MANIFESTO

Jesus tells us he comes to give us life in all its fullness. That’s not to say he will give us a life without pain. Life lived fully must include the highs, and the lows. Beauty and joy, ugliness and lament. A full life must always include pain (and how well we know this in our current season).

Much of modern Christian storytelling tells half of the story. It presents beauty without lament. It mentions sin in passing, but rarely enters the hearts and minds of sinners in any convincing way. It shies away from the world.

That comes from the desire to avoid celebrating evil. Guard your heart and all that. But it’s a fine line. Pursued too obsessively, it weakens stories and therefore alienates those who need the truth most. It often ends by preaching to the converted.

And Yet publishes books to change this. Just like the Bible, some of these stories will be light in tone and some will be dark. Just like the Bible, a particular story may not offer redemption, but redemption will underpin the entire collection.

The conflict between lament and joy is fundamental. It is embedded at the heart of reality, as part of the richest possible experience of life in the fullest, by a God who loves us, and who wants to know each of us. Once we truly accept this conflict, then the secular will crack open, and the world’s lies about darkness and hopelessness and endless disaster will be exposed.

This is the point of And Yet. We will inhabit this conflict as fully as we can, bringing stories that go deep into darkness, and find the light in doing so. 

We will be always reminded that, as His servants, we are truly:

‘Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything.’ ~ 2 Corinthians 6:10