The List by Robert Whitlow

First published: Nashville, Tenn.: Word, 2000

Genre(s): Novel

Subgenre(s): Evangelical fiction; thriller/suspense

Core issue(s): Conversion; good vs. evil; guidance; prayer

Principal characters

• Josiah “Renny” Jacobson, the protagonist, a young lawyer
• Jo Johnston, a concerned Christian who becomes romantically involved with Renny
• Daisy Stokes, Renny’s landlady
• Agnes Darlene “Mama A”, a friend of Renny’s mother
• Desmond LaRochette, president of the List
• A. L. Jenkins, a Christian lawyer

Overview

Robert Whitlow’s The List describes the culmination of a spiritual battle between good and evil that has spanned generations. Set in South Carolina, it highlights the impact of supernatural elements in local and family history on events in the present time. The story centers on a young lawyer, Josiah “Renny” Jacobson, who simultaneously inherits two family legacies. His father was a member of the List, an occult secret society that passes membership from father to son, and his maternal grandfather was an evangelical Christian who prayed that the young man would have a special purpose in God’s plan. As Renny learns more about his family’s past, the List tries to seduce him with wealth and power while evangelical Christians come to his aid through ministry and prayer. These Christians serve to exemplify Whitlow’s ideal of a dynamic prayer life centered on private conversation with God and fellowship with other Christians. With their support, Renny eventually learns how to become an instrument of God in the ongoing battle between good and evil.

Renny’s father has died suddenly, leaving the young lawyer with assets in a company called Covenant List. The List, Renny learns, is an investment group that smuggled assets out of the country during the American Civil War and invested them overseas. When a member of the group dies, membership passes to his son, who must swear loyalty to the List in return for a share in the wealth generated by the investments. After the List contacts him, Renny meets Jo Johnston, the daughter and sole child of a List member who has recently inherited membership. Jo is an exemplary Christian who is not tempted by the promise of wealth or power. Though not religious himself, Renny becomes intensely attracted to Jo, and the two begin dating.

The List is wary of Jo’s religiosity and lack of desire for wealth. Desmond LaRochette, the group’s president, asks Jo to leave while they debate her eligibility. Once Jo is gone, they induct Renny into the List in a ceremony with occult overtones, complete with shedding a drop of his blood. Then they vote to reject Jo. One List member who argues against this decision suddenly falls down dead after the vote. The rest of the meeting is postponed. Jo becomes increasingly suspicious of the List’s occultism, but Renny dismisses the possibility of danger.

As Renny and Jo continue to spend time together, Renny becomes more receptive to Jo’s Christian beliefs. His quest to learn more about his family brings him into contact with old acquaintances, many of whom are Christian. Two of these characters are exemplary Christians like Jo: Mama A is a friend of the family who was close to Renny’s mother, and Daisy Stokes is Renny’s landlady and a former missionary. Their example kindles in him a desire for spiritual fulfillment, a desire that had been suppressed throughout his childhood by the emotional distance of his father and of his church. This desire leads to spiritual rebirth after Renny learns how to pray with sincerity and openness, accepting God’s promise of salvation.

Despite his newfound faith, Renny remains vulnerable to spiritual assault, temptation, and error. He is still attracted to the List, refusing to believe that he is in any danger. When Renny is invited to LaRochette’s home, Jo begs him not to go, but Renny dismisses her concerns. In LaRochette’s library Renny is told that the List’s ledger has magical power. Under LaRochette’s instruction, Renny directs some of its power toward Jo, believing it will bless her in some way. Instead she becomes ill and is hospitalized. When Renny discovers what has happened, he decides to destroy the ledger. Renny tries to break into LaRochette’s home, but is caught by a member of LaRochette’s private security. LaRochette offers Renny a choice: He can go to prison or become LaRochette’s student in the occult. Renny refuses to become the man’s student, declaring his loyalty to God. Angered, LaRochette reveals that he murdered the fathers of Renny and Jo with the power of the List. Then he has Renny arrested for the break-in.

Mama A sends Renny a Christian lawyer, A. L. Jenkins, who agrees to help Renny destroy the List. Renny provides Jenkins with documented evidence of illegal financial activity by the List. Jenkins uses his sessions with Renny to teach him the principles of spiritual warfare, chief of which is submission to God’s will before taking action. He also tells Renny that Mama A and Daisy Stokes are fasting and praying on his behalf. Renny is sentenced to three years of probation and released from jail.

Prepared by Jenkins and fortified by the prayers of Mama A and Daisy Stokes, Renny asks God for guidance. That evening, filled with the Holy Spirit, Renny walks into the hotel room where the List is meeting and declares that its members will face retribution for their sins. The members try to interrupt but find themselves unable to speak until Renny leaves. Renny’s signature disappears from the ledger, and one of the members flees from the room. Soon after he leaves, officers from the Drug Enforcement Agency arrive to arrest the members of the List for involvement in illegal drug trafficking.

Jo’s illness vanishes. Daisy Stokes, weakened from days of fasting, suffers a heart attack and dies in the hospital. Her will leaves her house to Renny and Jo, who have decided to get married. The book ends with a brief epilogue in which Renny’s deceased friends and relatives comment on the importance of prayer and welcome Daisy Stokes into Heaven.

Christian Themes

Though The List is premised on an unequivocally evangelical worldview, Whitlow avoids references to specific denominational doctrines. (There is no mention of speaking in tongues or sanctification, for example.) Christianity’s relevance to an individual’s personal life is more important than denominational affiliation, to Whitlow, although he privileges more emotive styles of worship. Church congregations sway and clap their hands to contemporary music. Prayers are spontaneous and intimate, sometimes involving laughter or weeping. Renny’s lackluster spiritual upbringing is tied directly to his emotional distance from his father as well as the half-hearted worship style of his church.

Whitlow’s primary concern is the centrality of prayer and Christian fellowship in daily life. Though church attendance is important, Christian practice outside of church is crucial. In this respect the novel exemplifies the evangelical conviction that religion must be present in every aspect of life. For Whitlow, prayer is a supernatural act in that it allows Christians to communicate directly with God. It extends their awareness beyond the natural world, bringing them greater knowledge of God’s will and strengthening their perception of the spiritual forces around them. Prayer also allows Christians to participate meaningfully in the supernatural struggle between good and evil, a struggle that affects people’s lives whether they realize it or not. In The List prayer is often more effective than modern medicine, eliminating headaches, heart failure, and aplastic anemia after medicine has failed. Next to Scripture, it is the most powerful resource Christians have to effect change in the world.

The threat of supernatural evil lends urgency to the need for a prayer-centered spiritual life. Instead of focusing on the eventual reward of eternal salvation, Whitlow stresses the impact of religious life in the present. As a parody of Christianity, occult magic can also influence the physical world. Curses disrupt concentration, cause illness, or kill instantaneously. Individuals who do not believe in the supernatural are especially vulnerable, and Christians who have been strengthened by prayer are especially resistant. According to Whitlow, prayer is ultimately an act of total submission to God in which the individual becomes a vessel for the Holy Spirit. Human efforts are useless against supernatural evil. Only submission to God’s will can empower human beings to succeed.

Sources for Further Study

Blodgett, Jan. Protestant Evangelical Literary Culture and Contemporary Society. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1997. Reviews sixty evangelical novels from 1972 to 1994, with attention to how they are used to define, describe, and explore Christian themes in contemporary society.

Murphy, Edward. The Handbook for Spiritual Warfare: Revised and Updated. Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelsen, 2003. An example of an articulated theology and method for spiritual warfare. Expands on the bifurcation between naturalistic and spiritualistic worldviews implied in The List.

Peretti, Frank. This Present Darkness. Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 1986. An influential best-selling novel about spiritual warfare in a small town. Whitlow’s books have been compared to a cross between the works of Peretti and John Grisham.

Whitlow, Robert. The Trial. Nashville, Tenn.: Word, 2001. Whitlow’s second novel and winner of the 2001 Christy award. As in The List, a lawyer is healed emotionally and spiritually while investigating a mystery.