The Holy Man Notes on the "Come Back to Jesus" plotline.

New Gospel Church--A fundamentalist/revisionist Christian sect believing in a new age of prophecy. Founded in 1922, it had great appeal to people disturbed by the decline of traditional "American" values (the original name was the "American Gospel Church.") Also, the founder seemed to have a genuine gift for prophecy.

The NGC's growth stopped at the end of the 1950s, but the actual decline did not set in until the 1970s with the death of the founder in 1971. The decline continued until 1978, when Johnny Lee Swainson assumed control of the Church.

John Lee Swainson--The main antagonist of the arc. Johnny Lee is the great-grandson of Hiram Swainson, founder of the New Gospel Church.

Johnny himself is not really religious, although he knows a lot about religion--professional knowledge. The NGC for him is and always has been the family business. Very few people know that, however.

Johnny is a psi (as was his great grandfather): He has some ability to read minds, a greater ability to sense emotion, and precognition. Together, these powers make Johnny Lee an ideal salesman: he can usually tell what he can sell to someone, what they are willing to pay, and whether he is succeeding.

Johnny was his great-grandfather's special pet before he died; both his father and grandfather did not have powers, and they were true believers. Johnny is the only one who knows that his grandfather was really a charlatan who started the church because it was an easy way to become rich.

Johnny Lee likes wealth enough, though he is very careful about showing it. What he enjoys is power, and now he has a rationalization for it: His precognition tells him there is a great crisis approaching. He wants to make himself powerful enough to influence American policy when the crisis makes itself more clear to him.

The case of the Younts presents several opportunities for Swainman.

First, Swainman intends to give the liberal courts a black eye by exposing the injustice of taking children from their godfearing natural parents and placing them in the care of non-Christians. It fits in with his greater theme of fighting interference by the government with religion (and, incidentally, the investigation of his own church.)

Second, Japan is not too popular at the moment. Johnny foresees relations getting worse, and also anticipated that Mrs. Urawa would flee to Japan, mixing up the Japanese government in the affair. He's not sure what's going to happen, but he senses he and his church will be strengthened by the outcome.

The weak link in the affair is Vera Yount. Johnny Lee knows the experts were absolutely right about her: She is much too disturbed to be trusted with any children for any length of time. But Swainson has ideas about how to deal with that, too . . .

Or maybe he doesn't. Maybe Vera isn't really a menace any more, although she will certainly mess up her kids' heads if she ever gets them back.

Johnny Lee is still a killer in this take, but he doesn't kill casually. Patterson might solve Swainson's problems on his own, though . . . this would allow Makoto to keep Tammy and Philip, or at least give them a better chance since their father isn't as extreme.

Johnny Lee Swainson does not have any major personal vices: He doesn't smoke, drinks little, and does not pursue women. A widower for five years the year of the White House incident, he cherishes his children but does not spend much time with them. His son is a Naval Aviator; his daughter Benicia was boarding most of the year at the NGC Academy near Macon.

Swainson has a particular reason to stay away from his daughter: She's a psi, too. Perversely, she's the only one he really feels he can share his secrets with.

Dark secrets? Swainson has a few; of course he's done some questionable things with Church funds, and, of course, he's not really a true believer, though he really does think his church is a beneficial institution. But there's a very, very dark one at the bottom of it all: Johnny Lee Swainson murdered his father to get control of the church.

Benicia Swainson--Daughter of Johnny Lee Swainson, named for a great-aunt. Benicia is a contemporary of Sarah and Pleione in age, fifteen in the fall of 2009. Her psi began to manifest at twelve. Soon after that, she found out her father's most terrible secret. Since then she has been living a double life; like her father, she is a good actor, so few suspect how troubled she is.

"Come Back to Jesus"--This is Swainson's tagline, the cornerstone of his American campaign.

Bringing in Benicia: the obvious thing would be a confrontation with Chibi-usa, two mind-readers discovering each other. But how can this happen without immediately spoiling the line established in "Mako's Run?"

Well, postponing it would be nice. What if, for some reason, Sarah goes to a different school than Pleione? That seems unlikely--unless Pleione wants to follow Johnny Brown. Say, Sarah goes to the ordinary school, but Johnny and Pleione go to a magnet school--Pleione is an exceptional student (Sarah is more average, though she doesn't have the problems that her mother had.) Johnny Brown is a good athlete.