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Faith in the Fool ? Risk & Delight in the Christian Adventure

Author:	Angela Ashwin
Published By:	Darton, Longman and Todd (London)
Pages:	190
Price:	£12.95
ISBN:	978 0 232 52770 4

Reviewed by Alun Brookfield.

The author of this intriguing book is a well-established writer of books on prayer and spirituality. She is also a retreat leader and speaker, and also, according to the cover blurb, “accompanies many fellow pilgrims on their spiritual journey”. Here she has written about the fact that following Christ is often best accomplished by playfulness, foolishness and downright uselessness!

As one who encourages fun and joy in parish life and ministry, I warm to this theme. It often seems to me that we take our Christianity not seriously enough, while taking ourselves far too seriously. Angela Ashwin encourages us to do it the other way around, based on the premise that only by taking ourselves less seriously can we ever begin to understand the heart of our Christian faith. Amen to that!

Having said all that, and while encouraging readers of Ministry Today to buy and read this book, I confess that I found it hard to read. It seemed to me to be somewhat repetitive - there are only a limited number of ways in which one can make the point and it’s hard to improve on the way Jesus said it: “If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it”, for example (Matthew 16.25).

So I recommend you don’t do what I tried to do (because I’d been asked to review the book!) - don’t try to read this at one sitting. Better to take the author’s advice and either dip into at will, or, if you prefer, take one section at a time, with plenty of space for other activity in between. Read in that way, this a thoroughly rewarding book. There’s certainly plenty of sermon material here for the preachers among us.

In the 30 short chapters, divided into five ‘Parts’, Ashwin reflects first on the value of uselessness, childlikeness, imperfection, simplicity and vulnerability - all of which are despised by the world as being foolish. Then she shows how these things, while appearing foolish, are actually the most valuable virtues of all, because of the way in which they lead to other virtues.

If you’re a working minister, trying to develop Christian community, this is a must-read book. Totally counter-intuitive, it is full of deep truths.