Subtitle: Trading our need to be noticed for a hidden life with Christ
John Starke starts his book with the pastoral crises of professionals during the covid lockdowns. He helpfully shows how we have moved from expressive individualism to performative individualism. People no longer seek to express their inner self with freedom, but a carefully curated self for the approval of others.
He then connects this to religion, performative spirituality done for others, and the safety of this performance and presented righteousness. Then he brings us to the ancient critique of religion in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). Doing your religion before men, for their approval, misses out on the true heart of religion according to Jesus. Instead, true religion is hidden time with God, in which God himself is our reward, not the approval of others. After meditating on the sermon on the mount, the book helps us to see periods of seeming dormancy as growth period. The kingdom does not work by ever greater optimisation but by seeds seeming to die, and God raising them to life and fruitfulness in his time. We are called to faithful and joyful abiding over optimization and new techniques.
I found this book refreshing and relevant. I suspect many busy Christians would too.
Jots and Scribbles 