Introduction

Why?

Can you predict which of your friends will still believe in God five years from now?

I stood with my young children in our backyard on the outskirts of London, watching their faces fall as they stared at the snowman we had built together days before.

For my South African-born kids, this wasn't just any old snowman. They’d grown up where snow was so rare, we once scraped together a gritty, teddy-bear-sized snowman on a mountaintop. This full-sized creation was four feet of pure, impossible joy.

The problem with snowmen is that they don't last. They are beautiful one day, and days later, can be a mud pool. Witnessing the collapse shook my children almost like nursing a dying pet: senseless, slow, and sickening.

Like that snowman in pale sunshine, clarity can quietly melt until all that remains is confusion and a pool of unanswered questions. Watching something so graceful melt away reflects many people's journey with purpose, meaning, truth, and sometimes, faith.

The journey in these pages is for those chasing clarity in life's deeper uncertainties: What gives life meaning? What should I value? How do I find purpose? What should I believe? Rather than offering neatly packaged answers, it provides mental tools for finding clarity when solid ground feels increasingly rare.

Western Paradox

While my children and I watched our snowman melt, I couldn't shake the feeling that this wasn't the only delicate touchstone disappearing before our eyes. For over half a century, Western churches have been hemorrhaging believers. Church buildings across America, Europe, and Australia are being converted into cafés, nightclubs, and luxury apartments. High-profile Christian leaders are falling from grace or abandoning the faith entirely.

Against this melting backdrop, a double-barrel paradox emerges:

While Western churches empty, Christianity explodes across Africa, Asia, and Latin America with more than 50,000 new believers daily^[1].
While Western society broadly secularizes, some of its brightest minds are making the opposite journey. Philosophers, scientists, and cultural critics who once rejected faith are quietly returning to God. More recently, young men are returning in significant numbers to certain churches, creating an intriguing patchwork of decline and renewal^[2].

So, some are shifting away from faith, and others toward it. These contradictory movements suggest something profound is happening beneath the surface. But what, and how, and why?

Like a forensic investigator, I've traced this paradox to a surprising source: a revolution in how we understand truth itself.

Why a parable?

That snowman haunted me for reasons far deeper than my children's disappointment. It became a snapshot of something I saw happening everywhere: clarity melting into confusion; certainty dissolving into questions. Once I discovered a key triggering factor, I found it impossible to unsee or explain it to others.

But life's most profound realities resist tidy definitions. Try to explain love in bullet points or distill the meaning of life into a formula. Something essential gets lost. Story succeeds where explanation fails, allowing mysteries like love, meaning, and truth to reveal themselves in nuanced complexity.

The purpose of parables is not to entertain, but to intrigue. They stir; they prompt; they urge you to explore. A parable is truth, packaged as a tale; a mirror disguised as a window. You think you’re looking at someone else, then realize you’re looking at yourself. Parables bypass our defenses and speak directly to both mind and heart. Jesus knew this. So did George Orwell, C.S. Lewis, and Antoine de Saint-Exupéry.

Pattern Recognition

Pattern recognition changes everything. It's the ability to spot what's happening behind the fog. Think of everyday moments like smelling the rain before it comes, recognizing your mother's pre-migraine squint in your daughter, or knowing what artisan coffee shops replacing dollar stores means for property investment. But it's far more intricate and layered.

I clearly remember my transformation when I first recognized the four ways of thinking embodied by the mentors in this story. It was like suddenly seeing in color after a life of grayscale.

Jesus didn't use parables to give truth in convenient bite-sized chunks, but to awaken that electric moment of recognition when you're staring at something confusing and suddenly see what was there all along. That gut-level "aha!" is pattern literacy at work. His stories weren't illustrations but invitations to spot patterns most people miss.

This parable trains you to develop that same recognition. Through Nathan Lucas's journey with four mentors, Fisherman, Scientist, Artist, and Wildlife Researcher, you'll discover patterns hidden in plain sight. Each represents a distinct way of knowing truth: traditional wisdom, scientific thinking, experiential truth, and a fourth, integrated approach.

These patterns explain:

Why faith flourishes in some minds while fading from others
Why churches break apart over empathy versus orthodoxy
Why the Bible feels vibrant to some readers, lifeless to others
Why some of the West's brightest skeptics are returning to God

What the Parable Reveals

As the journey of a searching young man and his four mentors unfolds, you will discover:

Why the gravest threat to Western Christianity isn't secularism, skepticism, or shifting morals, but a quiet revolution in how truth is defined
How intelligent, sincere people lose their faith—not because they know too much, but because of how they've learned to understand truth
How to use practical listening tools that transform conflicts and arguments, fueled by different approaches to truth, into healing conversations
How to build a unified framework for faith that integrates analytical thinking, emotional engagement, and moral conviction
How to read Scripture in a fresh way that reveals its multi-dimensional wisdom instead of flattening it into rules or emotions

Who is This Parable For?

The parable journey you're holding speaks directly:

To thinking believers with questions and nagging doubts that their faith might crumble under honest intellectual scrutiny
To thoughtful returners inching back to faith after years of doubt, seeking intellectual integrity alongside spiritual depth
To priests and pastors who want to reach those who are wrestling between faith and unbelief, the so-called Movable Middle
To parents seeking to nurture lasting faith in children in a world pulling them away
To non-Western Christians navigating the confusing crosscurrents of global and Western thinking

In short, if you feel torn between head and heart, certainty and mystery, tradition and innovation, this tale was written for you.

These aren't abstract concerns. In my years of ministry, I've witnessed families torn apart by misunderstanding, churches fractured by talking past each other, and individuals walking away from faith because they were handed a flat, one-dimensional version of truth that couldn't survive real-world complexity.

This parable, Snowman Jesus, offers a way forward. Not by abandoning reason for blind faith, rejecting tradition for emotion, or sacrificing conviction for relativism. Instead, it reveals how truth's full dimensions work together, weaving a faith that's intellectually honest, emotionally engaging, and morally grounded.

Clarity isn't a luxury; it's a necessity. The stakes couldn't be higher: your faith, your family, your future. Whether you're barely holding onto faith or cautiously finding your way back, these words were written for your journey.

But some truths are better experienced than explained. So, let me invite you into a story.

★

next → | share →

^[1] and ^[2]
For information about the growth and decline of Christianity in the West compared to the Majority World (non-West) click below.

western christianity →

Sign up to start reading on launch day:

next → | share →