To introduce readers to St. Francis of Assisi, Ian Morgan Cron–author, speaker, Episcopal priest, and psychotherapist–wrote Chasing Francis: A Pilgrim’s Tale. He’s also written a spiritual memoir: Jesus, My Father, the CIA, and Me: A Memoir…Of Sorts. As an adjunct priest at Christ Episcopal Church in Greenwich, Connecticut, he curates the Conversations in Courage and Faith series (www.courageandfaith.org). He is a student at Fordham University (The Jesuit University in New York), where he is completing his doctoral work in Christian spirituality. This busy man divides his time between living in Tennessee and Vermont with his wife and three children.

About this book: Pastor Chase Falson has lost his faith in God, the Bible, evangelical Christianity, and his super-sized megachurch. When he falls apart, the church elders tell him to go away: as far away as possible. He crosses the Atlantic to Italy to visit his uncle, a Franciscan priest. There he is introduced to the revolutionary teachings of Saint Francis of Assisi and finds an old, but new way of following Jesus that heals and inspires.

Genre: Fiction/Wisdom Literature

Judge this book by its cover? Yes. (This is a re-release from Zondervan, by the way. First published by NavPress in 2006.)

Reminds me of… The Shack* by Paul Young. Under the Tuscan Sun by Frances Mayes.

Buy or borrow? Buy. Lots a good reference materials in the back, and there are sections worth reading and rereading.

Why did I read this book? To review for BookSneeze. Because the premise intrigued me and I wanted to be challenged and to learn.

Would I read another by this author? Probably.

Rating: 4/5 stars

My take: One important things to know about Chasing Francis is that it is what Cron calls wisdom literature: “a delicate balance of fiction and nonfiction, pilgrimage and teaching.”

Chasing Francis is an appeal more to the mind and soul than to the heart. The story didn’t engage my emotions in a very satisfying way–which is why it was important to understand that what I was reading was not meant to (as opposed to true, straight fiction, which is meant to do just that). Knowing this helped to alleviate disappointment in this regard.

As noted above*, Chasing Francis reminded me of The Shack, the self-publishing phenomenon of a few years back, but I enjoyed this book more. (In hindsight, I believe The Shack to be another example of wisdom lit. If I’d understood this classification at the time, I might have had greater appreciation for what it had to offer. Anyway.) Like The Shack, the spare plot provides the scaffolding for spiritual and theological themes.

I read the first half of the book in a little more than twenty-four hours, and polished off the rest three days later. Lyrical prose lives side-by-side with snarky humor, and I found the expositions on beauty and art in the church deeply resonant. There was also this: “When the front door of the intellect is shut, the back door of the imagination is open.” Yes! It’s the same reason we love *story* and why Jesus taught in parables.

All in all, it was an interesting read, and I’m glad I picked it up. It left me with much to think about in terms of the way the church does business–which was exactly the author’s intent. I recommend it to anyone who has ever questioned his faith or the relevance of his church in the postmodern world.

Thanks to BookSneeze and Zondervan for providing me a copy to review. All opinions are mine. 

Visit Ian Cron online at iancron.com, where you can watch a short video about why he wrote Chasing Francis and to download two free chapters.