I finished Ted Dekker's The Sanctuary a few days ago. I've always wondered if his real name is Theodore. It was a deep book, heart deep.
     The story of Danny Hansen and Renee Gilmore begins in The Priest's Graveyard, but Sanctuary takes the theme to a richer place, full of overwhelming love and sacrifice. Danny killed a lot of men, priest or not. His mother and two sisters were raped and killed in the Bosnian War, while he huddled in the corner of his room. In fury at discovering their bodies, he tricked the the soldiers who did and shot them dead. He was fifteen. He joined the Bosnian army, rose high in their ranks, making permanent the marks of war. He carried his justice into America, searching out the 'vipers', as he called them, and calling them to higher lives. Not all of them were amenable to his way of showing them how to be holy. They were vipers, pedophiles, liars, rapists, abusers. What Danny discovered at the end of Graveyard was that we all are. One step away from God, and we all, every single one, are bloodstained from head to toe. Snakes. To refuse this knowledge is to refuse the truth of a holy and just God. Danny showed Renee his way of cleansing the world, not realizing that he was taking the place of the monsters in her life. It was in her right to kill him, as he had her former lover(a snake himself, apparently), but his overwhelming love for her was enough. Love replaced self righteous judgement in Danny's mind. Perhaps he actually read his Bible. Only God can judge. It's not our place.
     Danny took a vow of nonviolence, confessed to his crimes(at least two of them, I will never understand why he didn't confess them all) and was then sent to prison for fifty years. He refused to allow Renee to suffer for her two murders, as he had taught her how and influenced her to commit them. Not long after his incarceration in Ironwood, CA, Danny is transferred to Basal, a revolutionary version of prison ruled by the despotic Warden Pape. Both Renee and Danny are pushed to the end of themselves, as Dekker novels are wont to do. I really mean the end of themselves. I was almost there myself, hearing Danny's screams from Pape's torturous attempts to reform him. To Pape, convicts are back in jail shortly after their release because the system only hardens them. In his prison, Pape's Sanctuary, the warden is God, and any transgression against him results in a breaking of the will of the deviant.
     Renee is in her own hell, unable to contact Danny, receiving horrific threats on Danny's life. The bloody finger of a boy, eerie phone calls. She turns to a lawyer for help. Keith had put Randell, a murderous hater of priests, into prison, and now Basal. Renee entangles herself in a complicated game, desperate with love for Danny. She cannot live without him, and he can't bear to part with her.
     The end game is in the Sanctuary. The one who started the game lures everyone to the same place, and Danny is put to the test. Here, in a cell in Basal, Renee is threatened, and Pape is determined to force Danny to kill again, to admit his brokenness. I don't know what Theodore was thinking here. Danny sees Renee, in Keith's arms, and recognizes him as an earlier victim of his judging of vipers. Keith had beaten his wife, a parish member of Danny's. Danny tied him to a chair and made him vow never to do so again. Keith lied, and then flaunted the vow to his wife. His wife fled after telling the men he worked with. He lost his job, his wife, his life, as he tells Danny bitterly. Renee has played into his hands.
     Danny sees her, shoves away his rage, and notices that Keith and Pape and Randell are just men, unloved men, and in need of love themselves. No Christian writer so widely read has ever approached this issue of love so squarely. It was lovely, while it lasted. Moments later, Renee is on the torture table Danny was a day ago, ready to undergo the same thing. Danny's mind is collapsing, he kneels, trying to clear his head. In a moment, finally, what Dekker calls surrender, Danny decides that he will not punish, he will save. In order to save, as he feels called to do, he will need to punish, however. He kills Keith, shoves his nose into his head. All of the loveliness is shattered, as I see idolatry staring at me.
     It is strange to come up with idolatry after the sin of murder has been committed, but I could see no hand of God in this. Danny worshipped Renee, would kill, take God's scepter in his hands, to keep her from dying. My dear sister's first comment was, convert her, and then he wouldn't have to worry about it. Heaven would be awaiting them both.
     We've been discussing nonresistance for a while at church, and it is repetitive, to be sure. However, while none of us knows what we would do in the heat of the moment, I know Danny was wrong. We cannot love by killing, even to protect those we love. Beyond the fact that we are hating those we send to hell, we are taking authority from God. I'm sure most of us know this, if you've grown up Mennonite, anyway, but it was good for me to ponder it. What would I do?
     I didn't understand Danny. Near the beginning of his imprisonment, he said something profound. "It only makes sense to turn the other cheek if you do it every time." Every time. There is no exception clause. After Danny is released from prison-through various manuverings and because Dekker wanted him to be- Renee asks him if he recants his vow of nonviolence.
     "No, of course not."
     "What if someone comes after me again?"
     "Then I'll stop him, by whatever means necessary."
Renee is in awe of the fact that he's given up his reason on the altar of his overwhelming love for her. Given up his belief in the sovereignty of God as well, though he may not realize it. Reliance on God means to lay down your life, and your right to protect those around you. God allows us to protect, but He will decide by what means. It opened my eyes to His power to read this book. I recommend it, misguided as Dekker may be. He was so close. So very, very close.