THE JOURNEY

A debut faith guide aims to help Christians find the path to Jesus.

Letkemann’s slim book melds a wide-ranging scriptural literacy with strong elements of autobiography to craft a series of meditations on many aspects of Christian life. The author reflects on her life with her husband, Jake, and her experiences in her own faith community. Throughout the narrative, the author presents herself in a relaxed, mostly nonjudgmental stance, casually mentioning recently reading one biblical passage or another. And several of the book’s core teachings are likewise appealingly informal, with Letkemann regularly advising her readers to enter a personal relationship with Jesus in order to renovate their spiritual lives. She stresses that God is in the details: The point of faith is intimacy. She learned this through gradual steps, at first mistakenly asking herself, “Is this problem big enough to ask for help, or should I just be quiet and handle it myself?” She urges readers to realize that to ask this kind of question is to miss the point about the ongoing revelation that a relationship with the Christian God should be. Some of this will be familiar to fundamentalist Christians, the notion of “let go and let God.” “When I’ve done all that God asked me to do, I release my faith and leave the rest to Him,” she writes. “Why not entrust it to the only One who can make a difference?” Scattered throughout the text are also the type of errors and debatable interpretations that such books often feature. For example, “God created every creature on earth in pairs,” Letkemann writes. At another point, she asserts that the Bible is “the source of over six hundred fulfilled prophecies, many of which are verifiable.” But the guide’s central question will be telling for any Christian reader: “If I was put on trial for believing in Jesus, would there be any evidence to convict me?” As the author warns her readers, if the answer is no, there’s a problem.

A friendly, uplifting manual that challenges Christians to deepen their beliefs.