*** DEBUG START ***
*** DEBUG END ***

No wonderful life

by
04 December 2015

Mike Starkey doubts a tract’s effectiveness

iStock

A Very Different Christmas: What are you hoping for this year?
Rico Tice and Nate Morgan Locke
The Good Book Company £2.99
(978-1-78498014-6)
Church Times Bookshop £2.70

 

IF YOU can judge a book by its cover, this must be a very good book indeed: its thick card and embossed lettering look for all the world as if they have been hand-crafted by Scandinavian elves.

The content is aimed at the intelligent agnostic. A budget-priced gift book, it invites the reader to imagine he or she is in the living-room of heaven on Christmas morning. The gifts being unwrapped are gifts from the Persons of the Trinity to humanity.

So, is this a book you might give to an unbelieving friend this Christmas? That will rather depend on your response to the authors’ decision to use a theological motif of atonement rather than incarnation. In heaven’s living-room, you might expect the Spirit’s Christmas gift to be Comfort (he is, after all, the Comforter, and comfort and joy are suitably Christmassy). Sadly, no. Here his gift is Reality — about our sinfulness and consequent judgement. Similarly, when we offer God the Father the gift of our own decency, we watch as he "recoils".

Whatever your theology, the authors’ would-be evangelistic scenario unwittingly ends up sounding like the most dysfunctional family Christmas ever. Dad throws your gift back at you while another family member gently reminds you what a mess your life is? Seriously? This is an object lesson in why authors need to choose their metaphors with care.

 

The Revd Mike Starkey is a tutor for the Church Army, and a freelance writer.

Browse Church and Charity jobs on the Church Times jobsite

Church Times Bookshop

Save money on books reviewed or featured in the Church Times. To get your reader discount:

> Click on the “Church Times Bookshop” link at the end of the review.

> Call 0845 017 6965 (Mon-Fri, 9.30am-5pm).

The reader discount is valid for two months after the review publication date. E&OE

Forthcoming Events

Women Mystics: Female Theologians through Christian History

13 January - 19 May 2025

An online evening lecture series, run jointly by Sarum College and The Church Times

tickets available

 

Festival of Faith and Literature

28 February - 2 March 2025

tickets available

 

Visit our Events page for upcoming and past events 

The Church Times Archive

Read reports from issues stretching back to 1863, search for your parish or see if any of the clergy you know get a mention.

FREE for Church Times subscribers.

Explore the archive

Welcome to the Church Times

 

To explore the Church Times website fully, please sign in or subscribe.

Non-subscribers can read four articles for free each month. (You will need to register.)