Three Irreverent Authors

Their potboilers shed less than heavenly light

Not all religious novels sell like hot cakes, or even warm wafers. Yet three current novels are attracting not only critical attention but also big sales (big enough, in one case, to make a bestseller list). All are written by authors who have departed from the clergy or the Christian faith, whether with fondness or fury. Unlike the dropout novelists who used to probe spiritual angst, these religious refugees concoct unholy plots that scarcely show church and clergy at their best. Witness the story line of each:

> The Cardinal-Archbishop of New York, who has a good chance to become the first American Pope, decides to commit murder. The victim: an archaeologist who is at work in the basement of the Cardinal's residence examining what he believes to be the bones of Jesus Christ. If the grave news gets out, people might not believe in the Resurrection any longer. So goes Act of God by Charles Templeton (Little, Brown; $8.95).

> The most esteemed evangelist in America is a vicious, foulmouthed, whisky-swilling slob who carries on a flagrant liaison with a pea-brained wench. He treats his preacher son like dirt and shells out cash here and there to hush up his scandals. That's the protagonist of Miracle, a squalid novel by Dotson Rader (Random House; $8.95).

-- At this very moment, a gang of fellow travelers in the Sacred College of Cardinals is laying plans to elect a Pope who is soft on Communism. After the election the new Pontiff will sell out the Western democracies. (Who more appropriate than Cardinals to say better Red than dead?) After Pope Paul dies, they nearly elect their man, but then ... If that grabs you, read on in The Final Conclave by Malachi Martin (Stein & Day; $11.95).

All possibly entertaining. But these writers have an irritating way of implying that their novels are more than mere divertissements, that in fact they are pointing to the way things were, or are, or will be, and they indulge in all sorts of name-dropping to enhance the illusion of authenticity. Martin is by far the worst offender, since he begins with a nonfiction prelude and claims to report what is actually going on among the Cardinals; incredibly, the New York Times's bestseller list carries his book in the nonfiction category, where it ranks tenth this week. Truth to tell (so to speak), The Final Conclave is a farrago of fact, speculation, misinformation and fiction. In somewhat the same vein, Rader uses silly, intrusive episodes that feature F.D.R. speaking at a revival, and Aimee Semple McPherson blathering in her boudoir, and dots his hero's career with heavyhanded parallels to the life of Billy Graham.

In some cases the preposterous plots are exceeded by the presumptuous flackery. Templeton's publishers announce that during his promotional tour he will "break the last taboo on national TV." Rader's novel was unveiled at a Manhattan disco with a gospel sing-along starring Norman Mailer, Truman Capote, William F. Buckley and Walter Cronkite. Stein & Day let it be known that The Final Conclave was printed under extraordinary security lest it be "suppressed." By whom? The publisher didn't say; surely a banning in Boston or a burning in Butte would have hyped the book's sales marvelously, but no such thing happened, alas. With shameless self-promotion, Martin bought display newspaper ads for an open letter warning U.S. Cardinals that their church is in danger of a takeover.

The authors ought to know better of what they write. Canadian Charles Templeton, a ninth-grade dropout who later earned a Princeton Seminary degree, was almost as famous an evangelist as his friend Billy Graham, until he began losing his faith. Since then he has held three of the top news jobs in Canada: managing editor of the Toronto Star, news director of one of its two TV networks, and editor in chief of Maclean's magazine. Irishman Malachi Martin was a professor at Rome's Pontifical Biblical Institute, and advised Cardinal Bea during the Second Vatican Council. But he quit the Jesuits before the council ended and later wrote a book declaring that the church is a grand failure.

These two ex-clergymen profess affection for the church. Not so Dotson Rader, a preacher's kid who says he wrote his hate-filled book about American Evangelicals because they are so filled with hatred. Rader's grandfather Luke and great-uncle Paul were big-time revival preachers. His father, also named Paul, who still conducts meetings around the South, raised Dotson on the road and wanted his son to become a preacher too. It was the novelist's great-uncle who had the distinction of preaching at the very meeting in Los Angeles where the adolescent Richard Nixon stepped forward to make a public commitment to Christ. With backgrounds like these, the lives of all three might make better novels than what they've put on the shelf.

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