Finding God in Other Christians is a laudable and readable attemptto inspire Christians to work for a more generous-spirited and opendialogue with those with whom they disagree. Drawing on the author’sexperience of chaplaincy at Cardiff University, it focuses on how toimprove relations for Christians who feel a sense of unity with some oftheir fellow Christians, while at the same time feeling divided againstothers. Cavanagh asks what sort of peace it is in which we keep ourdistance from one another. ‘Is it a matter of anything for a quiet life?Or is there a real yearning for reconciliation?’ (p. ix) Is it acceptable tosay that we love God while being content to despise and condemn ourbrothers and sisters (cf. 1 John 4.20)? Cavanagh’s answer is a resounding‘no’. Following God is not a recipe for a quiet life, nor is it a licencecomplacently to pretend that everything is all right. ‘Experiencing Godmeans wanting reconciliation between Christians in the way we wantGod himself’ (p. x).Cavanagh recommends that we learn from the example of St Dominic.Dominic was, we are told, so frustrated during a particular encounterwith some German speakers that he fervently prayed that God wouldhelp him to understand their language and so become better ableto communicate with them. If we want to find reconciliation, formrelationships and build up the unity of the Church, Cavanagh argues, thenwe should follow Dominic in trying to learn the ‘faith language’ of ourlisteners and talk with them in their own terms (p. 8). Cavanagh urges usto resist any temptation to be like the stereotypical Brit abroad, assumingthat everyone speaks English, and getting frustrated and shouting louderif the other person does not understand what is being said (pp. 14–15).Cavanagh perhaps takes this faith–language analogy too far when shesuggests that ‘To speak another language fluently is to understand whatmakes a person "tick", … to see things the way they do’ (p. 12). I wouldn’tclaim that I understand the mind of a French person, simply because Ican speak their language. This overstatement aside, however, Cavanagh’sargument that we should always try to communicate using the languageof our audience, is powerful, apt and helpful.Ironically, for a book about learning the ‘other’s’ language and tryingto understand the ‘other’ in their own terms, Cavanagh’s portrayal of‘other’ Christians is frequently less sympathetic than it might have been,especially in the later chapters. At no point did I feel that she had gonebeyond typical liberal stereotypes of the evangelical ‘other’. Although aSt Dominic-inspired attempt to speak the language of one’s hearers iscertainly a good approach when attempting to communicate with otherChristians, it is not a good approach for engaging with similar Christiansabout other Christians. Finding God in Other Christians, therefore, whilepersuasive, does not quite live up to its own aspirations of helping thereader to engage generously with other Christians and so to find God intheir otherness.
