(Posted in Scorned, Accused and the Freedom of Truth)

As many of you know, I made a difficult announcement a little while ago on my public board. I am removing both Scorned and Accused from Wattpad and any online platform on the 20th of April 2020. For many of my fans, this is unthinkable. And to many, it doesn't make sense.

Why delete thousands of hours of hard work? Why take away a story with over 2.5 million reads, nearly 200k votes and 33k comments, not including Accused? Why, Erika, did you give up being a Paid Stories author, and relent any opportunities of publishing or even the creation of films based on your stories?

Well, here I am to explain why and to explain it in more detail than I could on my announcements. Please remember this is me opening up about my journey, and in no way am I forcing my beliefs and values onto you. I want to give you all my inner thoughts, discoveries and reasoning. This is all deeply personal and vulnerable, but I want to share it with you all.

Because this decision was not easy. I have wrestled with it for months. This has been my pride and joy, so much effort has gone into cultivating a culture in and around my books. I've poured money, time and pain into these books. I've been frustrated, tired, overwhelmed, anxious, mind blank and lost all motivation in the past, and yet through it all, Scorned and Accused still pushed past it and continued for my fans to enjoy.

So again, why? Why now? Why sacrifice everything I've worked so hard to build?

The answer is both simple and deeply complex. Please feel no obligation to read this.

I've been a Christian my whole life. I was raised with it. But I was never a true believer, a true follower. I knew God existed, but I didn't know Him. He wasn't the personal friend that He should have been.

But last September, my life changed. I gave my life unequivocally to Jesus. I surrendered everything, and I do mean everything, to Him. I offered up all my faults, my shortcomings, my habits and my very core being.

And I said one very simple thing.

Lord, change me because I am not able to help myself. Change me into a kind, pure and loving person. Help me to help others, and to share the light I have been given. Help me to love You, as You have loved me.

And He did, He changed me. I'm still a work in progress, but everyone around me has marvelled at the complete transformation I have gone through. I was once messy, and now I am neat. I once spoke behind people's backs, and now I am gentle to all. I once sneered at those who hurt me, and now I pray with and for them. I once held grudges, and now I forgive. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

But the more I loved and admired the perfect image of Jesus, the more I realised that I had many things that needed to change in my life. I needed self-control. I needed to let go of the bad habits I fostered. And I needed to take a good, honest look at the books that had been my love and passion for years.

I asked myself several questions.

Did I truly believe that these books were a representation of who I now was, and who I was becoming?

Did these books stand up to the standard of the Bible, my new and precious guideline in life?

Did the morals, values and actions of my book characters represent people I wanted my readers, some young and impressionable, to admire and look up to?

Would I be able to continue the series with a clean conscience, believing in everything these books stood for?

I came to a conclusion after much time struggling and debating with myself, praying and crying.

I can no longer in good conscience continue or support Scorned and Accused.

I know it brings up questions. Which parts can't you support? Is magic and fantasy against the Bible? Are dragons bad? What about all your loyal readers, some who paid to read Accused?

Because I love you all, I will aim to answer these questions. And please, if there are other any questions you want me to answer, put an inline comment here. I'll add the question and its explanation to this post. I'm going to try and give you the sound reasoning I came to after much thought and study. Please bear with me, and I hope this will answer some of the questions you all have.

Do you now believe that dragons are bad? And if so, why?

When I looked into this question, I used the Bible and the original text (usually Hebrew and Greek in this case) to come to my conclusion. I began to notice the various types of symbolism in the Bible.

I want to inform you all that I do agree with the theory that some dragons mentioned in the Bible are in fact possibly dinosaurs or extinct creatures. Remember the word 'dinosaur' was only coined in 1842, so it is possible the word 'dragon' was used for dinosaurs as we know them.

Here are a few examples in the King James Version (KJV), the 'purest' and most reliable Bible version. These are often translated into 'serpent' or 'sea serpent' in the newer translations, however, the King James manuscripts are the most corroborated and is considered the most accurate to the original writings by historians and scholars. Below are some Bible verses that seem to indicate 'dragons' were a real animal.

➤ Psalm 74:13 states, "Though thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death."

- Here the Hebrew word used is 'תַּן' or 'tanniyn', which literally means 'dragon' (21x times in the KJV) and secondarily 'serpent' (3x), sometimes even 'sea monster' (1x).

➤ Deuteronomy 32:33 says, "Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps."

- Again the same Hebrew word 'תַּן' or 'tanniyn' is used here.

➤ Isaiah 13:22 tells us, "And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces: and her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged."

- Once more, the Hebrew word 'תַּן' or 'tanniyn' is used here. Literally meaning 'dragon'.

➤ Isaiah 34:13 then states, "And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof: and it shall be an habitation of dragons, and a court for owls."

- Once again, the Hebrew word 'תַּן' or 'tanniyn' is used here.

➤ Jeremiah 51:37 says, "And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling place for dragons, an astonishment, and an hissing, without an inhabitant."

- The same Hebrew word is used for dragon.

➤ Micha 1:8 concludes with, "Therefore I will wail and howl, I will go stripped and naked: I will make a wailing like the dragons, and mourning as the owls."

- This verse also uses the same Hebrew word.

As we can clearly see here, it seems that the Bible uses dragons as a reference to a seemingly real animal. Whether they were dinosaurs or another species entirely, no one can say for certain.

But as I looked deeper, I started to notice something more sobering.

Dragons were almost always represented as an 'unclean animal', a creature of destruction and mourning or used to represent Satan himself. Let's take a closer look.

➤ Revelation 12:3-4 the says, "And another sign appeared in heaven: behold, a great, fiery red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems on his heads. His tail drew a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to give birth, to devour her Child as soon as it was born."

- This is a complex verse we won't go into the meaning of right now, but we can focus in on the dragon mentioned. Interestingly, Revelation was written in Greek, not Hebrew, so the word here used for dragon is 'δράκων' or 'drakōn'. Despite this fact, this still refers to the same 'dragon' or 'tanniyn' mentioned in the old testament in Hebrew.

➤ Revelation 12:7-9 tells us, "And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him."

- Here the previous verse is continued, and the dragon mentioned before is now identified. The same Greek word 'δράκων' or 'drakōn' is here used again. Satan himself is this dragon, and it is the main symbolism we see associated with him.

➤ Job 41:1-34 speaks about a great Leviathan who is also identified as Satan, and gives an in-depth description of his character. Because it is so long, I will not post the full verses here. For those interested, it is very easy to find online. Simply copy and paste 'Job 41:1-34' into Google.

- The word for 'Leviathan' used by Job is the Hebrew word 'לִוְיָתָן' or 'livyathan', which means 'leviathan, sea monster or dragon". It is also speculated that it may mean the extinct dinosaur, 'plesiosaurus', with the exact meaning unknown.

We can also notice that the Bible verses we started off with in our investigation (which talk about dragons as a potentially real animal) are almost exclusively used in a context of death or destruction.

They are related to:

- "The shadow of death." (Psalm 74:13)

- "The poison of dragons." (Deuteronomy 32:33)

- "Dragons in their pleasant palaces, death not being prolonged and desolation of houses." (Isaiah 13:22)

- "Thorns, nettles and brambles." (Isaiah 34:13)

- "An astonishment, an hissing, a heap of destruction." (Jeremiah 51:37)

- "Wailing and howling." (Micha 1:8)

- "A desolation." (Jeremiah 49:33)

Clearly, an image starts to take place that within the Bible, dragons, while they may have been real creatures, were not creatures of light and goodness. In fact, they represented Satan and darkness.

So with that in mind, I decided that for myself, I could no longer write about an animal or creature that was symbolic of only pain, suffering and evil. I would like to state that I am not opposed to the historical possibility of it simply being an animal (or animals, plural). Much like a hyena or other dangerous animals are used as symbols of death and destruction in the Bible, it is possible the same thing occurred to the 'dragons'.

That being said, I personally have come to the conclusion that I will no longer write about dragons unless in a Bible study context. I hope this all makes sense. I know my answer to this question was lengthy, but for those interested, I wanted to show you how I came to this conclusion.

Is magic and fantasy bad? If so, why?

The big question is now, what about magic and fantasy? Does the Bible have anything to say about the subject?

We will find that yes, the Bible does talk about magic. In fact, it strongly condemns it. There is no guessing around this subject. Let's just jump right in and see what the Bible has to say. Remember the word 'magic' was only created in Greece centuries after the Bible was written (around the late sixth century AD), so the Bible refers to magic as 'sorcery' and 'witchcraft'.

• Leviticus 19:31 states, "Give no regard to mediums and familiar spirits; do not seek after them, to be defiled by them: I am the Lord your God."

• Isaiah 8:19 tells us, "And when they say to you, "Seek those who are mediums and wizards, who whisper and mutter," should not a people seek their God? Should they seek the dead on behalf of the living?"

• Revelation 21:8 says, "But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." (Emphasis added)

• 2 Kings 21:6 informs us, "Also he made his son pass through the fire, practised soothsaying, used witchcraft, and consulted spiritists and mediums. He did much evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger."

• Isaiah 47:12-14 gives us a detailed account:

"Stand now with your enchantments
And the multitude of your sorceries,
In which you have laboured from your youth—
Perhaps you will be able to profit,
Perhaps you will prevail.
You are wearied in the multitude of your counsels;
Let now the astrologers, the stargazers,
And the monthly prognosticators
Stand up and save you
From what shall come upon you.
Behold, they shall be as stubble,
The fire shall burn them;
They shall not deliver themselves
From the power of the flame;
It shall not be a coal to be warmed by,
Nor a fire to sit before!"

• Deuteronomy 18:10-14 warns, "There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer,or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead.For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord your God drives them out from before you. You shall be blameless before the Lord your God. For these nations which you will dispossess listened to soothsayers and diviners; but as for you, the Lord your God has not appointed such for you." (Emphasis added)

As you can all see, the Bible is very strict when it comes to magic and fantasy. It was blatantly obvious to me that I could no longer write or read about magic, speaking to the dead or any kind of witchcraft.

I know a lot of you are wondering, surely you can just read or write about magic and still be a Christian? You're not actually performing magic, so is it really bad?

Well, in Matthew 6:22-23 we are told that, "The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light.But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!"

What does this actually mean? It means that what we see, what we look at or even read, will affect us. So if we look at things that are good and pure, we ourselves will be pure. If we look at things considered evil, we will become darker. By beholding, we become.

Philippians 4:8 tells us, "Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things."

Here we are told by Paul that we are to think about good things that will build character and uplift our minds and thoughts.

If we are to go even further, we can say confidently that by even thinking of doing something the Bible says is wrong, we sin. Here we can see an example of this.

Matthew 5:28 declares, "But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

While we aren't talking about lust specifically, we can take away the fact that when we enjoy or take to heart something that the Bible condemns as sinful, then we have committed that sin in God's eyes.

Another factor that really influenced my thoughts on this subject is the idea of giving human's God-like powers. This includes power over electricity, seeing the future, controlling air or light and many other powers which feature in the Scorned series. That to me is really blasphemous. We as humans have no right and no claim to try and give ourselves or others around us powers that ONLY God rightfully has. Fictional people included. That is elevating men and women to the level of God, and I will not personally accept that.

Didn't Jesus use magic? Isn't that the same thing?

In short, no. It is not the same thing. As the Son of God, Jesus holds all the power of creation. The ability to be everywhere, see everything, create anything is something that originated with God, and He alone can control it.

When Jesus healed the sick, changed water to unfermented wine or even raised people from the dead, He was simply exercising His right as life-giver and Creator of all.

The problem comes in when WE practice magic, raising of the dead or any such thing. That is blasphemy and is attempting to give humans the role of God. We are to accept that without God, we can do nothing (John 15:5).

Jesus did not practice 'magic' or 'sorcery' as the Bible condemns. He used the power of the Almighty Father to prove that He alone is God and that there is no other. To say humans have that power is against Biblical teachings. I hope this answers that question. 

From all the above information I've shared with you all, I hope it has become clear to you why I will no longer be endorsing or writing the Scorned series.

Please remember that this is no way me trying to force any beliefs on anyone, but simply an explanation of why I'm removing Scorned and Accused from Wattpad.

Thank you all for reading this extensive post. I hope this clears up a lot of questions, but if you have any more, please let me know and I will do my best to answer them. I will be updating my book the Freedom of Truth regularly and at some point, I will be posting a new story that doesn't feature the Fantasy genre.

You guys are amazing and thank you again. I really want to say a massive thank you to my readers who have come along with me on this journey I started four years ago in 2016. Every vote, read and comment has mattered to me. I hope to see you all around in future.

For those who have paid for Accused, I want to especially thank you and give you a virtual hug. It's still mind-blowing to me that you all were willing to support me monetarily. I value that privilege highly. So again, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Your author,

Erika