Some Monday Readings - July 6, 2026

The ex-Dominion – David Warren at Essays in Idleness. 

The untold story of Brexit – David Shipley at The Critic Magazine.

 

No Faith Worth Defending – Carl Trueman at First Things Magazine.

 

Where Did Lincoln Deliver the Gettysburg Address – Allen Guelzo at The Golden Thread. 

 

Fake World: Everything You Think Is a Lie – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review on Philip K. Dick’s The Penultimate Truth.

 

Journey’s Jonathan Cain releases patriotic rock anthem, reveals meaning of ‘Don’t Stop Believin’’ – Leah MarieAnn Klett at The Christian Post.

 

“We Always Leave Things Unfinished” – Alexander Sorondo at Big Reader Bad Grades.

 

St Bartholomew the Less, the Chapel and Parish Church of St Barts – A London Inheritance.

 

The age of Friedman – James Piereson at The New Criterion.

 

Photograph: Author Philip K. Dick (1928-1982).

“Reimagining Britain” by Justin Welby

The Brexit vote in June of 2016 hit Great Britain like a thunderbolt, not unlike the election of Donald Trump as President hit the United States later that same year. The responses in these two deeply divided countries were also similar. The people who had supported “Remain” in Britain argued loud and strenuously for ways to undo the Brexit vote, much like their counterparts in the U.S. continue to refuse to accept the November 2016 election.

Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, has taken a different approach to Brexit. He accepts the decision by voters and then asks the question, “Where do we go from here?” In Reimagining Britain: Foundations for Hope, he invites a conversation about the country’s future by suggesting a variety of ideas and proposals, all based on his Christian faith. And he makes no apology for that. 

“This book is, unsurprisingly and unapologetically, written from a Christian perspective,” he writes. “Because of the Christian foundations of our society in Britain, it draws frequently on more or less well-known traditions and stories in the Bible.” Those Bible stories include the early church sharing in common, as recorded in the Book of Acts; Jesus’s description of the last judgment, from Matthew 25; the parable of the talents; and many others.

Welby proceeds to tackle some of the thorniest issues facing British society, which are not unlike some of the thorniest in American society. Family, education, health, housing, economics and finance, the environment, and immigration all come under what can only be called a loving scrutiny. He considers each from a Christian perspective, broadening into a larger discussion of what might be possible in a post-Brexit Britain. That’s the idea of “reimagining” a nation aspiring to its best impulses.

Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury

Welby worked in the oil industry for 11 years before entering the ministry. He became a member of the evangelical Anglican church of Holy Trinity in Brompton, in South Kensington, London, and in 1989 experienced a call to the ministry. He was first rejected for ordination by the Bishop of Kensington but later accepted by the vicar of Brompton. He served churches and cathedrals at Coventry, Liverpool, and several other cities, and was appointed Bishop of Durham in 2011 (which also made him a member of the House of Lords). He was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury in 2012. He has previously published Dethroning Mammon: Making Money Serve Grace(2016). 

Reimagining Britain is not a conservative book. Neither is it a liberal or progressive book. It slips away from political labels, and asks that Britons consider a future based on the values that bind them together. Welby is making a claim for the church in the national debate about Britain’s future. And he’s well ahead of many of Brexit’s critics who are still stuck in a rejection of the decision. 

Top photograph: A view of St. Paul’s Cathedral and the City of London from the Tate Modern.

"The Cut" by Anthony Cartwright

Grace Trevithick is a documentary film producer who lives in London. She’s been part of a successful team filming in central Europe, but she’s now preparing to leave the team and strike out on her project. That will mean traveling to the old industrial heartland of England and trying to find out why people want Britain to leave the EU. The Brexit vote is coming.

Cairo Jukes is something of a freelance laborer in a town called Dudley. He joins work crews assembled for short stints and digging up pipes and other remnants of the industrial past. It wasn’t that long ago when there were busy factories here, providing regular work and full-time jobs. Now, he’s grateful for the work when he can get it. At one time he was a promising boxer, but that didn’t work out. He’s in his mid-40s and lives with his parents. His daughter and new grandson have recently moved in, too, kicked out by Cairo’s ex-wife.

Grace and Cairo meet, and he agrees to be interviewed. His parents are as well. When he sees the report air, he’s somewhat surprised that the television station thought it necessary to use English subtitles. He thought he spoke English.

The two discover that even their own English languages are different or perceived as different.

The result of the Brexit vote shocked Europe, the British government, and British elites. The editor of Peirene Press, in an attempt to understand how the vote happened, commissioned novelist Anthony Cartwright to write a novel of Brexit. The Cut is what he wrote, and it’s a fascinating, wrenching novel.

Anthony Cartwright

While no work of fiction or non-fiction could capture everything of what Brexit was about and meant, this one gives a taste. Alternating between events in the lives of Cairo and Grace before and after the vote, we see the two characters progress from documentary director and subject to romantic relationship. Cartwright, through his characters, will ask whether this relationship is even possible.

Cartwright is the author of four previous novels: The Afterglow (2004); Heartland (2010); How I Killed Margaret Thatcher (2013); and Iron Towns (2016). He lives in London.

The Cut doesn’t explain Brexit, but it does allow a look, often a deep look, into the hearts of two people caught on different sides of the debate.

Top photograph by Petr Kratochvil via Public Domain Images. Used with permission.

British Poetry, British Poets, and Brexit

I thought the United States had the hammerlock on extreme political language until the Brexit referendum was decided in Great Britain. Then I discovered we were amateurs when it came to the normally understated British. I had British friends on both sides of the decision for Britain to leave the European Union. The anguish was painful to see, mirrored, perhaps, by the anguish we face this election year in the U.S.

So I turned to British poetry. The British take their poetry much more seriously than Americans do. I happened to visit last year during National Poetry Day, and the entire country seemed to reading poetry, going to readings, and holding poetry book fairs. And British newspapers still print poetry, review it, discuss it, and debate it. And it lasted longer than a single day – it was more like National Poetry Week.

Can you imagine a major network, like NBC or Fox, hold a national vote on America’s favorite poets?  In 2014, the BBC did, and with plenty of rules and guidelines. Some 18,000 votes were cast, and first place went to Anglo-American T.S. Eliot. John Donne was in second place; Benjamin Zephaniah was third. Rounding out the Top 10 were Wilfred Owen, Philip Larkin, William Blake, William Butler Yeats, John Betjeman, John Keats, and Dylan Thomas.

Yes, the British take their poetry seriously.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Photograph by Petr Kratochvil via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.