Finishing the Book

Some of you will already know that I have for the past couple of years been working on a book. This is now finished and has just been submitted to the publisher. It is called A Tale of Two Gardens: Following the Way of Christ, and it should come out early next year.

This is my fourth book, which feels like I’m getting into the swing of it. Over the past 20 years, I have also published various contributions to edited volumes and journals, an audio-book, and a number of articles in the press. There is more information about some of my previous publications here, and if you would like to get a sense of what the new book might be like, I have been posting sections of work in progress over the past several months or so, for example here, here and here.

Now that it’s finally finished, I hope to be able to devote more time and effort to writing articles for ‘Talking to the Shadows’ and, hopefully, building up my subscriber list too.

If you’ve already been on the list for a while, you will have some idea of the sorts of things I write about. My main topics are spirituality and religion – Christianity in particular – which shouldn’t come as any surprise since I am, after all, a Christian priest.

But, more specifically, I am interested in the ways in which religion intersects with society and culture. Human beings are essentially religious animals, just as we are also artistic, scientific and political animals. We don’t get a choice about that, it’s simply the way it is. The only thing we get to choose is our object of worship. And, believe me, we all have (at least) one of those!

It may not have anything to do with the historical traditions we refer to as ‘the religions’, but we all inhabit a worldview, based on certain taken-for-granted assumptions, which provides us with narratives of meaning and purpose, an instinctive grasp of right and wrong, and our sense of group identity. Understood in these terms, we are all ‘religious’, whether we would describe our worldview as a religion, as such, or not.

I find it intriguing to see how these various strands of innate religiosity weave their way through our lives at both the personal and the societal level. For example, politics is always based on religion – even in the so-called ‘secular’ west – in the sense that laws derive from ethical assumptions and these in turn are formed by the worldview we collectively inhabit, whatever that may be. This is why it is impossible fully to understand the political dimensions of contemporary society, and in particular the so called ‘culture wars’, without bringing a theological lens to bear on the matter.

I also think it is fascinating to observe that we are now rather unexpectedly entering an age of re-enchantment, albeit tinged with a sometimes sinister technological edge. It is deeply ironic that a technology built on the hard-nosed assumptions of scientific materialism is now the principal driver of metaphysical speculation, as we find ourselves seriously debating the possibility of conscious machines. Unfortunately, however, having dismissed metaphysical language as being without meaningful content, a public discourse conditioned by positivism has left us without the vocabulary to engage with these developments at anything other than the most superficial level.

In a further ironic twist, it is the ancient religious traditions of the world that may offer the best – and, indeed, only – tools for understanding and engaging with novel varieties of non-human intelligence. This is a theme I hope to explore further and more widely in time to come, as I have a feeling our real problems are only just beginning.

I don’t suppose we will agree about everything – perhaps we won’t agree about anything – but I hope you will find at least some of what I produce here to be of interest to you. Perhaps you might also know other people who would find my work interesting too, in which case please do forward them a link.

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Finally, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you for subscribing to my Substack. I hope you are enjoying the articles that I put out from time to time. I’d especially like to thank those of you who have taken out a paid subscription. This is not only very much appreciated for all the obvious reasons, but it also incentivises me to make more effort. With that in mind, I intend to try and increase my output over the next few months, as I no longer have to prioritise writing the book.

All the best for now, and I hope to be in touch again soon.