English Lessons

In a bravura series of essays, Lucado works through her feelings, her doubts, and even her embarrassment over her faith. Lucado, daughter of bestselling author and pastor Max Lucado, spent a year at Oxford Brooks University for grad school. She arrived in England a “good Christian girl”—one who hadn’t spent much time around the unchurched—and immediately, her faith was challenged. Did she only believe Christianity because she had been spoon-fed the doctrine her entire life? How much control did she have over her beliefs? Why did nonbelievers seem more content when she supposedly had the peace of God? When she met her match, a man who also grew up in the church but began to question what he believed after enrolling in a religious studies program, she finally had an outlet for her internal dialogue. At times Lucado’s prose beautifully captures the essence of her experience. On growing up a preacher’s kid where church members knew her by name, she says, “For me so many members existed only inside that building, as if they emerged from the walls on Sunday mornings and melted back into them afterward.” Other times she leaves the reader wishing for much more openness and honesty. Doubt and fear about spirituality can be scary, but Christians who are ready to face them will be glad to have Lucado right there with them. (May)