A New Freedom by Youthworks

MIKE SNOWDON

A NEW FREEDOM HOW GOD’S WORD EQUIPS YOU FOR LIFE

An imprint of Anglican Youthworks Published April 2022 Copyright © Michael Snowdon 2022 This book is copyright. Apart from fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism and review as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part of this book may be reproduced by any process without the express permission of the publisher. Scripture quotations taken from the Christian Standard Bible®, Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible® and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers. Youthworks Media PO Box A287 Sydney South NSW 1235 Australia P: +61 2 8268 3309 E: sales@youthworks.net W: youthworksmedia.net National Library of Australia ISBN: 978-1-925879-94-0 ISBN: 978-1-925879-95-7 (eBook) Project editor: Rachel Macdonald Editor: Lisa Neale Theological editor: Guan Un Cover and internal design: Andrew Hope Images: shutterstock.com/unsplash.com

FOREWORD What’s the point of being a Christian? Putting it another way, we know what the gospel is—but what is it for? How should it affect our real lives? Yes, we need to study the Bible and learn to pray. But what about poverty, climate change, homelessness and people-trafficking? And getting more personal, how should the gospel affect the way we think and feel about ourselves— our sense of self-worth and importance, our friendships, our intense sexual feelings and desires? Being a Christian—an authentic Christian—means facing up to these questions. It has never been easy, but now it seems harder than ever. In many places in today’s world, the old Christian values have been pushed aside to make way for radical new ideas about what it means to live a good life. The new ‘me culture’ dazzles us with stories of people discovering the freedoms of ‘just being yourself’. ‘You be you!’ What’s not to like? It sounds good but it isn’t working. People are lonelier; our sex lives are no better than before; and mental health problems—especially anxiety and low resilience—are increasing. Now is the time for Christians to rediscover their story because it’s a good story. A better story. In these pages, Mike Snowdon opens the way to a new freedom. Taking the Bible as God’s big story, Mike doesn’t duck the hard questions. But rather than giving us the rules, he shows us what we are for, rather than what we are against. He shows how the gospel really is good news—good for heart and mind, for body and soul, for relationships and intimacy. Good for all those looking for something more than ‘just being myself’. If you want to be real about your faith, an authentic Christian with a sense of purpose and meaning to your life, this is the book for you. Glynn Harrison Former professor and consultant psychiatrist, author of A Better Story: God, Sex and Human Flourishing

ED SHAW Director of livingout.org, pastor of Emmanuel city centre and author of The Plausibility Problem: The Church and Same-Sex Attraction

THE REV DR ANDREW CAMERON Director of St Mark’s National theological centre and author of Joined-Up Life: A Christian Account of How Ethics Works

SARAH BREUEL Director of Revive Europe and evangelism training coordinator for IFES Europe

PABLO MARTÍNEZ Psychiatrist, author and bible teacher

PHILIPPIANS 1:9–11

CONTENTS Preface

PART 1—THE THEORY

Chapter 1 · I want to be free

Chapter 2 · Getting the right equipment

Chapter 3 · A kite for all conditions

PART 2—THE PRACTICE SESSIONS

Chapter 4 · A new freedom to be a student

Chapter 5 · A new freedom to use money

Chapter 6 · A new freedom to confront suffering

112

Chapter 7 · A new freedom to combat violence

136

Chapter 8 · A new freedom to love sex

160

Chapter 9 · A new freedom to be yourself

190

Epilogue: Graduation day

226

Appendix: How to faithfully approach a Bible text

229

Thanks!

243

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PREFACE ABOUT ME I’m Mike. I live for Jesus, my King and Saviour—he died in my place to reconcile me with God, even though I had rejected him. I love seeking to honour him with my whole life. I’m married to Tania and we have four little boys. We’re all redheads from Australia who have been living in Valencia, Spain, for the past nine years. Through the Church Missionary Society (CMS), I’ve been working with Grupos Bíblicos Estudiantiles (GBE, ‘Student Bible Groups’) to help Spanish youth meet Jesus. This has involved developing resources like this book. I now live in Sydney, Australia, helping youth here to meet Jesus too.

WHAT IS THIS BOOK? Think of this book as a training manual in how to approach life, a beginner’s guide to Christian ethics. The first three chapters outline a framework for approaching any ethical topic in a comprehensive and faithful way. They also explain why Jesus and his word help us live freer than any other approach. The last six chapters give practical examples of how to use this framework, thinking through specific topics. But they can’t provide all the answers, and many topics aren’t covered. Going through the theory and then the early practice topics will give you the basis for living well and approaching the later chapters. You’ll need to at least skim through the theory chapters or WATCH THE VIDEO SUMMARY before getting started on any topic chapter.

Preface 9

WHY THIS BOOK? I’ve written this book for teenagers with two aims in mind: 1. to show that the Bible is God’s good word for his world 2. to offer practice in discovering and living out God’s goodness. I grew up in Sydney, Australia. My mum taught me about Jesus from before I can remember and took me to church, where I got to know Jesus better. Then at high school and university, doubts started surfacing. A number of people, confident in the Bible’s goodness and clarity, challenged me to investigate the Bible for myself. I became convinced that Jesus was not only real and my Saviour, but the Lord of the universe. However, I often found myself disagreeing with family and friends on different issues. At times I thought they had good arguments and reasoning, particularly regarding things like love and sex, and all I could come back with was ‘The Bible says no!’ I was fighting hard to maintain my trust not only that the Bible was God’s word, but that it was good for me and our world. I started studying for Christian ministry at Moore Theological College in Sydney, Australia. The subjects on Christian ethics confirmed that not only did the Bible prove to be true and good, but it also gave me the best resource for discovering how to live well in our world. It presented goodness for every aspect of life, not just simple ‘No’ or ‘Yes’ answers. In Christian groups, I’d been given good examples of how the Bible did this, but I hadn’t identified what was actually being done. This was the first time I’d been made aware of a comprehensive framework for approaching life, using knowledge of God (sometimes called ‘theology’ or ‘doctrine’) alongside Bible texts. I was delighted when Dr Andrew Cameron, my ethics lecturer, published a summary of his material in a book, Joined-Up Life.1 Instead of doubting the Bible’s approach to life, I wanted to help others see its goodness. I especially wanted to help teenagers who were going through the same period of questioning and identity-discovery that I had gone through. In Spain I met a lot of teenagers from different churches. They were generally welltaught with a good knowledge of who God was, but hadn’t grown to trust the truth

Dr Andrew Cameron and Dr Andrew Ford were my lecturers, and I am indebted to their teaching for most of the ideas I’ve included in this book. See Cameron, A 2011, Joined-up Life: A Christian Account of How Ethics Works, Inter-Varsity Press, Nottingham.

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of the Bible themselves. When it came to living it out, they would say, ‘My church says I can do this but not that’. But they found it hard to defend the Bible’s goodness when others questioned their decisions. Our friends working with teenagers in Australia were seeing the same thing. Christian kids wouldn’t necessarily believe what was said about God and trust that his way was good. Their friends were no longer believing that the Bible and Christians were good. Instead, they saw both as representing slavery and oppression. I became convinced that Christians would greatly benefit from both reading God’s word for themselves and engaging with a framework for Christian ethics. I wanted to present Andrew Cameron’s Joined-Up Life framework in an accessible way that would accompany youth as they began to read the Bible for themselves. If I could go back in time, it’s what I would want to give to my teenage self to help me both trust that the Bible is God’s good word for his world, and learn about and practise how to discover and live out that goodness. I’m praying that it does just that for you.

WHY THE BIBLE? The best way to discover that the Bible is God’s good word for his world is to read it. You might be thinking, But Mike, you can’t say that I should trust the Bible because the Bible tells me to—that’s a circular argument! You’re right. But there’s a good reason that it’s circular—the Bible claims to be God’s word. Here’s one example:

2 TIMOTHY 3:16a

This is part of a letter in the New Testament written by Paul, a first century Christian who wrote much of the New Testament and was instrumental in the early church. When he says ‘Scripture’ he’s referring to the collected writings of the Old Testament which we now find in the Bible. Other parts of the New Testament then refer to Paul’s letters as ‘Scripture’ (2 Peter 3:16), and so on until we see all 66 books as ‘Scripture’. This means that that the whole Bible is ‘inspired by God’—literally ‘breathed out’ by God. Each word is not just a person’s word but God’s word. Think about that for a moment. The most common way to get to know a person is by talking with them. If God has spoken, then he has revealed himself. This has FOUR BIG IMPLICATIONS FOR US and for how this book approaches how we use the Bible. THE BIG 4 … NINJA STYLE

Preface 11

1 · WHO YOU ARE MATTERS The Bible claims that it is God’s spoken word. God used words—a method of communication that we can understand and use daily. If this claim is true, then it means that God wanted to reveal himself to us, and chose to do that in a way that we could understand. This means that we matter so much that God decided to reveal himself to us! 2 · WE GET TO KNOW GOD THROUGH HIS WORD The Bible also claims that God is powerful and always speaks the truth. This means that his words don’t change, and will be effective in revealing who he is. The Bible will be consistent with itself, holding God’s authority. So, if the whole Bible is God’s word, we can trust that as we read it, we will get to know God. 3 · WE READ THE BIBLE TOGETHER The Bible is God’s word to us all, and so we read it in community. I can’t just tell you what it all means myself, as if I had authority over the Bible. I’m going to tell you what I’ve understood from it, but you have every right to disagree with me as long as you use the Bible to do it. We’ve got to work hard together at reading it well. We need to look at everything in its context, and see how each part fits within the bigger story (see the Appendix for a Bible-reading method). Together, we sit under the Bible’s authority, seeking to be humble and faithful in our reading. The Bible also claims that God helps us to read his word. The Holy Spirit helps us both individually and as a community to read it faithfully, recognise its truth and live well. We can ask him for help. 4 · GOD’S WORD INTERPRETS US As God reveals himself to us, he also reveals who we are. He interprets us. In revealing his purpose for life and the world, he shows up our own plans and dreams that don’t line up with what he wants for us. As he tells us what he loves, he uncovers what we do that he doesn’t like. So we’ve got to ask ourselves, Am I ready to change? However, I still haven’t answered that first question regarding the circular argument: how do you prove that it’s God’s word? The problem is that you can’t. The Bible claims to be the highest authority. Only God has the authority to prove to you that it is his word. Even a miracle happening before your eyes couldn’t prove it, because you’d first have to prove that the miracle came from God. How could you do that unless God proved it to you? So only God has the authority to tell you that his word is his word. It does my head in!

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Believing the Bible is God’s word is not like a mathematical formula where you just put in all the numbers to come up with the right answer. It’s more like science. To ‘prove’ it, we put it to the test. In order to do that, we’ve got to read it, and read it well (see the Appendix, p. 229). That’s why I’m convinced that the best way to help you trust that the Bible is God’s good word for his world is to read it with you.

WHICH BIBLE? There are lots of different versions. Most of these are different translations. English didn’t exist 2000 years ago! Most of the Old Testament was written in Hebrew and the New Testament was written in Greek. So for us to read the Bible together, we need a translation. I’ve chosen to use the same one throughout this book—the Christian Standard Bible (CSB). I think the translators have done a pretty good job of being faithful to the original texts and making it understandable in modern English. There are loads of other great translations too. If your Bible is a different translation, no worries. Keep it open as you read this book, and compare them. The differences can even help us to pay attention and work hard together at reading it faithfully.

WILL YOU READ WITH ME? I’ve said all this (about me, about why I’ve written this book, and about why I’ve used the Bible) because I really want you to read the Bible with me. Maybe you’re not a Christian, or maybe you’ve got serious doubts about God and are about to give up on him. I don’t want to manipulate you or make you into something you’re not. I want you to investigate the Bible and interrogate what I say about it. I want you to fight with all the ideas that you don’t think make sense. I know it’s going to feel a little one-sided because it’s a book rather than a conversation (though if we meet one day, I’d love to hear your thoughts!). I’m confident that if you read the Bible well, you will be convinced that it is God’s good word for his world.

Preface 13

Maybe you are a Christian, and you’re thinking, I already believe the Bible is God’s word and that it’s good. Why should I read this book? I believe that this book will help you to grow even more in your trust in God’s good word for his world. It will also give you some great tools and practice in how to better discover and live out that goodness. If, like me, you tend towards thinking you already know everything you need to know, it will be particularly helpful for you as long as you don’t approach it looking for quick fixes and more ways to win arguments. Instead of finishing with all the answers, I hope that you’ll get to the end and realise that things are far more complex than you once thought. But instead of causing you to give up, I hope you’ll feel excited about humbly and faithfully pursuing what God says is good for the rest of your life.

SOME TOOLS TO HELP YOU QR CODES The QR codes throughout this book direct you to videos that have something to do with the content near the codes. I appear in a number of them, so you’ll get to know me a bit more ‘in person’, too. If they are distracting and you would prefer to just read the book, feel free to ignore them. They complement the material, but are not essential. If a code doesn’t work or if your phone doesn’t read them, you can use THE ONLINE LIST OF LINKS to access them. Please feel free to use these videos in groups or at your church. THE APPENDIX, THE FIVE SENSES AND THE BIG BIBLE TABLE At the end of this book, you will find three tools designed to help you to read the Bible. The ‘Five Senses of Faithful Bible Reading’ (p. 240) is a step-by-step guide that you can use to read the Bible. The ‘Big Bible Table’ (p. 241) is a reference sheet. The Appendix (p. 229) explains these two tools in more detail and how to use them. It also complements the ‘kite’ framework that I present in this book, demonstrating the method that I have used to interpret the biblical texts that I use within the book. You could use these tools in your personal reading of the Bible, or in a group in your school, college, university or church. You can download printable copies of them from ANEWFREEDOM.NET. IDEAS FOR GROUP DISCUSSION To make the most of this book, the best thing would be to talk about the content with your friends or in a group from your church. Please don’t spend the whole time saying ‘Mike said this, so …’. I want you to pretend you’ve just listened to me read the chapter out loud, and then open

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your Bibles and interrogate what I’ve said. This is how you will grow in your trust of the Bible as God’s good word to his world. After reading a chapter, you could look up the text of the Bible that I used to talk about Jesus, read it among yourselves (and maybe also look at its context) using the ‘Five Senses of Faithful Bible Reading’, and then consider these three questions: 1. What stands out to you about Jesus from this text? 2. What do you think about what Mike said in the chapter? 3. How are you going to live out your new freedom this week? I’ve also provided more Bible references at the end of each ‘Practice session’ chapter (Chapters 4–9) that you could look up but which I haven’t talked about. Then, after thinking together about what the Bible says, use your group time to talk about what you will practically change in your life in light of what you have considered together. You can download detailed guides and more resources from ANEWFREEDOM.NET.

WHY DON’T I MENTION CORONAVIRUS? We were just about to publish A New Freedom when COVID-19 hit the world. In March 2020 everything was locked down in Spain, and Australia was not far behind. This put the brakes on all publication plans for both Spanish and English versions of this book. On the one hand, I was very thankful to God for the extra time that we had to revise the text and work on more resources to accompany it. On the other, due to the effects of the pandemic, I was concerned about the new challenges that Australian and Spanish youth would face, especially regarding sickness and death. After reviewing the whole book, we decided not to change anything (except for adding this paragraph), because we believe that what you have here is enough to help you confront the existence of evil and suffering (Chapter 6, p. 112). In fact, it’s made me even more confident that it will help you take on any other topic that may come up in the future.

SO … WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? Great job reading the Preface. Now it’s time to get into the book. I’ve prayed that you and all who will read it will grow in your trust that the Bible is God’s good word for his world, and that you’ll both learn and practise how to discover and live out that goodness. So with his help, let’s go for it!

PART 1 THE THEORY

THE THEORY PART 1

A QUICK SUMMARY OF THE THEORY

CHAPTER 1 I WANT TO BE FREE

chAPtER 1

I WANT TO BE FREE

Chapter 1 • I want to be free 17

WHY I HATE MENUS Imagine that it’s the holidays and you’re out with your friends and about to get some food at your local burger place. You’re all starving. You think you won’t have long to wait because there’s only one person ahead of you. But there’s just one problem. Me. I’m the guy in front of you. And I’m doing what I always do at burger places. Nothing. I’m crippled by options. It’s not that I don’t know the menu or like anything on it. It’s the opposite. So why am I still standing there in your way? I have no idea! I think my brain does something like this:

If you could hear my brain doing this, it would probably send you nuts. But that’s not all. You’d probably end up wanting to throttle me, because after those five minutes that felt like five years of waiting behind me, you’d hear me say to myself: ‘I’ll just get what I always get’. And then to the worker, ‘One standard burger meal, please’.

WHY DO I HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS? The problem isn’t that it takes me so long to make a decision. It’s all the questions going on in my brain at that moment of decision-making. I don’t want to make just a good decision, but the best decision. So I try to think through everything on the spot, and feel crippled by the options. I find myself making a decision for the sake of it. But the decision doesn’t come out of nowhere. Even with the burger menu, it’s based on a bunch of past experiences that are sitting in the back of my mind.

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If you’re anything like me, you go about your day with questions about anything and everything: • • • • • •

What clothes should I wear today? Who could I have lunch with? Which movie should we see? When can I check my apps? Where will be a quiet and comfortable place to read? How can I take my computer skills to the next level?

You want to do good things. You want to do the best things. And you’re not alone. But why do we have so many questions? They are our way of not only identifying what is the best thing to do, but justifying it too. After all, we know what it’s like when someone has a different idea about what the best thing is. How many times a day do you end up disagreeing with a parent or teacher or friend about the things you do? We’re all questioning, and it too frequently ends up in arguments as we fight about what we think is right and wrong, good and bad, best and second best. We shouldn’t expect anything different, right? When we begin working through our questions each day and confronting the decisions we need to make, it can be really challenging. At least at a burger place you know what you’re getting yourself into, and the options are limited. When it comes to making a decision about your career, things get pretty complicated. There are practical reasons for this, of course, like how much money you will need, the opportunities you have available, and the marks you get. There are also your own desires. These stem from your expectations, your hopes, your aspirations, your reputation, your priorities, your preferences and what you enjoy. But then there are lots of influences, too, whether they be your parents, your friends, your teachers, television or your culture. Everyone wants a say and seems to be formulating an opinion about what is good for you. No wonder we end up questioning our decisions!

DESCRIBING LIFE What we’ve just described is life. It’s not like a camping tent that comes with a stepby-step instruction booklet to piece it all together. It feels more like plasticine that someone’s thrown into your hands and told you to make something with. But how do you know if your choices are good? I want to be clear about something right from the outset. This book is not going to give you a bunch of answers to your questions. If anything, I’m hoping it might even make you ask more questions. (Whhaatt?!) Why?

Chapter 1 • I want to be free 19

Because life is much bigger than just moments of decision. If you’re after a quick fix for some particular problem, you’re not really going to get that here. We’re talking about something beyond that. I want us to think about what we go through to arrive at a decision, and what is going on inside us that brings us to that point. It’s not an external, distant process that can be churned out through a machine. We’re talking about our identity—what makes us who we are. Perhaps that’s quite a scary concept. If the decisions I make are actually tied up with who I am, then I might need to change not only my decisions but how I arrive at my decisions. The idea of changing can seem far more frightening than having to go through all the questions and doubts. Perhaps you feel that you could never change; like you’re trapped. But take heart. Freedom is within your reach. It’s a new freedom that enables you not only to make decisions, but to be who you are. Like becoming a skilled kitesurfer, you can train to soar confidently across this crazy sea that we call life.

LEARNING TO FLY Have you ever seen anyone kitesurfing? Or even done it yourself? It’s pretty impressive, and a little bit nuts. You attach yourself to a giant kite using a harness and long cables, then strap on a board. You direct the kite so that it’s caught by the wind, and then it drags you along so that you surf across the water.

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If you see someone doing it well, it’s amazing. Pro kitesurfers do tricks and flips and literally fly across the surface. But when someone is starting out, it’s painful, especially when the conditions are against them. The wind catches the kite a little too strongly, an unexpected wave pushes them up, and the surfer can be pulled right up into the air and then slammed down into the water.

OUCH

However, when you watch a seemingly hopeless beginner start to practise, you see them slowly get better. Sure, they crash, but as their ability increases, they learn to control their kite to navigate the wind and waves. As their confidence and skill grow,

Chapter 1 • I want to be free 21

they begin pulling off tricks. They keep learning from the pros until they not only fly, but soar. The kitesurfer isn’t defined by any one crash or trick. Their training, practice, strength and awareness of the surrounding conditions all contribute to who they are and how they perform. I reckon that the art of working through what is good or bad, of wading through the questions of life, is kind of like kitesurfing. But we don’t start as pros. Deep down, most of us feel like the helpless beginner. We feel like our decision-making kite has been caught by a strong wind, and we’re spiralling out of control. We’d love to be able to fly freely, to navigate the winds and waves of life confidently. But everyone else’s opinions come along and we can doubt our own. Then we crash in our insecurity and fear. We can feel like we’re never going to get anywhere. We can feel trapped. SERIOUS SKILLS!

I want to help you to learn to fly, to train and practise hard to become a skilled professional in confronting any topic or question that life throws at you. I’m hoping that you’ll grow in your ability to answer your friends when they question your decisions. You’ll not only have something to say that’s true and strong, but you’ll have confidence that it’s good news for your friends too. As we grow and practise together, hopefully people will start looking at us as ‘pro kitesurfers’ of life’s questions. Our decisions will entice them because they’ll see something of who we are—that what we say holds together, no matter what they throw at it. They’ll see that our choices aren’t the product of indecisiveness or excessive desires or pressure from others, and they’ll get a taste of our freedom.

SOMETHING BETTER This all sounds pretty good, right? But there’s a lurking question that I need to tackle right from the beginning: Where does this freedom come from? How can I say that my approach to working out right and wrong is freedom and that everyone else seems trapped? That sounds pretty arrogant. If we’re going to make a call about right and wrong, good and bad, we need to search for some sort of reason outside ourselves— otherwise it’s just each person’s opinion and we can all go back to disagreeing and questioning. In the following chapters, we are going to see that we use a whole load of reasons and foundations for calling things good or bad. Yet we—and our friends—struggle to find something that brings all these things together, that makes sense of our messy world. Something that offers us freedom.

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I’m thoroughly convinced that there is only one thing that does this—one thing that holds together no matter what you throw at it. Well, ‘thing’ is probably not the best word. His name is Jesus. Maybe you’ve read the Bible before; maybe not. It’s filled with some big claims about Jesus, calling him the Son of God, the Christ (God’s promised King), the only one who can save people. To introduce him, I want to show you just one sentence from the Bible that talks about Jesus:

COLOSSIANS 2:3

Wisdom and knowledge—that’s kind of what we’ve been talking about. Knowledge is about knowing things, having all the facts, understanding all the factors at play. But all the knowledge in the world is nothing if you don’t know how to use it. Using knowledge well in action is one way of talking about wisdom. COLOSSIANS The wise person sounds like a pro kitesurfer of life. They use their2:2–3 knowledge to

choose the good and avoid the bad. They see beyond their own desires and the influences of others. They’re free to make good decisions because of who they are. That’s what we want, isn’t it? We want to know how to navigate our decisions and confront life’s questions. We could call this pursuing knowledge and wisdom. The Bible says in the verse above that if we want these, then we’ve got to go to Jesus. He’s got them both. He is the ‘reason’ that brings all things together. But not just that. It says that all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are found in him. That’s not just a claim for Christians. That’s a universal claim. And if this claim is true, then it means that Jesus is not just the best but the only place to pursue knowledge and wisdom. They’re hidden in him. Independent of Jesus, we can never quite get there. He is the only one who can bring sense to the complexity behind our questioning and provide a unified framework for our reasoning. He offers a new freedom. But just saying the magic word ‘Jesus’ doesn’t suddenly answer all your questions. If we are going to become ‘pro kitesurfers’, it’s not going to be easy. It’s going to COLOSSIANS 1:15–20 take time and practice. Remember, we’re not just developing muscles. We’re going to be growing and shaping our identity. Sometimes that’s going to hurt. We’ll need to confront some of our habits and practices, our assumptions and presumptions, our ways of seeing the world and ourselves. Like kitesurfing, there are many, many COLOSSIANS 1:15

COLOSSIANS 1:18b

Chapter 1 • I want to be free 23

factors involved. But I can assure you that as we move forward, as we practise and learn, we’ll get better and grow in confidence.

THE TRAINING PROGRAM We’re going to need to understand a bit about this ‘sport’ before we get in and practise. The next two chapters break the theory down into two areas. First, we’ve got to make sure that we’re using the right equipment—a good ‘kite’. That is, we need a framework through which we can approach any question. We need to know that it will hold together and carry us through to arrive at an answer. We’ll think about the many ways in which both Christians and our world already do this, and see if we can build the best kite possible. Then, we’ll start thinking through all the conditions involved that we might not even realise are there. In the same way that a kitesurfer would learn about how the invisible wind can work, as well as about muscles and movements of their own body that they hadn’t noticed before, we’re going to try to notice both the undercurrents of our world that impact us (influences) and the hidden things going on inside us that guide our thinking (desires). After we’ve gone through the theory we’ll be ready to practise (Chapters 4–9). We’ll use our framework (kite) and knowledge of ourselves and our surroundings (conditions) to have a go at taking on a variety of topics. None of those chapters is going to provide all the answers to the topics we’ll cover. But I’m hoping that they’ll help us develop our moral imagination and processes for deciding whether something is good or bad. I’m also hoping that they’ll give us a new freedom to fly, not like crazy thrillseekers, but like professional athletes.