We never read apart from our experience of the rest of life. My own reading of A Brutal Unity was overshadowed by an exciting but overwhelming task whose discharging lay just on the other side of the Covenant retreat in La Porte.
The whole notion, which shows up with dogmatic insistency in A Brutal Unity, that conscience is something that can and should be sacrificed will appear to many Christians as an incomprehensible foreign intrusion into what we take to be the very essence of Christian existence.
The Covenant Seminar was just what I needed. Of course, the fellowship was delightful: to form new bonds of friendship and renew old ones is a valuable thing in itself. The beautiful setting, reverent worship, and time away from my parish all worked their medicinal effects.
Of all the delights in the day-to-day work of the Living Church Foundation, the greatest may be the opportunity we have to encourage and give voice to young leaders in the Church, and to be challenged and refreshed by them in turn.
