Earl Yorke

I sat down with Pastor Dave Clark, of the Ogunquit Baptist Church today, and we discussed “The Dominance Flush.” I was very impressed by this intelligent and well-spoken man, and with his permission, have decided to include a few major areas of our discussion here.

I started by asking Pastor Dave if he read novels with strong religious themes. His response was that he doesn’t read many novels aside from those which create alot of “buzz” in the religious community. This includes books like “The Da Vinci Code,” which he finds himself approached by various members of his church to comment on. “If it is something that people are talking about, I should probably know what it is about,” he commented, emphasizing the fact that he doesn’t like to preach about things that he doesn’t fully understand.

Next, I asked his opinion of what elements of a successful religious novel appeal to Baptists today. He said that there is an “explosion of Christian fiction” in the market today. He believes that a religious fiction writer should consider whether they want to “preach a message or tell a good story.” “I want to be entertained,” the Pastor explained, “not be preached at… leave that to non-fiction.”

I mentioned that “The Dominance Flush” includes numerious settings that are centered around various charity suppers at the church, and asked if they still do that at the Ogunquit Baptist Church. Pastor Dave responded, “We don’t do that anymore, but that is a very real, true-to-life thing for a Baptist church to do. Although it is something we would like to do again here, people are simply too busy.”

A major part of my conversation with Pastor Dave was the discussion of how Catholics and Baptists might be divided in ways other than those described in “The Dominance Flush.” I explained how in my book the Baptists have a completely different interpretation of the phenomena unfolding in Cape Neddick than the Catholics do, and as a result of this they become bitterly divided. When I asked him to describe how these two religions are divided in reality, he said that Catholics and Baptists have some things in common, but the way they approach things are, in many ways, different. He went further, saying, “We agree that Jesus Christ is the son of God, and we both believe in the Holy Trinity. We believe that the bible is God’s word, and for the most part we both uphold the same moral standards.” As far as major differences go, he explained that Catholics emphasize the Holy Eucharist, while Baptists place more emphasis on the Holy Bible. His last comment on this subject was that the fundamentalists in each religion tend to divide the two more than anything else.

With my next question I asked Pastor Dave if the Ogunquit Baptist Church held a “reception” of sorts after Sunday service. He said, “We usually have a coffee hour afterwards. I think that it is important in today’s world to have this chance to maintain some sense of unity and belonging. It’s a bonding.”

We moved on to one of my more prominent questions next, “Would you agree that Baptists, as a whole, place more emphasis on the Book of Revelations than most other Christian religions today?” To this, Pastor Dave said that some Baptists are really into the Book of Revelations, and on the whole, they probably place more emphasis on it than Catholics do. He said that the symbolism in Revelations is something that many others are afraid of, and while many Baptists adhere to it more than others, he doesn’t see it as the most important part of the Bible.

There were a number of other questions that I posed, including whether or not Pastor Dave would feel comfortable endorsing “The Dominance Flush.” He told me that he would have to read the book first. I have emailed a copy of it to him, and hope to post his comments on it in the future.

Thank you very much, Pastor Dave Clark!!!

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