New Room Around the Table

One can make all sorts of analogies with which to compare the craft of writing, but there's one analogy I know doesn't fit.

Writing, for me at least, is nothing like a pipe. As a former pipe smoker, I know the proper way to keep a pipe proper is (1) to clean it after usage but also to (2) use only one type of tobacco for each pipe. The bowl of the pipe gets used to that tobacco, which creates a "cake" or character to the pipe itself. Some writers get into the "cake" of a pipe and stick with one basic genre or shade of writing. Early on, I was sure I'd be writing nothing but murder mysteries for as long as I could keep Cameron Ballack's wheelchair wiles going. Then, I branched into creative re-telling of the major epochs of the Christian faith, as the Merivalkan Chronicles were born. But never, never did I imagine my latest venture would bear fruit.

Non-fiction. Yeah, I know. What was I thinking?

I compare writing non-fiction to running a 10K race in three feet of cooked oatmeal, to being dropped into Tokyo with neither city map at my disposal nor any working knowledge of Japanese, or to driving in the Indianapolis 500 with the parking brake fully engaged.

So, what caused me to take a shot?

Simply put, I teach ethics at Westminster Christian Academy in St. Louis, and over the past ten years, I became painfully aware of something. Any text we used for class tended to be over the heads of garden-variety high school sophomores and juniors. Anything that went into detailed depth made the waters more murky. I looked around for books that weren't simplistically juvenile, nor would they be too dense.

Nothing I could find, so I was griping about that one day to my wife when Christi said something along the lines of "You know, you've taught Ethics long enough...if you want something done right, you could write your own book."

I thought she was joking. Or daring me to go into the writer's equivalent of The Princess Bride's Pit of Despair. But she was serious and believed I could do it. I didn't. Crazy me, I went ahead.

I didn't want this to be a standard ethics text. I wanted it to be accessible for high school students, serious collegians, and adults who might use it in adult Bible study or Sunday school classes. I didn't want to get mired in the proverbial Slough of Despond. I wanted the book to be clear so that it made sense. I wanted it to be conversational so it wouldn't be so bookish and would engender further conversation. And I wanted it to be concise; I wanted to take the reader through short chapters, a portion of the way through major issues, but then trust them to study on their own further. The more I thought, the more I believed this could work.

You can do all that but still fail in the quest to get it into print. Thankfully, I connected with Christian Focus Publications in the Highlands of Scotland, a group that has done sterling work on my dad's literary output of Biblical commentaries. From start to finish, Christian Focus has been a top-shelf, A-plus organization with which to work (and the fact that my fiction publisher stateside is a Scot is not lost on me!) and the whole process has gone swimmingly.

So swimmingly, in fact, that on May 8th, my new book Tough Issues, True Hope: A Concise Journey Through Christian Ethics will be released via Christian Focus. In 240 pages, I dive into 20 different ethical issues that hit the core of what it means to live in God's world. Over the next few weeks, I'll talk about why I chose the topics I did, but for now, a bit of overall vision should suffice.

Aside from its accessibility, what else sets this book apart from other ethical explorations? Yes, it presents moral living from the standpoint of the Bible, but my point is not to bludgeon people with a Scriptural sledgehammer. It is not only a new book about ethics but a new way of entertaining the Biblical view of how to live. Common sense thinking and logic will buttress, not deny, Scriptural insight, so I happen to use story, thoughtful questions, and logical proddings that ask "What if God is taken out of the equation? Then what? Do we still end up where the Bible directs?" And we find the answer is yes. I'd like to think that's a fresh way of doing moral theology.

That approach resonates with people, one of whom was among those who endorsed my book. Tony Giles, friend and mentor, had this to say: "Peppered with anecdotes and soaked in Scripture, the reader learns to think carefully and live wisely. And all along the way, [Davis] makes room around the table for those who may not accept the Bible as authoritative."

Those words are so gratifying and humbling. Personal story, Scriptural reliance, careful inquiry, wise living. And something that I would hope followers of Jesus would model more and more: creating that room around the table for skeptics and seekers who may not "be there" just yet.

There is new room around the table, and it releases in thirteen weeks. More to come in future posts, but if you want to pre-order now (either at the Amazon hyperlink above or directly from Christian Focus)...I mean, I wouldn't dare stop you!

Next post: The obvious candidates [Moral issues that were a slam-dunk for inclusion].