CSFF Blog Tour – The First Principle, Day 1

This month the CSFF Blog Tour is featuring The First Principle by Marissa Shrock, a young adult novel produced by Kregel Publications.

Within the first few pages, it’s apparent that this book is another futuristic dystopian story, but there’s a twist. Instead of being in a group of outsiders, oppressed by the authoritative government, the protagonist, Vivica Wilkins, is the daughter of one of the ruling class. She’s been schooled in The Way Things Work, and knows what to expect. Why, then, is she bothered when Population Management tries to do their job?

This slim book (235 pages) packs a mighty punch, confronting relevant issues of our day. After all, seed for autocratic rule that makes a futuristic dystopian world possible, is sown decades before the fact.

Two things are clear from the start: only a state approved version of sacred texts is allowed, so Christians have to hide their Bibles and worship in secret; and birth is “managed” by the state, either through birth control, or in the event of a “problem,” through abortion.

Clearly, more than the seeds of the kind of state-controlled birth management revealed in the book are in place today. With Planned Parenthood receiving tax dollars to provide health services to women, including abortions, our government is already complicit in the deaths of millions of unborn babies.

Should our government now turn a blind eye to the selling of infant body parts, we will move further down the road of autocratic control, and ultimately of mandated abortion. So, yes, Marissa Shrock has exposed a pivotal and relevant issue, not simply in an imagined future world, but in our society today.

Other CSFF members participating in the blog tour for The First Principle include the following (check marks link to articles I’ve read):

√ √ √ Julie Bihn
√ Thomas Clayton Booher
√ √ √ Keanan Brand
√ √ Beckie Burnham
√ April Erwin
√ Carol Gehringer
√ Victor Gentile
√ Carol Keen
√ √ Shannon McDermott
√ √ √ Meagan @ Blooming with Books
Megan @ Hardcover Feedback
√ Joan Nienhuis
√ Nissa
√ Jalynn Patterson
√ √ Chawna Schroeder
√ √ Jessica Thomas
√ Shane Werlinger