A pathway back to faith

Robert Palmer believes he understands what young Christians need to keep their faith. After all, his own journey includes stepping away from the church in his youth.

“The problem is that youth today are growing up, leaving the church and not coming back,” he said. “The adults fail them. They either spoon-feed youth dry scripture without any heart, or they take the other extreme and only focus on entertaining them.” 

Palmer, a Highland Lakes resident, believes the best way to keep youth involved with the church, whichever church that may be, is to engage them intellectually and with heart and feeling. 

So he has sought to do that by writing fantasy adventure novels that are allegories to scripture.

Using his own experience away from the church, Palmer’s Archibald Zwick and the Eight Towers, published in 2010, follows protagonist Archibald Zwick on his physical, mental and spiritual adventures in the Bermuda Triangle. The reader’s heart and feelings attach to the story when they identify with Archibald, Palmer said. The scripture the story is based on, revealed in the ending, sets readers up for the companion volume, Truth in the Eight Towers, which engages the intellect. 

The second book reveals that almost everything in Archibald Zwick and the Eight Towers is symbolic. Archibald is a Germanic name that means genuine and bold, two attributes Palmer thinks Christians should have. The eight-spoke wheel that Archibald wears on his chest reveals a Greek acronym. 

As for his own story, Palmer said he has been a practicing lawyer longer than he says he’s been a Christian. Sure, he was raised in a Christian home, but for various reasons when he was young, he found himself more and more disassociated with God. 

“I had two dogs die, and I went and prayed for the third dog, a coyote pup. And then it got hit by a car on Christmas,” Palmer said. 

Palmer said moments like this led him away from God. 

“I realize I had this vending machine mentality about God. Just insert time and choose what you need,” Palmer said. 

When he mentioned how he was feeling to his mother, she gave him Return to Religion by Henry Link to read, but he said it was bland and didn’t help. 

Through college, his religion became to try to become the best person he could be. He went to Georgetown on an ROTC scholarship and graduated as an officer in the U.S. Army. Afterward, he served in Korea. While he was there, his first wife filed for divorce. 

“Mary Poppins talks about practically perfect people,” Palmer said. “That’s what I was trying to be, and divorce just didn’t fit into that. It caused a lot of soul searching.” 

Palmer was 8,000 miles away from everyone he knew and loved and facing a personal crisis. So, he found a bookstore, bought the Bible and read it from cover to cover. 

“I’d built up the framework of a nonbeliever,” Palmer said, “but I surrendered to God and finally learnt what faith meant.” 

Since then, Palmer’s faith has led him to get involved with the Jimmy Hale Mission (he currently serves as immediate past chairman of its board) and influence his professional endeavors. 

After a four-year struggle and constant praying, Palmer got the statute of limitation law for tort cases in Alabama changed. 

“Matthew 6:33 says seek first the kingdom of heaven,” Palmer said. “I looked to God and everything worked out.” 

In 2008, the Public Justice Foundation of Washington D.C. awarded Palmer its Access to Justice Award. He became the second person to ever receive the award, but he considered declining it. He accepted it and gave God credit. 

His law firm started generating heavy income, but he felt God telling him to leave his lucrative business for something else. He quit his job and devoted his time to finishing his book and its companion novel. 

Now having published his first two novels with Crossbooks, the self-publishing branch of Lifeway, a Christian bookstore and publishing company, he has more books in the works and plans to publish each with a companion volume explaining its history and symbols.

For more visit RobertLesliePalmer.com. You can find his books on  Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble.com.