"If you don't believe in miracles, you will after you read this modern day novel." Forerunners is timely in today's world events with the increased focus on religion and terrorism in the Middle East and elsewhere, and is based on the Second Coming prophesies in the Bible, referencing Matthew, Mark, and The Revelation to John. All the major religions expect a messiah, or a son, or a messenger, or an avatar, or some bodily manifestation of God. Included are a United States ambassador, a priest, a psychic, an Olympic champion, and the temptress Pandora. By a series of mysterious Biblical events, the ambassador and priest learn of the arrival of the Anti-Christ forerunner. Bible prophesies say that disruption in natural disasters, international economic recessions, terrorism of religious men and women who serve God, and destruction of religious institutions are preludes to the coming of the Anti-Christ. All are happening today. The ambassador and priest's search to find that forerunner and the forerunner for Christ takes them to Turkey, Greece, India, Japan, Washington, Los Angeles and to the United Nations where the ambassador gives a stirring speech on peace after they expose the Anti-Christ forerunner in New Delhi, India at a meeting of all the world's religions.

Oberman's magisterial work transfers discussion of late medieval Christian thought from the private studies of the specialist to more general use and understanding, and explains the significance of the ideas of the time. Although this 'Late Medieval Reader' does not exhaust the riches of the period between the High Middle Ages and the Reformation era, it introduces the reader to aspects of such major themes as conciliarism, curialism, mysticism, scholasticism, the spirituality of the Devotio Moderna, and the impact of Renaissance humanism.The theme of the Forerunners has grown out of the consideration that the justified rejection of a confessional reading of the past has been succeeded by an equally unhistorical disjunction of the Medieval and Reformation periods. Without a grasp of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the medieval basis of modern thought is incomplete, since Reformation and Counter Reformation seem to arise 'out of the blue'.

In March 1987, the Reverend Jerry Falwell and the national news media found themselves in rare agreement: Jim Bakker, the charismatic, cash-hungry televangelist, was an accomplished sinner but a rather unconvincing penitent. The story had just broken that Bakker had fornicated with Jessica Hahn, a New York church secretary, and then tried to pay her off with $256,000. Once exposed, Bakker weepily begged Falwell to help him steer his ministry through the scandal. Falwell assented--but then demanded Bakker's resignation when he learned that the Hahn affair only hinted at Bakker's profligacy. The fight was on, and those stale jokes were born again: PTL, the acronym of Bakker's $172 million enterprise, stood not for "Praise the Lord" or "People That Love" but for "Pass the Loot" or "Pay the Lady." Veteran journalist Hunter James covered the story for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution from the first report of Bakker's double life until eight chaotic months later when the unwelcome Falwell left the bankrupt ministry in South Carolina and went home for good to his own church in Lynchburg, Virginia. Smile Pretty and Say Jesus is James's wry, personal account of the struggle for control of the PTL enterprise, which included a satellite network and a 2,300-acre theme park, Heritage USA. James's book is valuable for the important distinctions it makes between Pentecostals and Baptist fundamentalists and for its explanation of the "prosperity gospel" Bakker and his wife, Tammy Faye, professed. Combining straightforward reportage with human interest sketches and profiles, the book is also the most insightful to date on the attitudes and motives of the principal figures involved in the debacle.