Times of Distress - Sixties Series, #1 - E-book - ePub

MYSTERY SUBVERSION AND ROMANCEFr Jos van Engelen, a Dutch missionary priest, stationed in New Guinea before World War II, is recalled to Holland to help his superior general combat ideological subversion within his fraternity. He arrives in March 1940. British intelligence enlists him for covert operations, but after the Nazis invade Holland, it all goes horribly wrong. He flees from betrayal and the murder of trusted colleagues to Amsterdam, where he joins the Dutch resistance.
For the next five years, directed by the mysterious Femke, he works in covert roles, staying ahead of Nazi detection units and dealing with the occult. When the Nazis fire on a crowd in May 1945, he saves a young woman and her baby from being crushed. So begins an unspoken relationship with the Strict Reformed Truus van den Donker and a deadly tussle with her brutish occultist husband. After the war, the conflict continues with those he suspects of betraying him.
The conflict comes to a head during and after the Second Vatican Council and results in more measures to get him out of the way. At the same time, he must confront sinister occultist forces that want him dead. This is a story of unswerving faith and commitment against diabolical forces Fr Jos can hardly conceive. The cultural revolution of the long 1960s (1960-1975) brought in one of the greatest cultural shifts the world has known.
Music, dress, moral ideas, social manners, and political attitudes were turned upside down. The war generation hardly knew what motivated the post-war generation. Across Western Society a social fissure opened. The leaders of the revolution were twenty-year-olds ('Don't trust anyone under 30) mostly from an educated middle-class background. The Sixties series will consist of eight connected but stand-alone stories.
The themes of the 'Goddess', neo-paganism, and Gnosticism are threads through the stories.  The historical, political, and ideological background is the cultural revolution of the long 1960s and the Second Vatican Council. The author who lived through those times recreates its atmosphere. Book 1 Times of DistressBook 2 In this Vale of TearsBook 3 Counterculture DreamsBook 4 The Counterculture Goddess (2025)Book 5 Love in the Counterculture (2025)Book 6 Dreams to Nightmare (2026)Book 7 The Castle of Heavenly BlissBook 8 A Sense of Loss due 2026