Savvy Demon Excerpt: Rosaline and Cody's Story

My most recent blog post spoke at length about the need to pursue romantic partners who follow Christ passionately. It reminded me of a little snippet from The Savvy Demon's Guide to Godly Living featuring the two characters I had the most fun writing for: Adam and Mindy. In this conversation, Mindy is explaining to her husband Adam why she brought home a homeless, pregnant teen and wants to keep her. Enjoy!

“Honestly,” said Adam, “I can’t say that I’m the biggest fan of this Cody guy.”

“Neither was Rosaline. She tried to explain this to her parents, of course, but they said that if he was good enough to make a baby with, then he was good enough for her to marry. Of course, no one had bothered asking high school junior Cody this, or his parents, who probably don’t even know that they’re grandparents now.”

“Promise me something, hun. When we have kids someday, let’s have higher aspirations for who they get married to than someone who’s able to talk them into bed. Deal?”

“Deal,” said Mindy. “Now, Ma and Pa had always told their kids that they were never to date anyone that wasn’t a Christian, and that the Bible warns against marrying unbelievers. So they did have some sort of standard for their kids, but it was a pretty shallow.”

And so it was, in practice at least. Eight months prior, Rosaline had informed her parents that she had been asked out by a boy at school named Cody. The width and breadth of the conversation follow.

Meredith:	Where are you going?
Rosaline:	A movie and dinner.
Meredith:	On Friday?
Rosaline:	Yeah. He’ll pick me up at 6, if that’s okay.
Meredith:	It’s fine.
Stanley:	Is he a Christian?
Rosaline:	Yeah. He says he is.
Stanley:	Where does he go to church?
Rosaline:	I don’t know. I didn’t ask.
Meredith:	But he does believe in God, dear?
Rosaline:	Yeah. He said he does.
Meredith:	Have fun.
Stanley:	Be back before 11.

As you can no doubt see, the question of whether young Cody was a man of God, following Christ faithfully and pursuing his faith with vigor, did not come up.

This exchange would be considered crucial in the command that the unhappy couple tie the knot. Eight months older and significantly wiser than before she missed her period, Rosaline had tried convincing her parents that perhaps Cody was not actually a Christian after all, but simply said that he was to date her. There had, after all, been no evidence in that eight-month span of his ever attending a church service or desiring to attend one. He had proven himself to not be a man of integrity and his personal stance on premarital sex was well known to all by now.

Stanley and Meredith Bartowski listened to all of these very reasonable points—or perhaps they didn’t; it’s difficult to tell—but, having already committed to pulling the Palin, were determined not to cut and run, regardless of how sensible an action this may have been.

“So,” Mindy continued, “our young heroine was thus compelled to call her sleazy ex-boyfriend and current baby daddy and inform him of their pending nuptials.”