It's a throwaway mention, but on several occasions something
called "Reclaiming" is brought up in Transpecial.
A while back I started a novel about the second Great
Depression and America turning into a theocracy. Then...the Great Recession
started and I decided nobody would want to read it right now, so I put it on a
shelf. However, this novel was always meant to be in the same future history
sequence as Transpecial.
At the risk of going into politics, America is often torn
between religious and secular influences. Sometimes within the same person. We
call ourselves "One Nation Under God" and argue about what the separation
of church and state means. We fight about "moral" issues such as
abortion and gay marriage. At the time I started the shelved novel,
"Austerity," I was genuinely afraid that we were going to go the
Jesusland route.
Since then, my feelings on the matter have changed. I'm a
lot more hopeful for the future of America as a democratic and diverse society
than I was, but not quite enough to remove those references from Transpecial.
Besides, every future history is an alternate reality. None of us are ever
going to get everything right.
Still, the idea of "Reclaiming," of Christian
values being forced on the rest of us, is still something some people fear and
others long for. It's likely to stay that way for a while. At least at the
level of arguments in bars and on the internet.
Fortunately, arguments in bars and on the internet can be
fun.
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