Every human and community experiences social maladies. American culture has long displayed symptoms of these pathologies—and American Christianity along with it. From susceptibility to conspiracy theories, vulgar aesthetic taste, avarice, smugness, partisanship, indifference to human suffering: Christians often showed themselves as spiritually unprepared as everyone else. Our imaginations need rescue, invigoration and expansion.

Holly Ordway knows the remedy must include the spiritual discipline of serious reading In Tales of Faith, she proves to be an excellent guide for a Christian reception of literature. The Cardinal Francis George Fellow of Faith and Culture at the Word on Fire Institute and Visiting Professor of Apologetics at Houston Baptist University, Dr. Ordway advocates evangelization through great literature; for beyond logic, we need beauty.

Her book’s first purpose is “to foster spiritual conversations that are inviting, enriching, and nonthreatening, and to find fresh ways to engage students with core Christian teaching in meaningful ways.”

Her second, related purpose is to foster “discipleship and catechesis” in those who already believe. To be evangelical witnesses, we need to be evangelized ourselves so the world sees us radiating Jesus’ radical humility and love; the self- emptying God who plummets into the extremity of every person’s human longing.

Toward this purpose, Ordway presents short selections from ancient, medieval and late medieval literature. She introduces each selection, recommends secondary resources, and discusses questions and suggestions for activities to amplify the reading experience. These reference art, drama, film, music and creative writing.

While the book successfully achieves its purpose, I do have a couple of slight quibbles. Only public domain translations were employed, which may not appeal to contemporary readers—the Beowulf excerpt comes to mind. If a modern mythographer was needed for the “Greek Myths” section, it should have been Edith Hamilton—or even better, Ovid. Similarly, the selected translations for The Odyssey, Oedipus Rex and The Aeneid tend to reduce literature to mere utility, sometimes failing to preserve the beauty.

Ordway is otherwise aware that if literature does not retain its integrity as something beyond its uses—even moral and evangelical—then it cannot lead us beyond ourselves.

The best approach uses Tales of Faith to frame the original materials. This should not deter us from reading Tales of Faith—Ordway displays the fruits of her “intellectual hospitality” and habit of sustained attention in this lovely guide to evangelizing both others and ourselves.

J. David Franks, Ph.D., is Director of the Trinity Institute for Leadership and Social Justice at Boston Trinity Academy and Chairman of the Board of Massachusetts Citizens for Life.

Tales of Faith: A Guide to Sharing the Faith through Literature by Holly Ordway; Word on Fire Institute, 2022; 192 pages