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IN GOOD FAITH
A collection of Herman Goodden's best personal essays, book and music reviews and feature articles with an emphasis on the challenges of religious belief in an increasingly secular culture. Among the figures discussed are London Mayor Dianne Haskett, Police Chief Julian Fantino, publisher Martha Blackburn and authors G.K. Chesterton, J.B. Priestley, A.N. Wilson, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Orlo Miller and Ronald Knox. Elmwood Publications / 1998 / Cover image: Kirtley Jarvis / Layout and design: Bill McGrath IN PRINT After 14 deliriously happy years in the Catholic Church, I was ready to expound a bit on the meaning and the grounding that I found there and publicly assert its value. After assembling a variety of religion-based articles for the collection, I felt it was a good beginning but I wanted to open up some windows and let other themes and considerations blow through. It may seem like a grab-bag at first glance but I let my title – In Good Faith – act as the organizing principle. To act in loyalty, devotion and dedication is a goal in practicing my religion and in many others areas of my life as well. As a husband, father and writer, the applications seem more readily apparent but there are subtler, perhaps more unconscious or even primal considerations than these. As a man, son and brother, as a member of a specific generation and a citizen of a particular corner of the earth called Southwestern Ontario, I feel the pull of other allegiances. As an omnivorous reader and lover of music, as a student, and as a patron of theatre and the visual arts, my character has also been shaped by those writers, musicians, artists and teachers who’ve left some kind of enduring imprint on my soul. I belong to many different families and cults and in this book I have attempted to gather as many of them as possible onto one big lawn so I can watch them fight and dance. - Herman Goodden REVIEWS “Goodden is an intelligent, original and unconventional writer and one armed with a rapier wit. He can be amusing and challenging, angry and ecstatic, fair yet biased, irritable yet understanding and, always interesting. His book is a page-turner, one that delights as it perturbs.” – Nancy Scheifer, London Free Press “He deals with profound subjects lightly, with light subjects seriously, and all subjects with wit and intelligence. Uncowed by that contemporary ogre, the consensus, Goodden’s ideas are never conventional (although often conservative, something quite different), and they exemplify that most uncommon attribute, common sense. Goodden’s unflagging curiosity about life and its significance find expression in a prose voice uniquely his own.” – Ian Hunter “Herman Goodden, an essayist of real charm, brilliance and wisdom, ought to be the property of the whole country.” - David Warren, Western Standard “The pen of Herman Goodden is one of Canada’s finest writing instruments . . . Goodden loves literature and digs deeply to get the kernel of truth in the great works of writers like Flannery O’Connor, Walker Percy, G.K. Chesterton, Malcolm Muggeridge and Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Like his literary heroes, Goodden teaches us about great moral truths in an entertaining, memorable style. That’s no small achievement and one we should be thankful for.” - Paul Tuns, The Interim |