The Visitation is a 1999 contemporary Christian novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 by Frank Peretti. Taking place in the fictional wheat town

Index of fictional places

* Alternate history* Campaign setting* Counterfactual history* Fantasy worldFictional populated places * List of fictional city-states* List of fictional towns and villages* Fictional islands* Fictional companies* Fictional counties...

 of Antioch, located in eastern Washington, The Visitation is told in first-person narrative

First-person narrative

First-person point of view is a narrative mode where a story is narrated by one character at a time, speaking for and about themselves. First-person narrative may be singular, plural or multiple as well as being an authoritative, reliable or deceptive "voice" and represents point of view in the...

 by the protagonist

Protagonist

A protagonist is the main character of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to most identify...

, a former minister named Travis Jordan who struggles to reconcile his former pastoral life with that of a present-day false Messiah

Messiah

A messiah is a redeemer figure expected or foretold in one form or another by a religion. Slightly more widely, a messiah is any redeemer figure. Messianic beliefs or theories generally relate to eschatological improvement of the state of humanity or the world, in other words the World to...

.

Plot summary

Centered around the life of Travis Jordan, The Visitation begins when miracle

Miracle

A miracle often denotes an event attributed to divine intervention. Alternatively, it may be an event attributed to a miracle worker, saint, or religious leader. A miracle is sometimes thought of as a perceptible interruption of the laws of nature. Others suggest that a god may work with the laws...

s, ranging from a healing, weeping crucifix

Crucifix

A crucifix is an independent image of Jesus on the cross with a representation of Jesus' body, referred to in English as the corpus , as distinct from a cross with no body....

 to sights of Jesus

Jesus

Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...

 in the cloud

Cloud

A cloud is a visible mass of liquid droplets or frozen crystals made of water and/or various chemicals suspended in the atmosphere above the surface of a planetary body. They are also known as aerosols. Clouds in Earth's atmosphere are studied in the cloud physics branch of meteorology...

s, start occurring, giving way to the arrival of a man who calls himself Brandon Nichols. Nichols begins healing people; giving a man who lost the use of his legs in the Vietnam War

Vietnam War

The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...

 the ability to walk, and performing various other "healings." Most of the townspeople—who are portrayed as disillusioned, post-Pentecostal farmers—begin to believe in Nichols as a Messiah.

Brandon Nichols begins to hold "revival meetings" on a large ranch outside of town every Sunday, and many churchgoers in town stop going to Sunday morning mass/services and instead listen to Brandon talk and watch him "heal." It is at this point that Nichols arouses the ire of one of the local ministers, Kyle Sherman. Enlisting the help of Travis Jordan, he seeks to prove that the so-called Brandon Nichols is not in fact a "better" Christian Messiah, but a puffed-up egomaniac/using occult powers.

In the end, the team (along with the help of a few others) uncover a host of pseudonyms and a hefty helping of deception surrounding Nichols' past. Startling parallels are revealed with the life story of Travis Jordan, all of which come to light as the story progresses.

Parody

Numerous "in jokes" are to be found within the book, most of them referencing some Pentecostal belief or practice. For example, the entire life story of Travis Jordan is one of disillusionment with idyllic Charismaticism

Charismatic movement

The term charismatic movement is used in varying senses to describe 20th century developments in various Christian denominations. It describes an ongoing international, cross-denominational/non-denominational Christian movement in which individual, historically mainstream congregations adopt...

. The entire book is rife with slightly humorous stories of "leg-lengthening services" and long nights of wailing in tongues.

There is also a reference to a fictional "Bishop of the Island." This parodies some charismatic youth groups which reportedly spend all their time "praying in the Spirit" and "casting out demons" while never examining Bible scriptures or applying their precepts to their lives.

While some people might find such parody inappropriate/sacrilegious, many individuals who have grown up within the charismatic sub-culture find it quite humorous. As such, The Visitation has been considered somewhat lighter in nature than Peretti's other fiction.

Film Adaption

A film

The Visitation (film)

The Visitation is a 2006 supernatural dramatic thriller based on Frank Peretti's novel of the same name. The Robby Henson-directed film features a cast that includes Kelly Lynch, Edward Furlong, Priscilla Barnes and Martin Donovan.- Plot :...

 based on The Visitation has been released by Twentieth Century Fox and stars Martin Donovan

Martin Donovan

Martin Donovan is an American stage and film actor. He has had a long collaboration with the director Hal Hartley, appearing in many of his films, including Trust , Surviving Desire , Simple Men , Flirt , Amateur , and The Book of Life...

 and Edward Furlong

Edward Furlong

Edward Walter Furlong is an American actor whose best known film roles are John Connor in Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Daniel Vinyard in American History X. He is a two-time Saturn Award nominee, winning the 1992 Saturn Award for Best Performance by a Younger Actor for his performance in...

.

External links

• Entry in FrankPeretti.com