Posted on September 28, 2016
New York Times Best-Selling Author Joel Rosenberg at CCU
On Tuesday, September 27, 2016, New York Times best-selling author Joel Rosenberg spoke to the Colorado Christian University community at chapel. With no empty seats in sight, the crowd was intrigued to learn more about and hear from this novelist that wrote about the September 11th attacks - before they even happened.
Rosenberg started off his hour-long presentation by making one thing clear: He's not just a best-selling author - he's a failed political consultant. After going through a "political detox" to rid himself of the stress that came with loss after loss in politics, he centered his focus on writing.
Rosenberg spoke about his first novel, The Last Jihad, which he began writing in January of 2001. "The first two pages of the novel puts you inside the cockpit of a jet plane that's been hijacked by radical Islamic terrorists, and is coming in on a kamikaze attack mission into Denver," he said.
Just nine months after he began this story, the 9/11 attacks on America occurred, and Rosenberg was drafting the second-to-last chapter on that exact morning. Making it clear that this story wasn't a prediction, Rosenberg said, "I was writing a worst-case scenario about something that could happen if our leaders didn't take precautions." He added, "It's not a failure of intelligence - it was a failure of imagination. We failed to imagine that the enemy would want to do this, try to do this and would be able to pull it off."
Rosenberg told the CCU crowd about his press tour with The Last Jihad and how it had a slow yet impactful start. On day two of the press tour, he was interviewed on a rock radio show. He was asked about how he came up with the story, but the biggest question was about his faith. Since Rosenberg is a Gentile on his mother's side and Jewish on his father's, the question was how he could be Jewish and yet believe in Jesus - a question that was asked several times on his tour.
Closing his presentation, Rosenberg explained how his books are not only full of adventure, thrill and stories that may keep you up all night in suspense, but they also take the reader on a spiritual journey. "Stories have a way of capturing people's imagination," he said. "Well-written, well-told, you can take people on a fictional journey that will lead them to the truth. Jesus was a story teller - He was the personification of truth."
Are you ready to go on a fictional journey of suspense, adventure and truth? Joel Rosenberg's third novel in his current series, which includes The Third Target and The First Hostage, is expected to be released next month.