been realistic. It would have been satisfying. And most importantly, it would have been faithful to Scripture.

Instead we’re left with this, a crappy distraction that minimizes the true miracles of Christmas. Not a fan.

©2023 E.T.

Read More from Ted Dekker:

• The Promise (2005)
• Adam (2008)
• Into the Book of Light (2018)
• The Curse of Shadowman (2018)
• The Garden and the Serpent (2018)
• The Final Judgment (2018)