“The Creed in Slow Motion”, by Martin Kochanski (Hodder & Stoughton 2022), ISBN 9781399801546.
Get it! And if you’ve already got it, get your friends to get it. It’s that good!!
How to get it
About the book
“You shall love the Lord your God with… all your mind.” That is the commandment as stated in the Gospels. It is new: the Old Testament does not mention the mind. It is new and it is revolutionary.
We can all make sense of God: If we couldn’t, he wouldn’t be so cruel as to command us to do something that can’t be done.
We should each of us try doing it: this is not something to be left to the experts. It isn’t a question of “getting the right answer”. It is a question of getting close to God in every way we can. Including using the mind as an organ of love.
The Creed is the key. It tells the deep truths that make Christians Christians. It says what being a Christian is. If you disagree with everyone you meet in church and think the people who try to teach you things are all idiots, but believe what the Creed says, you are a Christian (though a turbulent one!). And if you call yourself a Christian but don’t believe in something the Creed says, then it is your duty to investigate. Don’t just sit there grumbling. Dig deep. Think what the Creed really means. Think what you really mean. You may be surprised!
Slow motion is the key. For people who recite the Creed in church, it is like a cavalry charge. One hesitation and you get out of step, and get trampled. There is no time to pause and think what any of it really means. What you really need to do is go go slowly, phrase by phrase, even word by word, alone or with someone you can argue with. The Creed in Slow Motion is the book for that encounter. It is not a textbook or a holy manual – it does not tell you what to believe, but in 40 short but deep chapters, phrase by phrase, it reflects, expounds and explores.
The Creed in Slow Motion assumes no knowledge of theology: being human is all you need. Full of wit and clarity, it draws examples from real-life stories, history and even science. It will help believers to understand what they are committing themselves to; and unbelievers to know what exactly they disbelieve, and why.
Read the introduction and a sample chapter.
Listen to a 1-minute taster of every chapter.
About the author
Martin Kochanski holds an MA in Mathematics and Philosophy from the University of Oxford. For the last twenty-five years he has been creating, editing and expanding Universalis, a web site and set of apps which bring the prayers, psalms and readings of the Liturgy of the Hours of the Catholic Church into everyone’s reach. Across the world tens of thousands of people, from all denominations, use it daily.
Listen to him telling you about the book (2 minutes).