Why I’m Writing a New Book — Jonathan Parnell

Call me a sucker for anything by Herman Melville.

The sun was still coming up when my friend Matthew, a middle-aged agnostic scholar in American literature, sat across from me in a Minneapolis coffee shop. He loves Melville. Whether Moby Dick or a less popular short story, he can’t get enough of arguably America’s greatest novelist.

“He’s Shakespeare-caliber,” he said to me.

“Really?” I wondered, fascinated by the professor’s curt infatuation. I wanted to know what Matthew considered so special about Melville. In particular, I wanted to know why my secularist friend finds him so captivating. “What’s his deal?” I asked. “What was he trying to do?”

“Just show the tragedy that is life,” Matthew came back, looking me in the face like nothing else needs to be said.

Oh, I See

We continued talking long after this dialogue, but something clicked for me in that moment. Here was my friend — no doubt a thinker — but someone who really loves to feel. He values honesty, especially the honesty found in those stories that reach deep inside the heart of what it means to be human. He likes authors who understand people enough to know what frustrates us to the core — or makes us sad, or angry, or hopeful. Melville is the exemplar — Matthew would chime in here — and that’s why he likes him so much.

Intellectual inhibitions to the gospel aside, cynicism toward American religiosity put on hold, my friend just likes a good story — which means, the best way for me to tell him about Jesus isn’t through an apologetic book that answers objections to Christianity. I actually tried that already. I recommended he check out one of the most popular apologetic books out there today, written by a widely respected author. But that book, outlined in the order of various objections, didn’t help him.

Should I have expected otherwise? He’s used to hearing Melville speak to his soul, and I gave him a logic-laden treatise on how the gospel circumvents skepticism. I was beginning to discover that what would be most useful to my friend, and to anyone new to Christianity, was a book that centered on the content of the gospel but was written from the perspective of our greatest longings — longings that are ubiquitous to the human experience.

So Then

It’s a good thing that we have books that rehearse the storyline of the Bible. Those are needed, and often helpful, but the question remains of what relevance the storyline has to the average reader? Instead, what if a book freshly articulated the biblical storyline from the angle of persuasion, tapping into those feelings we all share as humans? What if it started with our deepest cravings and then let the Christian story connect the dots, giving us the background and then the solution.

I began to realize that I wanted to give my friend, and the several Christians I shepherd at Cities Church in Minneapolis, a book that was about the gospel, not skepticism; one that was deeply heartfelt, but not chicken soup; introductory, but not elementary; serious, but not intimidating. That was the kind of book I needed for Matthew.

And that’s when I realized I wanted to write it.

This book, titled Glory and Gladness, is, by God’s grace, currently in motion with WaterBrook Multnomah. If you’re interested in updates on this writing project, drop your email in the subscription box at the bottom of this page. This will put you on a list that receives exclusive info on how things are coming along, including some ways that I could use your help. I’d love to connect with you.