In Such Times

What are the fears that govern our lives? Why do we seldom share them with others? How do they inform the way we think of the politics of the day and the life of the church? These are some of the questions addressed by Lorraine Cavanagh in this short and readable book. Her reflections take us through the kind of private fears that originate in early childhood and remain deeply embedded in the adult psyche, so that they later shape the person's thinking and often define that person's life. They also emerge as fear worked out through the need for power and control over others and how that can lead to collective dependency on the kind of leaders we most fear.
Fear is also rooted in loneliness, the loneliness of the individual and the endemic loneliness of Western society, both of which we try to evade with the help of social media and the private screen worlds we inhabit. Through imaginative imagery drawn from the Christian tradition, In Such Times speaks of the need to re-learn trust in the corporate contexts of both church and world. As its title suggests, it is a book whose time has come.

""In this present season of anxiety, Lorraine Cavanagh's timely and trenchant exploration of the divisive effects of fear and the ways in which it alienates us from our true selves, one another, and the world around us could not be more urgently needed. Power masquerading as strength, be it political or ecclesiastical, is exposed as the mask fear wears in the threatening presence of the 'other.' In Such Times is far from a surrender to despair, but a clear call to recover in our personal and collective heart the re-creating and re-generating 'perfect love' worked in us by the Spirit which 'casts out fear.'""
--Frank T. Griswold, XXV Presiding Bishop, The Episcopal Church

""The Christian way might be seen by some of its cultured despisers as an evasion of suffering and fear, a fanciful, imaginary bulwark against the darkness. Religion can perform this kind of suspect ideological function. At its best, however, it is a springboard for living life courageously, with full creative awareness.""
--Stephen Pattison, University of Birmingham, UK

Lorraine Cavanagh is a theologian and an Anglican priest in the Church in Wales. Her books include Finding God in Other Christians, Making Sense of God's Love: Atonement and Redemption, and Waiting on the Word: Preaching Sermons That Connect People with God. She blogs at lorrainecavanaghsblog.wordpress.com.