About Ann Roecker
Ann Roecker is a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism. She has worked as a newspaper reporter, award-winning book and publications editor, and fundraising/marketing consultant. She never intended to write Christian apologetics fiction for teens and young adults, even though she loves to write, loves apologetics, and has loved working with teens and young adults in churches and campus ministries at Stanford University, University of Colorado, and Central Philippine University. But The Revelation of Emery Audubon showed up one morning and has taken her on a big adventure ever since.
Ann is married to Tim Cranston, a cum laude graduate of Harvard University and Northwestern’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management. He sounds like Uncle Cliff in The Revelation of Emery Audubon.
Check out Resources or contact Ann to learn more. www.annroecker.com/resources www.annroecker.com/contact
Three Fun Facts About Ann
- Famous storytellers have graced Ann’s life from an early age, beginning with Chester Gould, creator of the Dick Tracy comic strip. Gould named Dick Tracy’s police chief Pat Patton, after Ann’s grandfather. Gould and Patton were friends and fellow artists at the Chicago Daily News.
- While working for a faith-based publisher early in her career, Ann was assigned to edit Josh McDowell’s More Evidence That Demands A Verdict. Josh McDowell was the first apologist to answer Ann’s own questions about God when she was a college student.
- Ann beta tested The Revelation of Emery Audubon with students at Colorado Christian University (CCU). These students and their keen insights helped shape the final version of Emery’s story. CCU is a national center of excellence for innovative evangelism and applied apologetics, and the home of the Lee Strobel Center. CCU has been named one of the top colleges and universities in the nation for three years in a row.
What is Apologetics Fiction?
Emery Audubon’s schools taught her all her life that there is no God. Emery’s father, a pioneering space scientist, and now Emery’s professors at the nation’s most prestigious university also are teaching her that there is no God.
But then a compelling fellow student invites her to take a class on Revelation. Whoa!! That’s illegal in New America!! And after reading the Bible, Emery encounters God!! Yikes!! How can this be if He doesn’t exist!!
Soon Emery gets answers to questions she didn’t know she had. What’s God like? Is He good? Why hasn’t He stopped evil in the world? But reading the Bible and encountering the Almighty isn’t the end of Emery’s story, it’s the beginning.
Little does Emery know that she’s stepped into apologetics fiction — fiction that entertains like any story but it also seeks to answer readers’ questions about God, Jesus Christ, and the Bible, and model how they apply to real life. This sounds interesting, right? But does it matter?
3 Reasons Apologetics Fiction Matters
#1: Students are leaving the church.
This trending genre matters because 50 to 70 percent of young Christians today walk away from the church even before they get to college. Why? Because parents and pastors aren’t answering their questions about God.[1]
Let’s get real, most teens and young adults aren’t going to study tomes on apologetics to find answers to their questions about God. But, they will read a good story like The Revelation of Emery Audubon.
#2: It’s better to win our spiritual battles than to lose them.
Apologetics fiction also provides a compelling alternative to the overdose of stories about witches, wizards, and zombies claiming to win battles. But these characters use tactics that don’t equip us to win our own spiritual battles, battles that impact our real lives.
So, what does equip us to win our spiritual battles? Read The Revelation of Emery Audubon to find out how one college student uses the Bible to fight her battle against the evil that is deeply entrenched at her university and is now out to ruin her life.
#3: It’s costly not to disciple the nations.
There’s one more reason apologetics fiction matters — the biggest reason. Jesus Christ has called his followers to “disciple the nations” (Matthew 28:18-20). This means not only sharing the gospel and other biblical truths with individuals and in churches, it also means discipling (reforming) our nation’s systems and institutions — education, the arts, science, religion, business, media, and yes, government — so that they reflect heaven on earth. This means being salt and light everywhere. It means making Christianity a force to be reckoned with in the midst of opposition in the public square.
The shocking truth is, if we Christians don’t disciple the nations the devil does, as evidenced by the steep downgrade in American cultural norms since the 1960s, 70s, and 80s.[2] While millions of individuals (including me) came to faith during the Jesus Revolution and church services got livelier, this revival did not move on to reform our systems and institutions. Secular atheists filled the gap, reinventing marriage, schools, sports, “the science,” the arts, media, and much more. Meanwhile, many of us got sucked in, going along and getting along. And many churches took a nap.
Does discipling the nations sound like a job we secretly hope someone else does while we cheer from the sidelines? Apologetics fiction to the rescue! The Revelation of Emery Audubon models what discipling the nations can look like for you and me. Even if we’re not all that brave. Even if we’re young. Especially if we’re young.
Share your thoughts.
Interested in sharing your questions about God or your ideas for impact with Ann, or having Ann speak to your group? Contact her using the link below to start a conversation. www.annroecker.com/contact
[1] An excellent read on this topic is, So The Next Generation Will Know: Training Young Christians For A Challenging World by Sean McDowell and J. Warner Wallace.
[2] Pastor Dutch Sheets observed this in his genius Give Him 15 post on February 2, 2024.
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The Revelation of Emery Audubon
Emery Audubon’s future is bright. She’s been accepted into Holworthy Halls, New America’s most prestigious university. She doesn’t mind that Holworthy founded the Educational Reform Initiative — an initiative that banned the Bible, revised history books, and passed laws requiring schools to teach there is no God. Emery trusts that Holworthy knows what’s best. After all, they’ve won awards. They’re held in high esteem.
But everything changes when a fellow student, who’s unlike anyone she’s ever met, invites her to take an illegal class on Revelation, a class that meets in secret in the Histories Department basement. There Emery’s confronted with truths no one taught her in school, a spiritual battle she’s never noticed until now, and the God who reigns and redeems.
Emery’s life is shaken even more when Holworthy’s Dean of Histories discovers she’s taking the class. Will this nationally recognized academic leader ruin her life, which he now is determined to do? Or will Emery use unexpected truths from Revelation to reform her school?
