About
Rollan McCleary was born in London, England. He has lived in France, Mexico and Hong Kong working in either teaching or media. He now lives in Queensland, Australia, where he is a citizen. He holds a doctorate in Religious Studies from QueenslandUniversity and is a published author in mainly religion though he has also written poetry and drama. His first major published work, The Expansion of God (1982) on the relations of Christianity and Asian cultures was a critical success and his A Special Illumination (2004), a pioneering in-depth study of the varieties of gay spiritualities and theologies, caused some international controversy. His Signs for a Messiah (2003) examined the whole subject of the dating and astrology of Christ’s birth, assessing scholarly work done in this area so far and arriving at some remarkable conclusions. A less technical more popularized version with a lot of new and significant information should be released before Christmas ’09.
Description
<p><span style="color:#000000;line-height:115%;font-family:Arial, 'sans-serif';font-size:10pt;">Santa’s Birthday Gift was written in response to a grandchild’s question, after reading the story of the Nativity.<span> </span>She asked, “But where’s Santa?”<span> </span>This story tells the story of the Nativity and then goes on to tell the story about how when Jesus is born, Santa sees the star at the North Pole and travels to see the baby. Since he is a toymaker, he brings his bag of toys - and offers them to the Christ Child, and then to all the people of the town. His birthday gift to Jesus is a promise to bring gifts to all good boys and girls each year on the Christ Child's birthday</span></p>
Story Behind The Book
Arguably the story behind this book (whose very first discoveries date back over twenty years), has special spiritual resonances. A published author with a critical success in religion, a doctor of religious studies offering a book that an editor of a major publisher (Transworld) called "groundbreaking,fascinating and publishable" should not be self publishing revelations of the kind "Testament of the Magi" contains. How and why he is doing so is a story yet to be told and still more understood. But in part it would appear the material in this study is more than some people want to know or wish to let others know. It might be relevant to recall the arrival of the Magi "troubled" all Jerusalem.