2023 in Review: Third Time’s the Charm

It’s Epiphany today, Christmas is over, the new year doesn’t start today but it’s as good a day as any for reflecting on the last twelve months.

It’s become my tradition to celebrate the anniversary of nuakh with a review of the previous year on epiphany. Below are a bunch of lists, including my books of the year, but right at the top I’d like to say thank you for reading, sharing, and supporting my work.

2023 was my third year writing at nuakh. This lockdown project of trying to build a writing rhythm has become a notable part of my life. I’ve continued to publish twice a week—though this year we had some repeated content over the summer months—and I’ve been able to publish a couple of articles elsewhere.

I broke even on financial support this year as well, so the hosting is entirely paid for by a small band of supporters, which is greatly appreciated. My readership grew by about 50% as well, thanks for engaging, emailing, arguing, and considering what I’ve written about.

It’s been a year of significant growth and change for me, but more of that below. We all love a year end list, so here are a few for you:

My 5 most read blog posts

My favourite blog posts

Between them I think that covers pretty much every theme I write about.

If you have a favourite that wasn’t in those lists, do please let me know! My favourite ever post remains Learning From The Hours from my first year of writing.

My books of the year

I read 90 books last year, you can see the whole list here if you’re interested in that sort of thing. Ranking the best is always difficult task, so I won’t try (objectively, Andrew Wilson’s Remaking the World was probably the cleverest and Jonathan Black’s The Lord’s Supper was probably the clearest) but here are the ten that stayed with me:

Tress of the Emerald Sea. Brandon Sanderson. I read 7 Sanderson novels last year, because the man writes too much. It’s difficult to pick a favourite, but Tress would be up there: a charming story with heavy overtones of The Princess Bride.
Heavenly Participation. Hans Boersma. An introduction to ‘sacramental ontology’ and a sort of Christian Platonism. I’d differ on many of the details, but the overall proposal got under my skin.
Typology. James Hamilton. This is a great overview of the way typology works in the Bible as well as a tour through some of those types. It should be widely read.
Powers and Thrones. Dan Jones. A sweeping overview of the Middle Ages. It was easy to read and a lot of fun.
Powerful Leaders?. Marcus Honeysett. An important book. Every church leadership team in the UK should read this and discuss it. It was very difficult reading at points but has shaped a lot of my thinking on ‘leadership.’
A Time To Build. Yuval Levin. The essay that I wrote that shaped my year (more below) was an application of this book’s argument to the British church.
Called Into Questions. Matthew Lee Anderson. My book of the year. I had the strange pleasure of endorsing this book (because Matt wanted endorsements from ‘ordinary’ folks without a significant platform). It’s really very good. I’m currently reading it again, very slowly. It’s shaped my heart in profound ways. You should buy it and read it.
Laurus. Eugene Vodolazkin. A Russian novel about a medieval holy man. Dreamy, strange, compelling. It’s lived in my head long after I finished it.
The Apostolic Fathers. I led a reading group through a selection of these documents earlier in the year which was a delight. I’m currently blogging through another with Adsum Try Ravenhill. I’ve read and reread them.
Imagining the Kingdom. James K. A. Smith. I read this a couple of times this year for my studies. His arguments surface in my writing a lot, as those familiar will know, and I’ve been thinking with and arguing with Smith all year long.

It was a strange reading year. I’ve read more than I have in a few years because I’m now reading for my studies in a way I wasn’t before. I felt like I read less (obviously that’s untrue), in part because I read less of the sort of books I might recommend.

The best articles I read this year

The two that I’m still thinking about were published in the same issue of Mere Orthodoxy: J. Chase Davies’ ‘Colonized by the City,’ and Brad East’s ‘Once More, Church and Culture.’

The longest, which is still worth your time, is Susannah Robert’s ‘The Birth of Comedy.’ It’s been a great year for Mere Orthodoxy.

Articles and Projects

I published less elsewhere than I thought I would, but those I offered were significant, I hope.

In January I published a poem in the Clayjar Review called ‘Why We Don’t Come in From the Cold.’

Also in January, I published an article at Theopolis on a theme close to my heart, ‘Arboreal Theology: Trees in Colossians.’

In August I published a piece that spawned much of my own writing: ‘It’s Time to Build Counter-Institutions,’ at Mere Orthodoxy. I think this is the most important thing I’ve written. I’ve spent a lot of the rest of the year networking with people who wanted to talk about my thesis. I’m hopeful that in the next decade or so we might see some significant shifts in this direction. We need to build robust Christians and robust Christians institutions (households, churches, training centres, thinking centres) to do the best we can in the world in which we find ourselves.

I’ve got my own small way to contribute launching later this year, watch this space for more on that.

Developing as a writer

I’ve continued to write along the themes that I tend to write on. I still think the answer to most of our societal problems, in and outside of the church, is found in sitting around a table and eating.

Why do I think that? Because that’s how God has reconciled himself to us. The Son died on a tree, and then used that tree to build a table so we can eat with him. That’s as close to a personal thesis statement as I can come.

To that end I’ve started working towards a PhD (I’m currently registered on an MA by Research, the intent is to ‘upgrade’ partway through the year) part-time. My topic is essentially the above: how does the Lord’s Supper train us to eat. It’s challenging, and developing a different kind of writing skill. My aim here is to develop towards the ‘Doctor of the Church’ aspirations I’ve spelled out previously.

This has meant significant financial challenges for Helen & I. I’m not working fulltime anymore in my secular job, for a start. The Lord has been very kind, the first year of my studies is fully funded and was the day before we started without us doing any fund-raising. We’re grateful for his provision and pray it will continue. I’d ask that you join those prayers if you can.

Developing nuakh

There’s not much to report here, except to say again: thank you for reading. If you’d like to keep supporting nuakh then there are three ways you can do that.

The first is the easiest: you can sign up for my mailing list. Scroll all the way to the bottom of this post to do that. A lot of my readers find me via my social media feeds, which is great but fragile. Those websites may or may not exist in a year’s time. It helps me as a writer to have a direct connection to you by having your email address. Currently all you’ll receive is an email about a new blog post every time it goes up.

The second is the hardest: you can give financially. Most Christians expect good content to be free. I think that’s probably always been the case, but it means that all theological reflection runs on patronage rather than a commercial model. If you like the way I think and would like to help me develop further, do prayerfully consider becoming a patron at a level you can afford. If we want to encourage reflection we’ll need to financially free pastors and others to do this.

The third is… the Goldilocks zone? When you like my writing, share it. Text or email the piece to your friends, like or share or retweet the post on Twitter (we’re never calling it ‘X’) or Facebook, put the post in your story on Instagram. We all know how the algorithms work by now, your ‘like’ makes a significant difference. If you mostly come here via Facebook consider adding my pages to your ‘favourites’ so it actually shows up in your newsfeed.

If you don’t want to do any of that, you’re still welcome, friends. I hope what I write here and elsewhere is helpful in forming you towards Jesus.

It’s been a transformative year for me, I hope in time that will be reflected in what I write too. Either way, as we enter a new year pregnant with possibility and pain, know this: Jesus is on the throne, and he will not cast out his people.

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