By J Harold Ellens, 2 May, 2014
A Star and A Tear, Stephen McCutchan, 2013, Pp 386, Self Published. Reviewed by J. Harold Ellens, PhD.
WHEN I FIRST PICKED UP THIS BOOK I THOUGHT, why do preachers give their books such dumb and schmaltzy titles? By the time I was halfway through this gripping novel I realized the title was exactly on point and infinitely memorable. Stephen McCutchan has a deft skill at a good story and profound message. This volume has all the qualities that should bring it to the attention of Hollywood and turn it into a movie.
When the life force that makes us who we are reaches out psycho-ethereally toward God and the transcendent world we call it spirituality. When that same force in us reaches out psycho-physiologically for another human being we call it sexuality.
This highly readable volume explores both the sick and the healthy dynamics that can develop in human beings between the two central forces in our inner beings, namely spirituality and sexuality. I have personally claimed for decades that these are not, in fact, two different forces at the core of our personhood as humans; but they are the same force reaching hungrily for relationship.*
When the life force that makes us who we are reaches out psycho-ethereally toward God and the transcendent world we call it spirituality. When that same force in us reaches out psycho-physiologically for another human being we call it sexuality. Same force! Same hunger for union with another person: the divine lover or the human lover! Sometimes this drive is healthy, sometimes it gets very sick. The irrepressible nature of this force makes it either redemptively wholesome or damnably dangerous.
McCutchan’s novel unfolds a saga of the human story in a page-turning drama that you will not be able to put down if you get yourself beyond page ten. A pastor emerges from a period of personal grief to help the police track down a serial rapist who has a spiritual obsession and a religious ritual fixation.
Those in our day who claim they are “not religious but spiritual” should read McCutchan’s novel to discover the real nature of the church as a healing community of flawed humans about whom the “spiritual but not religious” folk seem always to be moaning and groaning.
Susan Andrews, like McCutchan a significant Presbyterian leader, says of the novel that “McCutchan deals with the tension between sexuality and spirituality in a very creative way — making clear that misconduct is not appropriate, but clearly affirming the role of sexuality in a whole pastoral life.” J. Barrie Shepherd, a poet and novelist declared that this book is a “dramatic clergy mystery that has a fast-paced and fascinating plot laced with sex, intrigue, and violence, psychotic seminarians, and a seductive detective.”** I might add that the book has its share of really psychopathological pastors, as well.
The subject should bait you; but let me say more dispassionately that this fine volume consists of really good to great writing. The characters are well rounded and three dimensional. They are live, recognizable personas in the world around us and hence totally believable. You will be drawn in by them and come to believe that you know them as dynamic persons of real life.
The story line is enjoyable, intriguing, demanding, and carries the reader with great facility and pleasure at every turn. The plot line is even more intriguing, surprising on almost every page, and it reaches its climax in a totally unexpected twist of scary drama in an eerie, haunting place. Every preacher must read this book, and every congregant will greatly profit from it. Those in our day who claim they are “not religious but spiritual” should read McCutchan’s novel to discover the real nature of the church as a healing community of flawed humans about whom the “spiritual but not religious” folk seem always to be moaning and groaning.
Spirituality is the irrepressible and universal human hunger for ultimate meaning. It is the driving force in our sexual and spiritual longing for union with God and with that special “other.” Because such hunger can “go right” redemptively or can “go wrong” destructively, the church has consistently through history tried to provide the context where the former can be celebrated and the latter healed. Such is what this lovely novel is about, subtly but forcefully, and without being in any way preachy!
Jill Crainshaw, Associate Dean for Academics at Wake Forest Divinity School, concludes: “Novels whose stories and characters entertain as well as stretch readers’ minds are a gift. A Star and a Tear is such a gift.”** Amen! What a gift!
You can find A Star and a Tear on Kindle and at Amazon’s Create Space. In the second edition, closer attention will need to be given to line editing and proof reading, particularly placing modifying adverbs into adverbial rather than adjectival form, and inserting frequently missing words — an unfortunate surprise in this otherwise splendid volume. Nonetheless, sell your bed and buy this book!
* See for example: J. Harold Ellens, Sex in the Bible, A New Consideration, (2006), Westport, CT: Praeger; The Spirituality of Sex, (2009), Westport, Ct: Praeger; and Light from the Other Side, The Paranormal as Friend and Familiar, (2010), Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock.
**Reviews on Amazon.com
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J. Harold Ellens DSC00501-Enh-Sh-Cri-V-2J. Harold Ellens, a practicing psychotherapist, is a retired professor of philosophy, psychology, and classical studies, and a retired Presbyterian (PCUSA) minister and U.S. Army chaplain. He served for fifteen years as executive director of the Christian Association for Psychological Studies and as founding editor and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Psychology and Christianity. He has a Ph.D. from Wayne State University in the Psychology of Human Communication, and a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in Biblical and Near Eastern Studies. Of his numerous books, the most recent include Understanding Religious Experience (2007), Miracles: God, Science, and Psychology in the Paranormal (2009), The Spirituality of Sex (2009), The Son of Man in The Gospel of John (2010), The Healing Power of Spirituality, How Faith Helps Humans Thrive (3 vols., 2010), Honest Faith for Our Time: Truth Telling about the Bible, the Creed, and the Church (2010), Light from the Other Side: The Paranormal as Friend and Familiar (2010), and Explaining Evil (2011). His website is www.jharoldellens.com.
© 2014 J. Harold Ellens
