He Is Coming Rise of the Antichrist
Chi Rho Impact Media
ISBN 9798996599400
eISBN 9798996599424
ASIN B0H6KNNH3R
I must admit I picked up this volume and a nonfiction volume called, Catholic by Design: God's Blueprint for His Church from Eden to the Garden of Revelation, as soon as I saw them on social media. I knew nothing about the books, but based on my social media interactions with Joe I knew I wanted to read them. I pre-ordered both, and read this one first. Wow! This is an excellent debut novel. It completely blew me away. I could hardly put it down.
The description of this volume states:
“December 2030. In America the Mass is a crime, practicing Catholics are classified as domestic terrorists, and an AI surveillance system called the Task List watches every citizen, every hour, everywhere. The visible Church has made its peace with the regime. The real Church has gone underground.
Father Edmund Fisher tends a community garden on Long Island. To the state, he is a gardener with a clean record and a quiet manner. To the hunted faithful of his sector, he is something else: the priest who hears confessions among the roses and offers the ancient Mass in hidden rooms before dawn.
One year ago, Edmund watched his bishop die rather than surrender the secret entrusted to him — a sealed cedar box, carved with the Keys of Saint Peter, to be opened on a single appointed date and carried to a man whom God would reveal. That date has come. Edmund opens the letter, lifts the Box, and steps onto dark water with no idea that he has exactly three days — or that the most powerful man in the world wants what he carries.
Because the regime’s master is about to reveal himself. The world will call him a savior. Scripture has another name for him.
Hunted by Richard Topcliffe — a priest-hunter who carries a deck of cards bearing the faces of the men he has sworn to kill slowly — and guarded by a federal agent living a double life sworn to a dead bishop, Edmund must cross a surveilled America with the Church’s last treasure, and decide, mile by mile, whether he has the courage to follow his bishop all the way to the end.
He Is Coming: The Rise of the Antichrist opens a trilogy — a Catholic apocalyptic thriller with the pace of a techno-thriller and the clock of a countdown. Three days. One box. The fate of the Church on earth.
For readers who sense the headlines beginning to rhyme with the Apocalypse — and who wonder what they would do when the knock comes.”
About the author we are informed:
“Joe McClane has spent more than twenty years behind the microphone and the camera—in radio broadcasting, podcasting, and internet video—using every medium he can get his hands on to share the good news of Jesus Christ and His One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. He is the producer of two feature-length documentary films and the founder of Chi Rho Impact Media.
He Is Coming: The Rise of the Antichrist, the first novel of a trilogy, is his fiction debut.
Joe lives with his wife, Michell; they have six children and a growing crowd of grandchildren—the people for whom, in the end, all of it is made.
Connect with him at his site.”
In the author’s note he states:
“He Is Coming is fiction. The Task List, the garden, Father Edmund and the men who hunt him came out of my imagination, and any resemblance to real people or places is the accident of a writer borrowing from the world he lives in. But the thing underneath the story is not fiction. The Church has always taught that history is going somewhere, that the Lord who came once in Bethlehem will come again in glory, and that before He does there will be a testing such as the world has not seen. I did not invent the Antichrist, and I did not invent the warning to keep our lamps lit. I only asked what it might feel like to live in the hour when the lamps begin to go out—and whether I, or you, would have the courage to keep ours burning.
Let me be plain about what this book is not. It is not a prediction. I have set no dates and decoded no headlines; the year on the page is a storyteller’s “what if,” nothing more. Where the novel touches doctrine—the Mass, the sacraments, the Last Things, Our Lady—I have tried to stay inside the lines the Church has drawn, leaning on Scripture, the Fathers, the Roman Catechism, St. Thomas, and the apparitions the Church has approved. Where I have used material that is devotional rather than defined, I have tried to treat it as exactly that: color, not certainty. Nothing here is meant to contradict a single article of the Catholic faith, and if it does, the fault is mine, and I submit it without reservation to the judgment of the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.”
This is a compelling story. And I am sure there will be comparisons made with the evangelical Left Behind Series. Or Jenkin’s Shadowed series written later. Writing about the end of days is not new, evangelical Christians have had a fascination with it for decades now. And there are other Catholic offerings. But this volume is a stand out in the genre. It is one of the best debut novels I have every read. And I would say the best End Times one!
This story is an apocalyptic thriller. It is written by a documentary filmmaker and broadcaster. It could easily be done as a movie. The story begins in December 2030 set in a dystopian future. The US still has a president, but the real power appears to be at the UN. Most traditional religions are repressed, but especially Catholicism. Nearly everything we do and say is tracked and that surveillance and monitoring is called the Task List. Our protagonist is Father Edmund Fisher he lives working in a community Garden and offers clandestine sacraments. But this is after he is given a heavy burden by his bishop. That mission is to survive a year, and deliver hidden artefact, a sealed cedar box carved with the keys of Saint Peter. He has a letter to open on a specific date and that letter will provide directions. Father Edmund is being hunted by Richard Topcliffe. And from our first encounter with him we know something is off. It is the story of faith and faithfulness.
Some fiction you read and it was entertaining, some are informative, some are transforming. This one is that third type. It has left me thinking and praying for several days. It prompted me to pray often while reading. It inspired and it has challenged me. Over the last decade I have averaged reading about a book a day, and this is one of the best debut novels, if not one of the best novels I have read!
When I started this I was unaware that it is the first in a planned trilogy. And by the end it leaves you desperate for the next volume. This is an excellent novel. I could not put it down. The characters are masterfully written. The plot moves at an excellent pace. And the story grabs your attention and does not let go. This is an excellent read, once I can easily recommend it.
Note: This book is part of a series of reviews: 2026 Catholic Reading Plan!
Books by Joe McClane:
Muscle Memory: Beating the Porn Temptation!
Catholic by Design: God's Blueprint for His Church from Eden to the Garden of Revelation
Catholic By Design Sorrowful Mysteries
…
He is Coming Series:
The Great Tribulation
…
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