The Romance of Religion: Fighting for Goodness, Truth, and Beauty by Dwight Longenecker, 214 pages
In this book, Fr Longenecker describes the life of faith as a romantic adventure, a quest for truth motivated by love. Like a knight errant seeking the recognition of his lady by acts of courage and self-sacrifice, the true religious believer, far from resting secure in self-righteous complacency, is drawn by the beauty of the Beloved to brave every danger - inner demons being even more formidable than external monsters. The hero of faith, like the hero of chivalry, is fully aware of his own unworthiness of his Beloved.
In Fr Longenecker's account, this is not only a coincidental correspondence, rather, the truths of faith are the source of the romantic ideal. The love affair between Bridegroom and bride, between God and man, is the original love affair of which all others are analogies, the Song of Songs is the love song of which all others are echoes.
There is not much truly original here, but it is a modern and readable portrait of a faith which is enlivening instead of stultifying, in the tradition of Lewis and Chesterton.
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