Stephen R. Clark, Writer

The challenge of writing.

Yep.

Can't whee knot all jus gets allong! ;-)

YOU TELL ME!! How do you define spiritual engagement? Is it spiritual formation? Bible engagement? Discipleship? Spiritual disciplines? All of these? None of these? Something else? And how to convince, entice, encourage, motivate, draw people into whatever spiritual engagement is?

Below is an article I wrote on the topic that may spur some ideas. What do you think? What is spiritual engagement and how do we get people engaged in it?

Spiritual Engagement: What Is It? - EPA By Stephen R. Clark EPA’s Cause of the Year for 2026 is Spiritual Engagement. Articles published on

That seems a bit harsh!

Why we need editors, even grizzly ones.

There were several really good books that were left off this list. Where's Updike? Where's N.T. Wright?

Here's what I've read from the best of the 21st century list:

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night‑Time by Mark Haddon
Tenth of December by George Saunders
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Atonement by Ian McEwan
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
On Writing by Stephen King
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

And be sure to also check out the best novels of all times list. I've read more of those on that list!:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/ng-interactive/2026/may/12/the-100-best-novels-of-all-time

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/sep/21/best-books-of-the-21st-century

The 100 best books of the 21st century Dazzling debut novels, searing polemics, the history of humanity and trailblazing memoirs ... Read our pick of the best books since 2000

"Writing" with AI is outright deception (and just a cheap form of ghostwriting). Here's an excellent rant by Katelyn Beaty.

"The publishing industry has ceded so much ground to high-profile authors who don't or can't write. What grounds do we have to now ask that they not use AI?"

"When an author is claiming to be a spiritual authority figure, then deceptively passes off writing churned out by ChatGPT as their own, profiting from the deception in the form of the advance, royalties, speaking engagements, and so on, their publisher becomes complicit in the deception."

AI Is the Perfect Tool for Celebrity Christian "Authors" The publishing industry has ceded so much ground to high-profile authors who don't or can't write. What grounds do we have to now ask that they not use AI?

Just for fun.

"If I can instantly access any information about the Bible or theology, why would I bother internalizing anything? Yet many questions will never come to the minds of those who haven’t studied the Bible. Their default will be to search rather than to study, but this is a dangerous substitution: Without study, they won’t even know how to search well."

People of the Chatbot - Christianity Today Sure, God can speak to you through a Bible verse quoted by AI. But easy access isn’t the same as transformative understanding.

Henri Nouwen was a Catholic devotional writer. Some of his most well-known books are Return of the Prodigal Son, The Wounded Healer, and The Genesee Diary. He has garnered a large enamored fanbase which is nurtured by the Henri Nouwen Society and others. It's reasonable to admire Nouwen, but, as with any of our "heroes" we need to draw the line at idolizing them. After all, they are/were only human. Here's my story of encountering Henri.

Holy Jerk! A sideways introduction to Henri Nouwen Everybody loves and quotes Henri Nouwen. My experience of him was not so amiable. He hung up on me. Over time, I’ve warmed a bit more to him, but still don’t get why he’s quoted s…