Chasing Francis: A Pilgrim's Tale by Ian Morgan Cron is part fiction, part non-fiction, a genre called wisdom literature according to the author's notes. The story follows the crisis of faith of a contemporary pastor and his discovery of a new way of living a spiritual life focused more on Christ than religion.
The author provides a lot of historical information and deeper thoughts about the life of St. Francis in the context of Pastor Chase Falson's search for true faith. This nonfiction information is nicely balanced by the fictional character development and plot. A book more about thoughts and feelings than actions, the reader is drawn to think more about what it means to be a Christian in the postmodern world and what the church should look like. The example of St. Francis's life is used to introduce themes about faith, art, embracing culture, service and love in the context of the contemporary church. There is also a lengthy section in the back of the book with more information and lots of discussion questions, should you want to read the book with others.
I enjoyed this book quite a bit. I didn't know anything about St. Francis before reading and I found him to be an intriguing historical figure. I would never have picked up a nonfiction book about him or about the subjects/ideas introduced in this book so this was a good chance to learn and be prodded to think, yet have the framework of a fictional character's pilgrimage to hold up the ideas and demonstrate them. I think many of the questions brought up in this book about faith and church in the postmodern world will continue to be hot topics of discussion in the years to come and this book does a great job of introducing them.
