Some Monday Readings - July 27, 2026

 

Make do – poem by Sonja Benskin Mesher. 

One Tool to Rule Them All – Brad Littlejohn at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

Two Ways of Looking at a Sparrow – Alexander Fayne.

 

Britain: Tome policing – Bijan Omrani at The Critic Magazine.

 

The Year I Taught in Prison – Michael Connolly at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

The Creatives Behind the Festival of Britain: Jacquetta Hawkes – A London Inheritance.

 

Don’t have blocks of time to write? Pockets work great! – Ann Kroeker, Writing Coach.

 

Sounds of the Forest – Timber Festival.

 

I Read All These Books and Boy Are My Lips Tired – Greg Sullivan at Sippican Cottage.

 

Christianity and the Three Cultures – Michael De Sapio at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Photograph: Jacquetta Hawkes (1910-1996) and J.B. Priestly (1894-1984) in 1960.

Saturday Good Reads – April 4, 2026

King Charles III will not issue an Easter message this year, according to Buckingham Palace. He did, however, issue one for Ramadan. A sign of the times? In The Wall Steet Journal, Brit Louise Perry writes that Christendom is no more, and not just in Britain (article unlocked). Canada, for example, has a new hate crime bill which seems to target Christians. Some in Britain have noted that, while the Anglican church seems close to collapse, there is a revival underway. Rhys Laverty at The Critic Magazine says the reports of revival in Britain are not premature, but it’s a phenomenon mostly associated with evangelical and Catholic churches. 

We are assaulted with so much news these days that the temptation is to turn it off. All of it. And yet so much if it is accepted narrative masquerading as news. We slip into our respective siloes to make sense of it all. Joe Duke at Front Porch Republic argues that there’s a better way then listening only to echo chambers.

 

On Easter, Christians around the world celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Michael Kruger at Canon Fodder went looking for the best evidence of the resurrection.

 

More Good Reads

 

America 250

 

These 7 foreigners helped win the American Revolution – Claire Barrett at Military Times.

 

A Brief Introduction to the Slaving Empire of Henry Laurens – Greg Brooking and George Burkes at Journal of the American Revolution.

 

“Remember the Ladies” – 250 Years Later – Christ Mackowski at Emerging Revolutionary War Era.

 

Don’t Call Them Pirates – Jonathan Horn at The Free Press.

 

Bunker Hill and the Siege of Boston – Keli Holt at Just Enough History.

 

Life and Culture

 

The State of the Internet 2026 – Austin Gravley at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

American Diner Gothic – Robert Mariani at The New Atlantis.

 

American Stuff

 

Gratitude, Not Glory: Why Lincoln Rejected Triumph at Gettysburg – Andrew Lang at The Coolidge Review. 

 

Route 66: The Road of Endless Possibilities – Elena Scherr at Smithsonian Magazine.

 

Writing and Literature

 

Orwell, Lewis, and Us: What Contemporaries Share Without Seeing – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

British Stuff

 

The Tower of Old London – Spitalfields Life.

 

Poetry

 

“Far Over Misty Mountain Cold,” by J.R.R Tolkien – Andrew Henry at The Saxon Cross.

 

The fruit of laughter – poem by Amelia Friedline at Innocence Abroad.

 

His Mercy is More – Matt Boswell and Matt Papa

 Illustration: A man reading a book, by David Teniers the Younger (1610-1690).

“Christianity and Poetry” by Dana Gioia

Does poetry matter to your faith? 

Most Christians would likely be puzzled at the question even being asked. 

 

Poet Dana Gioia says it should matter. A lot.

 

In the essay “Christianity and Poetry,” first published 10 years ago, Gioia goes a lot further than saying it should matter. “It is an essential, inextricable, and necessary aspect of religious faith and practice.” It doesn’t matter that most Christians would find that statement absurd, he says, because it’s true. 

 

And then he considers the evidence. How did David pray to God? In poetry called psalms. How did Ruth respond to Naomi’s plea to go back home? In Poetry. The books of Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes are all poetry. So are the Song of Solomon and Lamentations (and the Psalms, of course). While he doesn’t specifically mention it, what is chapter one of Genesis but an oral poem of creation; God speaks the physical world into existence.

 

The gospels and epistles of the New Testament bear the imprint of poetry. The book of Revelation is a prose poem, he says. The Beatitudes are shaped by prophetic verse. Mary’s announcement of the Incarnation in Luke is a poem. Some scholars believe the Aramaic of the Lord’s Prayer is a poem. “When Jesus preached,” Gioia says, “he told stories, spoke poems, and offered proverbs.

 

Dana Gioia

Both Protestants, via modern translations of the Bible, and Catholics, via Vatican II, ground poetry out of Scriptures. The music and the mystery were deemphasized in favor of the strictly rational. And in the process, we forget, or deny, a key aspect of God.

 

Yes, it’s a startling essay, and it goes on for 32 pages. But the man makes a solid argument. To ignore the poetical nature of the Bible is to miss fully understanding it.

 

I came to poetry late. Yes, I was exposed to the poetry we all were in middle and high school, with a strong infusion of British poetry in college. But it wasn’t until I began writing speeches as a central part of my career that I began to take poetry seriously, as something that mattered.

 

And what I began to notice, because I was a church-attending Christian who read and studied on his own as well, was that the Bible was one of the most poetic books I’d ever encountered. It’s almost as if poetry is the language of God.

 

Gioia has published six poetry collections, several works about poetry, and a number of translations, including the recent The Madness of Hercules. He is a former poet laureate of California and former chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts. He’s written four opera libretti and collaborated on many musical compositions. His awards include the American Book Award, the Poet’s Prize, Notre Dame’s Laetare Medal, the Aiken Taylor Award in Modern Poetry, and the Walt Whitman Champion of Liberty Prize, among others. 

 

Related: 

 

Dana Gioia and Meet Me at the Lighthouse: Poems.

 

Rediscovering Seneca: Dana Gioia Translates The Madness of Hercules.

 

Dana Gioia’s Pity the Beautiful: Poems.

 

Some Monday Readings

 

A paper manifesto – Elizabeth Stice at Current Magazine.

 

Editing: Scratch That, Try This Instead – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review. 

 

10° – artwork by Sonja Benskin Mesher. 

 

Churches at the City Boundaries: St. Andrew’s, Holborn – A London Inheritance.

 

The Great Beast – artwork by Jack Baumgartner at The School of the Transfer of Energy.

"Augustine of Canterbury" by Robin Mackintosh

In 2013, we visited Canterbury, primarily to see the cathedral and the shrine of Thomas Beckett, the archbishop murdered by henchman of Henry II. There had been a mention in the our travel book of a nearby site, the Abbey of St. Augustine, and we walked a few blocks to see it. I’m glad we did. 

The abbey is a ruin, destroyed during the dissolution of the churches by Henry VIII (Thomas Cromwell, he of Wolf Hallfame, directed the destruction). But walking around the ruins, listening to the audio tour, you get a good idea of what the site would have been like in its prime. A question we had was, who was St. Augustine? It clearly wasn’t the saint and theologian who died in Hippo in North Africa in 430 A.D. As it turns out, not a whole lot is known about the missionary sent by Pope Gregory the Great in 596 to the Anglo-Saxon kingdom led by King Aethelbehrt and Queen Bertha (she was a Christian; the king was not). 

 

The mission was highly successful; Augustine eventually became the first Archbishop of Canterbury.

 

Augustine of Canterbury by Robin Mackintosh aims to answer that question, at least as fully as it can be answered. The fact is that we don’t know much of the man’s early life, until he appears in the church records and accounts in Rome. Mackintosh also goes further. He discusses the context of Augustine’s mission, based on recent historical, archaeological, and sociological studies. He looks at Augustine’s leadership and what it might imply for the church in the 21^st century. And he challenges the negative interpretation of the mission, which started with the Venerable Bede himself.

 

Mackintosh was in a good position to write this story. He’s the director of Licensed Ministries and Warden of Readers in the Diocese of Canterbury and an honorary cathedral canon. He’s also spent considerable time in research; the book is only 192 pages (including notes, bibliography, and index) but it is packed with historical context of Rome, southern and northern France, and England in the late sixth century. When he describes, for example, what Augustine and his companions would have seen in Aix-en-Provence on their journey, the reader feels he’s right there in the moment, seeing what Augustine saw.

 

We travel with the mission from Rome to southern France, with a return when more letters from the pope are needed; then he returns through France and finally southeastern England. With Augustine, we navigate the sets of royal politics through numerous kingdoms. If we don’t know much about Augustine’s personality, we can see some of it reflected in the people along the way he had to deal with.

 

Robin Mackintosh

Eventually we land in England, wait for the official welcome by the king and queen to be organized, and then begin the mission. The king becomes a Christian (the critical conversion), and soon the mission is working its way through the people. Christianity had been introduced to Britain during Roman times, but the Romans had left a hundred years before and the church, had found itself (along with native Britons) pushed to margins of Wales and northern England by the Anglo-Saxon invasions. 

 

Augustine of Canterbury was published in 2013; I’d read a similar approach to a subject with Annie Whitehead’s 2018 Mercia: The Rise and Fall of a Kingdom, in which a small kingdom in north central England left almost no historical record of its own. Researching the context can tell us much even when we have little direct evidence from the subject of the study. 

 

Top photograph: Ruins of the Abbey of St. Augustine, Canterbury, via Wikimedia Commons.

Some Monday Readings

 

Pundits: “Ignorance” Makes Americans Give “Wrong” Answers to Economic Confidence Poll – Matt Taibbi at Racket News.

 

I Once Thought British Jews Were Special. Not Anymore – Tanya Gold at The Free Press.

 

Fundamentally Religious and Catholic: A review of Tolkien’s Faith: A Spiritual Biography by Holly Ordway – Adam Schwartz at Kirk Center.

 

Many People at Once: The Role of Literary Translators – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review.

 

November Poem a Day 2023, Week 2 – Kelly Belmomte at Al Nine.

"Letters to Doctors" by C. Earle Carpenter

Jan. 26, 1973, 8:30 p.m., basement lecture room, Lockett Hall, LSU: I’m talking with C. Earle Carpenter, campus director for Campus Crusade for Christ. We’re talking about a recent visit to campus by Christian speaker Josh McDowell. By the time we finish, I’ve prayed to become a Christian. Nothing will ever be the same again. 

I am one of likely thousands of stories that Carpenter could tell. From LSU, he and his wife Judy went on to Dallas Seminary where he became an official “reverend,”, and then returned to their native Birmingham to care for elderly parents. In Birmingham, a group of dentists and physicians, along with Carpenter, started the Christian Medical Ministry of Alabama. And Carpenter became the CMMA’s first director, touching thousands of more lives, directly and indirectly, all over the United States and the world.

 

Judy and Earle Carpenter

For 37 years, Carpenter served the CMMA. Part of his work was writing a devotion for the monthly CMMA newsletter. Some 119 of those devotions have been gathered together to form Letters to Doctors. While the primary audience may be those in the medical community, they’re applicable to anyone, in any walk of life, because Carpenter never limited himself to only one profession or one specific audience. There was a world of lost souls to save, and “Earle and Judy” (it’s difficult for me to think of one without the other) were ready to talk with, visit, counsel, and pray with whomever might be brought into their path.

 

The devotions, which are each about a page to a page-and-a-half long, are organized into four divisions: Walk, Warfare, Word, and Worship. They generally cite a particular verse of the Bible, and then take the reader into what the verse might mean and how it applies to daily life. Many include short anecdotes from Carpenter’s own life and experience. 

 

Carpenter’s voice is consistent and unmistakable. It’s more than 50 years since that night in Baton Rouge, but when I read these devotions, I hear the same voice I heard that night. The same voice, the same heart, the same faith.

 

While each devotion might tell you something about Carpenter, that isn’t the point. In fact, it was never the point. He wants you to know his Lord. That’s the point. It’s not about Earle Carpenter. It’s about his Lord. It’s always been about his Lord. 

 

To read Letters to Doctors is, for me, to experience a personal blessing. If you’ve never met Carpenter, read it to experience a spiritual blessing. This man cares about your soul.

“Reform: The Church at the Birth of Protestantism” by Luke H. Davis

Luke H. Davis began his published writing career with a series of three mysteries, featuring Cameron Ballack, a county police detective who investigates and solve crimes from his wheelchair. He then published a fantasy book entitled Joël , which was followed by a book on Christian ethics, Tough Issues, True Hope. 

His most recent project has been a series on church history aimed at younger readers (roughly 10-14). In 2022, he published two in the series, Redemption: The Church in Ancient Times and Reign: The Church in the Middle Ages. And now come the next two entries in the series: Reform: The Church at the Birth of Protestantism and Renewal: The Church That Expands Outward.

 

You don’t have to be the targeted age group to enjoy Reform: The Church at the Birth of Protestantism. Each primary chapter focuses on a person, telling a fictionalized account of a specific event in the person’s life. A summary paragraph at the end of the chapter provides a brief biographical overview. And then periodic “fact files” provide a deeper look into a specific topic associated with the overall subject of the book.

 

You can see what Davis is doing here: tell an interesting story about people, provide some factual and biographical information, and inspire the reader to pursue their interest in the subject or person. It works. I thought I knew a lot about the Reformation period. And I was familiar with the major players, like Martin Luther, John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli, and John Cranmer (I’ve seen the monument to Cranmer’s and others’ martyrdom in Oxford several times). I didn’t know the Reformation roles played by Marguerite of Navarre, Catherine Parr (Henry VIII’s last wife), and Lady Jane Grey. And I’d never heard of Martin Bucer and Patrick Hamilton.

 

Luke H. Davis

What I learned is that, yes, there were major movers in the Reformation, but many people played significant roles. And Davis keeps his accounts interesting by making the historical figures come to life as real and recognizable people. 

 

Davis teaches at Westminster Christian Academy in St. Louis and chairs the Bible Department there. He’s also taught at schools in Louisiana, Florida, and Virginia. He describes himself as “Presbyterian body, Lutheran heart, Anglican blood, Orthodox spirit,” all of which have served him well in writing the Cameron Ballack mysteries. He has published three Ballack mysteries, Litany of Secrets (2013), The Broken Cross (2015), and A Shattered Peace (2017), and the first book of a new series, Joel: The Merivalkan Chronicles Book 1 (2017). He blogs at For Grace and Kingdom.

 

If your children are familiar with church history and the Reformation, Reform is a good place to start. And if you think you know all about the period and the people, Reform might well help you realize that you don’t know as much as you think. 

 

Next Week: Renewal: The Church That Expands Outward.

 

Related:

 

My review of Redemption: The Church in Ancient Times.

 

My review of Reign: The Church in the Middle Ages.

 

Reading a Novel that Stars Your Hometown.

 

My review of Litany of Secrets.

 

My review of The Broken Cross.

 

My review of A Shattered Peace.

 

My review of Tough Issues, True Hope by Luke Davis.

"Live Not by Lies" by Rod Dreher

In February of 1974, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn published an open letter to the Russian people, one that has come to be known by its core message: “Live not by lies.” That same day, he was arrested; shortly thereafter, because of his international reputation, he was exiled from the Soviet Union, not to return until almost 20 years later with the fall of the communist government. 

Conservative writer and columnist Rod Dreher, in homage to Solzhenitsyn, has used the message for the title of his latest book, Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents. The difference is that Dreher’s book is not aimed at the Soviet Union; instead, it is aimed at what he sees as a growing “soft totalitarianism” in the United States among the political, media, entertainment, academic, and corporate elites. His primary concern is Christians in the United States, the people who cannot accept the madness engulfing American elites but are largely unprepared for the consequences that will inevitably follow.

 

For guidance, he turns to the Christian community of Eastern Europe that survived communist rule and helped to bring it down, but which also paid an often terrible price for following their conscience and their faith. He asks if Western and particularly American Christians are prepared for that sacrifice. And he believes that much can be learned from the dissidents of Eastern Europe and Russia because what is happening in the United States mirrors the Bolshevik / Marxist takeover of Russia; it’s only happening here in slow motion and in a “softer” way. But the end result threatens to be the same – a society that brooks no dissent and one that will eradicate dissent wherever it might emerge. 

 

Rod Dreher

Live Not by Lies is divided into two parts. The first part concerns understanding what soft totalitarianism is all about: a developing totalitarian culture, how progressivism has taken on all the trappings of a religion, and how these ideas and trends have been facilitated by capitalism, and especially the largest corporations. The second part is the manual for Christians: how it is possible to live in truth, how to cultivate cultural memory, the importance of the family (the institution that has been under siege since at least the 1960s), how faith forms the basis for resistance, how Christians can support one another, and how to understand and accept the suffering that is to come.

 

The book is highly readable and accessible; Dreher has a compelling writing style that keeps the reader engaged. Unlike his previous book, The Benedict Option, this one has been largely ignored by all the major new and literary media other than those that are conservative. This, too, one might argue, is a form of soft totalitarianism – ignore what makes you uncomfortable and points out your less-than-democratic leanings. 

 

Dreher, who writes for American Conservative, is the author of Crunchy Cons (2006); The Little Way of Ruthie Leming (2013); How Dante Can Save Your Life (2015), and The Benedict Option (2017). He is a Greek Orthodox, and lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

 

Some might say that Dreher can often be borderline hysterical, exaggerating or overstating his case. That might be, but recall Flannery O’Connor, who once explained her stories by saying you write large for the nearly blind and shout for the nearly deaf. The future may not unfold exactly as Dreher is predicting, but the evidence is all around us that it’s unfolding closely enough to what’s presented in Live Not by Lies.

 

Related:

 

My review of How Dante Can Save Your Life.

 

My review of The Benedict Option by Rod Dreher.

 

“Tough Issues, True Hope” by Luke Davis

Christians are regularly denigrated for believing Biblical teachings that were broadly accepted by the general culture less than a decade ago. The pace of change in the culture, powered by sea changes in news media, entertainment, the business world, and large parts of political and governmental authorities, seems so accelerated that it often bewilders even those who accept the changes uncritically. And this seeming rejection of Christian values has accompanied a rejection of the values of Western civilization generally. 

Multitudes of books have been written and read to understand what has happened and, equally as important, to respond and deal with the change. Luke H. Davis, as a high school teacher of Biblical ethics, has witnessed and experienced the changes. He also has to help the students he teaches to understand and deal with the issues that seem to confront them, and all Christians, at every turn. 

And he’s created a navigational aid, Tough Issues, True Hope: A Concise Journey Through Christian Ethics. In short, succinct, and conversational chapters, he’s assembled and summarized the main issues where Christians find themselves in conflict with the culture. Each issue is summarized, its Biblical position discussed, and then questions provided for further discussion. Davis uses clear, easy-to-understand language, writing a book that’s as suitable for high school and college students as it is for adults in the workplace, the home, and church. That’s no simple accomplishment.

The list of issues is staggering and begins with one that many Christians are unaware of – words and language. Words and language matter tremendously and can be used not only to illuminate but also to propagandize. (I can still remember when newspapers referred to “pro-life” and “pro-abortion,” until they evolved into “anti-abortion” and “pro-choice.”)

Luke H. Davis

The issues Davis considers includes technology and social networks; diversity and unity; abortion; murder and capital punishment; euthanasia; suicide; disabilities; bioethics; gender; marriage; divorce; pornography; same-sex marriage; and more. He even discusses the concepts of stewardship as they relate to the individual, the workplace, the environment, and immigration (legal and illegal). 

It’s a daunting list. It’s daunting even to consider how Davis researched and considered each issue. Equally impressive is the tone of the book; it’s not condemning or strident, but honest, candid, thorough, and loving. A non-Christian reading the book would likely miss how much care and love went into the discussion.

Davis teaches at Westminster Christian Academy in St. Louis and chairs the Bible Department there. He’s also taught at schools in Louisiana, Florida, and Virginia. He describes himself as “Presbyterian body, Lutheran heart, Anglican blood, Orthodox spirit,” all of which have served him well in writing the Cameron Ballack mysteries. He has published three Ballack mysteries, Litany of Secrets (2013), The Broken Cross (2015), and A Shattered Peace (2017), and the first book of a new series, Joel: The Merivalkan Chronicles Book 1 (2017).

Tough Issues, True Hope is one of the best books I’ve read on the subject of culture, issues, and Christianity. It’s comprehensive without a deluge of details. It’s highly readable. And its solidly grounded in what is pre-eminent for believing Christians – the word of God.

Related:

Reading a Novel that Stars Your Hometown.

My review of Litany of Secrets.

My review of The Broken Cross.

My review of A Shattered Peace.

“Vintage Saints and Sinners” by Karen Wright Marsh

Most of us in the Christian faith can point to a number of people who have directly been significant contributors and influences on our faith journeys. It might be parents, other relatives, friends, pastors, teachers, missionaries, or others. And then there are the once- or twice-removed influences, people we have never met but whose words and writings have had major impacts on our faith. For myself, I can name pastors, missionaries, and writers like C.S. Lewis, Francis Schaeffer, J.R.R. Tolkien, J.I. Packer, and more. The people and influences remind us we are part of a larger community of saints, past and present, and we have been shaped by many people and many Christian streams of thought.

In Vintage Saints and Sinners: 25 Christians Who Transformed My Faith, Karen Wright Marsh tells the stories of Christians across the centuries who have shaped her faith. Part biography, part memoir, and even part devotional, the book stands as a solid introduction to both well-known and lesser-known Christians as well as a testament to the impact Christians can have on fellow believers separated by both time and geography.

As she points out in the introduction, all of can remember the stories we heard in Sunday School – stories of both Biblical characters and Christians who are rightly known as heroes of the faith. But as she grew and matured, Marsh discovered distraction, fear, and doubt. And here, too, she found examples from across Christian history.

Many of the people whose story she tells as she tells her own story are well known – St. Augustine, C.S. Lewis, Flannery O’Connor, Martin Luther, Mother Teresa, Thomas Merton, John Wesley, and St. Francis of Assisi. She also includes the lesser-known but just as meaningful – Amanda Berry Smith. Fannie Lou Hamer, Mark Paik Lee, Aelred of Rievaulx, and Sophie Scholl. 

The narrative for each individual is roughly the same. Marsh begins with a personal story, moves quickly to the character, provides a brief biography or general background, explains how each came to faith and the impact each had, and then moves back to the personal, applying the lessons of the individual’s life to her own circumstances and faith. Many of the stories I had heard or read before, but I was unfamiliar with many of them except by name only. 

Karen Wright Marsh

But I learned things even about the better known, like why Mother Teresa believed God had stopped speaking to her for decades; the role Fannie Lou Hamer played in the Civil Rights struggle; and how Brother Lawrence came to wash up on the shores of faith – blocked from his chosen calling of being a soldier because of a crippling injury.

Marsh is the cofounder and executive director of Theological Horizons, a university ministry focused on theological scholarship “at the intersection of faith, thought, and life.” She teaches students in programs and classes, writes curriculum, and speaks at a wide array of meetings, seminars, and retreats. She received degrees in philosophy and linguistics from Wheaton College and the University of Virginia. She lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, with her family.

Vintage Saints and Sinners offers history, biography, theology, understanding, and faith, but its stories offer one thing above all – encouragement. People from the past have experienced what you are going through; they knew doubt, despair, and fear. Their stories tell you to have courage and take heart.

Top illustration: a depiction of Brother Lawrence in his kitchen.

“Living the Dream?” by Tristan Sherwin

If a non-believing friend ask you to define or explain Christianity, how would you respond? It might take some thought and some understanding of how much the friend might or might not know, but most of us would likely explain the central figure of Christ, the Son of God, who died for our sins, was resurrected on the third day after his death, and ascended to heaven. But what if the friend went further, and asked you to explain why there are so many denominations, so many variants, so many forms of Christianity, and so many disagreements on basic tenets of the faith?

That might be a more complicated answer. In Living the Dream? The Problem with Escapist, Exhibitionist, Empire-Building Christianity, Tristan Sherwin has a relatively simple answer that itself has a complex explanation. We’re understanding our faith as an extension of our personal dreams. “Jesus didn’t die so that our dreams could come true,” he writes. “He gave his life for the dream of God.” We’ve allowed our personal dreams and ambitions, including how we are shaped by the culture, to shape our faith and how we respond to God. 

It’s no wonder that Christianity is so fractured and splintered, with the breaks and divisions seeming to grow every day. 

Tristan Sherwin and family

Sherwin begins at the beginning, with the book of Genesis and how we generally understand it and what we read into it because we’re either embracing what the culture says or fighting what the culture insists we believe. We often get into the weeds here, and we like to have our own weed patch. Scripture has been used to justify everything from slavery to war. In a self-therapeutic culture like which grips most of the Western word today, we can consider Scripture as the way to make us feel better and loved, or that it gives us special knowledge (and gifts) that others don’t have, or that it justifies political globalism and political nationalism. (Remember Jesus telling Pilate that his kingdom wasn’t of this world?)

Our individual faith is directly affected. Consider worship services that are emotionally charged. “All this stimulation may help to explain why many of us struggle with prayer and contemplation in the privacy of our homes, and why so many of us struggle to sense God during our own periods of suffering.” Despite what we experience on Sundays, he says, “God-moments” aren’t hyperactive or adrenaline-fueled. 

God, he says, is “at home in the stillness; we’re the only who get restless.”

One of the most beautiful images Sherwin uses in the book is the idea of soliloquy, that “Jesus is the soliloquy of God spoken into the dissonance” of our struggle to fully understand and explain our experience of God. There is a wonderful stillness about that idea, a freshness that speaks to our deepest souls.

Sherwin is a teacher at Metro Christian Centre at Bury, England, near Manchester, where he lives with his family. He’s previously published Love: Expressed. 

If you’re looking to challenge or test your own ideas about Christianity and your personal faith, the well-written and engaging Living the Dream? is a good place to start. You will rethink how you understand many parts of scripture and discover how you read your own cultural context into what you believe about God. 

Related: Tristan Sherwin’s Love: Expressed.