A Heart on Fire: Catholic Witness and the Next America, by Charles J. Chaput

It's a familiar tale, at least to Christians who care about the fabric of American society: the Christian faith shaped the American character from its founding, but as Christianity has lost influence, American culture has crumbled.  In A Heart on Fire, Charles Chaput, Archbishop of Philadelphia, challenges American Catholics to "recapture the nobility of the human story and the dignity of the human person" by starting a "revolution of love."

Chaput argues that the principles that have made America great are derived from a Christian worldview.  He writes, "The American experience of personal freedom and civil peace is inconceivable without a religious grounding and a predominantly Christian inspiration."  The trouble is that dying spirituality and increasing materialism have, as John Courtney Murray said, "given citizens everything to live for and nothing to die for."  The problem is that "without the restraints of a moral consensus animated and defended by a living religious community, the freedom of the individual becomes a license for selfishness." 

A Heart on Fire is Chaput's prophetic call to Catholics and all Christians to renew the nation's life of faith.  It's a short essay, more an extended magazine or journal article than a stand-alone book, but worth reading for a reminder of where we've come from as a nation, where we've ended up, and a challenge not to continue the way we've been going.





Thanks to Edelweis and Waterbrook Multnomah for the complimentary review copy.