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Patriot

Oct 17, 2025 | 2025 - Winter - Free, Book Reviews

Patriot

Author Alexei Navalny
Publisher Penguin £10.99
Format pbk
ISBN 9781529933659

Every era has its heroes. Alexi Navalny is one of ours, but his heroism is of a particularly discomfiting kind. For most of us, his decision to return to Russia from Germany, after an almost-successful attempt on his life in 2020, lies somewhere on the line between bewildering and indefensible: the inducements to lead his opposition party from a distance were so strong, incarceration so certain, death so likely. And yet, Navalny’s determination not to abandon the people and country he loved holds out a stunningly Christian hope and promise. Atheist by birth and by intellectual persuasion, Navalny describes the moment when, in the face of his new-born daughter, his godless certainties tumbled, and faith arose. It is an almost Pauline conversion, told very simply. This is not a book about faith, but it is about a life whose outrageous altruism and courageous leadership are made possible by confidence in and connection to God who, in words smuggled out of the corrective colony where he died, is the one Alexei credits with ‘[taking] my punches for me’. This is a big, brave book. Read it!

Reviewed by DEE MOLTON

Autobiography

 

Evangelism in an Age of Despair

Oct 17, 2025 | 2025 - Winter - Free, Book Reviews

Evangelism in an Age of Despair

Author Andrew Root
Publisher Baker Academic £22.99
Format pbk
ISBN 978154096875

Andrew Root is based at Luther Seminary, USA. This book is an attempt to re-think evangelism, contextualising it in our late modern times where ‘anxious, stressed, angry people’ live ‘sad’ lives, over-committed to striving for happiness instead of seeking a consolation that feeds soul rather than self, rooted in the theology of the cross. There are two distinct strands to the book: firstly, the moving story of a fictional church that shows us how an evangelism of consolation might work in practice. Secondly, extensive discussion of philosophical and theological thought through past ages, centred around figures such as Montaigne, Pascal, Gregory of Nyssa, Jean Gerson, Johann von Staupitz and Martin Luther. This is a complex book and is most suitable for academics and theologians, yet its central argument is something I can endorse from my own journey – that people often connect (and evangelise) best through sharing and owning times of loss and struggle, ultimately finding meaning and hope in a God who suffers with and for us.

Reviewed by APRIL McINTYRE

Evangelism

 

Curating Spaces of Hope

Oct 17, 2025 | 2025 - Winter - Free, Book Reviews

Curating Spaces of Hope

Author Matthew Barber-Rowell
Publisher SCM Press £40
Format pbk
ISBN 9780334065104

In uncertain times, with society in crisis, a shared sense of hope is ever more important. This book expounds how individuals, communities, institutions and faith-based organisations can work together locally to engender a sense of hope in the shared public spaces in society. Barber-Rowell argues for a local collaborative leadership practice which he terms ‘transformational,’ and shows how this can facilitate such hope. He draws on and reinterprets for contemporary relevance the Christian social ethics in the William Temple tradition. He also draws at length on his personal life journey and several case studies he has been involved in, to illustrate his argument for the creation and curation of hope in shared public spaces. Enlisting several intellectual writers to bolster his case (Gramsci gets a whole chapter), his erudition shows. In some passages I found that this, plus his deep analyses of terminology and concepts and detailed narration of case studies required concentrated, patient reading. However, his impassioned argument should interest all who can potentially contribute to the kind of social movements he advocates. He argues that means all of us.

Reviewed by PETER WRIGHT

Theology and social ethics

 

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