Everywhere Present: Christianity in a One-Storey Universe Paperback – February 15, 2011

This is one of my favorite books of recent years. I have purchased and given away a number of copies to people I think would appreciate it. It fits, for me, with C.S. Lewis' "Abolition of Man" (although much easier to read) and other books describing how our contemporary world has lost its sense of personhood in relationship and replaced it with individuality and narcissism. (It is very interesting to read this book side-by-side with "The Screwtape Letters").This book can be read at an intellectual level, considering the insights into our culture's contemporary worldview, and what it has cost us. On that level, it points out clearly where breaks have occured, and what they look like. This is how I read the book the first time, getting the major points, not always understanding the details. I did find it quite enlightening to read how popular Christianity is, in many ways, functionally athiestic. It helped me understand how Christians can believe in Christ and still behave the way we do sometimes.Having heard Fr. Stephen's podcasts on Ancient Faith Radio, I knew there had to be more to his book, so I read it a second time. This time I began to start thinking about what my life would be like if I really believed and acted like the universe had one storey - if God really WAS everywhere present. What would it be like if what we call miracles are an everyday occurance? What if I saw God everywhere? What if I really acted like God could be seen in the faces of the people around me? What would my life be like? How would I behave? A new storey opened up in the book, so to speak. The monks of Mar Saba live in a world most of us can't see - I suspect a world much more fully real than ours. What would I have to change to be more fully real (more fully present?) myself?Here is where the book really becomes powerful. The seemingly redundant or obscure points need to be explored. They need to be chewed on. They need to be wrestled with. Most of all, they need to be taken seriously. This book can challenge your assumptions about reality. It can change your life. I have a friend who says, "watch out for short books, they'll get you." This is one of those books.Disclaimer: I am an Orthodox Christian. This book is written by an Orthodox priest and is written from that perspective. Sometimes it may seem alien. It might be.

Father Freeman makes an excellent case for the singularity of the church, even though he straightforwardly promotes the eastern orthodox tradition. Rom 14:5, ...one considers one day above another day, another person considers every day alike. Let each be fully persudaed in his own mind (my paraphrase recollection of the text) seems to offset his argument for the value of icons as a mandatory view of all christians but strongly supports his view of the evils of iconoclastic perspectives. Though he obviously is advocating a tradition he by no means trivializes or dismisses a reality and knowing of God through the revelation in Jesus in many other traditions and points of view. His very strong points of cultural adoption of a secularized view since the reformation are well taken and also not aimed at taking a swipe at protestant theology. He just states that the common sense adoption of a "neutral" stance of society toward religion results in a society of practical atheists, even while holding a religious position. He rightly does not offer a political solution but maintains that keeping an active awareness of God in everyday practice as the appropriate way to contest the "ways of the world".Also shown is the similarity in spirit of literalism (both liberal and conservative varieties) to the. secular view of walking by sight and not by faith. This is excellent analysis simply put. He does not offer a method, as it were, to understanding or applying a different interpretive lense which likely would not sit well with a typical western reader. But that is the point. The weight of truth in being is not to be found first in facts, then in allegorical interpretation. Observable external facts do not legitimize greater truth. The first truth is not what we see; not that we dismiss what we see, we admit to our perview a God who simpy IS, and IS beyond the life and death and struggles of our lives. Mentally we integrate that truth into the thoughtwork of our lives. This is the 1 story world, as I understand Freeman. This is also 1 communion, 1 common experience available to all people, 1 common community.

I think this is a compelling read in parts and a brilliant idea. I think it was overly dense on Orthodox quotes and could have done with more Western input on sacramental cosmology eg. C S Lewis etc.