Discernment

Cedric Willow is a middle-aged journalist and senior warden at St. Bartholomew by the Lake, a small Episcopal parish in Minneapolis. St. Bart’s church building is a widely admired icon of mid-century modern architecture, but its congregation is aging and attendance is on the decline.

When the incumbent rector resigns, Cedric forms a search committee—a “discernment” committee, in Episcopal parlance—and embarks on a nine-month search for a new spiritual leader.

Cedric’s task is complicated by a bitter feud between two members of the vestry, by the fact that he is a closet atheist, and by a disruptive voice in his head called Op-Ed. The thorn in Cedric’s side is the Church Lady, the mousy junior warden, a feminist who aspires to his position, who strikes him as pious to a fault, and with whom he is falling in love.

Discernment is a novel about trying to do the right thing in a world with no easy answers. It is a story about what happens when altruism and self-interest collide.

Along the way, Discernment dares to ask questions the Bible fails to address, such as: Who succeeded Adam as head groundskeeper at the Garden of Eden? What should you wear to church to catch the Lord’s eye? Did God create focus groups, and if so on which day? And what does the Holy Spirit really think about the internet?