Unapologetic

The anti-John Gray – and, in purely literary terms, the best writer on my list, which is saying something. It’s not, Francis Spufford says, an apologetic, a reasoned defence of faith. It’s a personal account of why his Christianity makes emotional sense to him, and why it might make emotional sense to other people too. Worth reading for his retelling of the life of Jesus alone. He doesn’t deal with the intellectual questions of religion vs. atheism (though he has some sly hints). What he does is explain why you might want to deal with those questions. So it’s an… show more.

Spufford, an award-winning English author and writing professor, shows his skill in a frank conversational style about Christianity’s appeal…to the emotions. Rather in the manner of a clever chap holding forth over several cups of coffee (or, indeed, beers down at the pub), Spufford puts his own soul under the spotlight in a disarming appeal to how things deeply feel, not just how they might appear under the cold light of reason.