In a wide-ranging yet cohesive set of essays—on science, art, education, economics, Sophiology, and both the poisons of our age and their antidote—Michael Martin argues on behalf of an integral Christian culture. His is not a nostalgic yearning for a legendary “Christendom”; rather, his is a project of renewal, an anticipation of the Parousia. At a time when Christianity seems all but in retreat, Martin’s Transfiguration open doors into possible futures.
Praise
“This book powerfully communicates a sense of spiritual urgency, casting a bright and burning light on both our estrangement from creation and our loss of intimacy with the divine—a loss expressed in family, liturgy, education, and the technological framing of human life. It calls for a re-awakening of finesse for Sophia: the night of nihilism is far gone; is the day of transfiguration at hand, and are we prepared? Michael Martin’s Transfiguration impels us to confront this question.”
— WILLIAM DESMOND
author of The Gift of Beauty and the Passion of Being
“Part cultural criticism, part manifesto, Michael Martin’s Transfiguration offers a compact and profound proposal for ‘a radical Catholic reimagination of everything.’ Its brief prophetic chapters strip away the false promises of our most cherished modern shibboleths—Science, Art, Education, Economics—and offer an alternative understanding of each. Martin calls us to reawaken to the world charged with the grandeur of God and held in Wisdom’s embrace. Only then will we begin to reimagine—and practice—a different, more deeply Catholic way of living, even in these often-dark times.”
— KEVIN HUGHES
author of Constructing Antichrist
“Few writers are true artists, and fewer yet accept the terms of the writer’s vocation: that sacred Johannine assignment of uncanny purity and courage, grace and grit. Michael Martin’s Transfiguration is a sacramental and Sophianic tour de force. Its journey through storm and tranquility purifies the word catholic while magnifying the original meaning of the word radical. I weary of the disembodied abstractions and cultural hegemonies that blather rather than metabolize, market rather than ensoul, advocate rather than integrate, and confuse parts for wholes. Michael Martin’s capacity to risk entering the jagged post-truth places, events, forms, and conditions arrives with crucial timing: his visionary Transfiguration is precisely what the True Physician could order for a deeply divided and ailing world.”
