Dr Kirsten Birkett brings a wide range of intellectual interests to the Psalms. She has written books on science and the Christian faith, the epistemology of the Reformers, the spiritual practices of the Puritans, psychology, feminism, and the family. While on faculty at Oak Hill College, London, she also published in the area of pedagogy and theological education. Her latest book, in three small volumes, draws on many of these interests. As the subtitle clarifies, Living Without Fear seeks to address our anxieties, and Birkett applies tools from psychology and the science of human behaviour to the task. Fears are often deep-rooted and hard to alter, but pedagogical insights can help us move knowledge from the head to the heart. Most importantly, however, Birkett understands that the answer to our fears does not lie within, nor in anything we might do to alter our circumstances, but is only found in knowing God himself.

This, then, is a therapeutic book. In some circles that is not a compliment. Many contemporary theologians have written trenchantly against therapeutic Christianity, and the claim that Christ died to give us a comfortable and untroubled life is indeed a terrible distortion of the gospel. But that does not alter what our world is. Whether it is the affluent West or the aspirational majority world, we are more plagued than ever by anxieties, depressions, dysphorias, and all the other poisoned fruits of our idolatry. We do not only need books that explain why the therapeutic gospel is bad. We need books that are both therapeutic and Christian, that place our wellbeing into its proper gospel framework. The aim of Living Without Fear is to bring us to Christ and deepen our longing to be like him.

True therapy lies in the gospel itself. To be properly therapeutic, a book on the Psalms must first be Christian. The book of Psalms takes readers on a journey with Israel’s Messiah: a journey that passes through fear and failure, despair and endurance, before finally arriving at fulfilment and joy. The Psalms are ultimately about Jesus, but they are also for us. They invite each of us to take up our cross and follow him. Birkett is sensitive to these interpretive horizons. She moves from the original context and significance of the Psalms in the life of ancient Israel, and deftly draws out their fulfilment in the life of the Lord Jesus. Along the way, she reflects continually on how these poems about the Messiah work to strengthen his people to be like him.

Living Without Fear is not a technical book. It consists of chapters on twelve psalms (3, 16, 22, 29, 27, 30, 33, 51, 59, 71, 72, 32) oriented around twelve topics, including various attributes of God and specific human fears. It reads like a series of expository sermons or talks for a general audience, with a strong focus on application. The Psalms demand a kind of reading that Psalm 1 calls meditation, and it is meditation rather than, say, linguistic or poetic analysis, that characterises Birkett’s expositions. For example, Psalm 3 presents the prayer of a man surrounded by enemies, who boldly trusts God to protect him. Along the way the poet uses an image that captures this sense of confidence in the midst of helplessness: ‘I lie down and sleep; I wake again because the Lord sustains me’ (Ps 3:5). The metaphorical tenor of this image could easily carry an interpreter into generalities, but Birkett is not so casual. Meditation on this image serves to speak the psalm into a fundamental aspect of our experience. For many people, sleeplessness is a sign of anxiety and fear. Could meditating on the Psalms actually enable us to say, with David, ‘I lie down and sleep’?

For that to happen it is not enough to be encouraged or even inspired by an exposition. We, the readers, must do the work of meditation for ourselves, both in the company of others and by ourselves. The accompanying Living Without Fear Workbook aims to send a group of readers back to the text with enough guidance to meditate on it more deeply together and begin to let its words work their way from head to heart. Adding a journal is an unusual step, though the recent popularity of journalling Bibles makes this a well-timed innovation. It taps into a truth about behavioural change: ‘It takes time for truths to sink into our hearts, so that they genuinely change our reactions to life’ (Workbook, p. 26). The Living Without Fear Journal invites an individual to meditate on single verses in the light of all they have learned about a psalm, without further constraints of explanation or practical suggestions. Letting a single word from God settle within oneself during the course of a day can be a powerful way of reframing the thoughts and experiences that wash over us.

Ultimately, however, the therapeutic power of the Psalms, and the therapeutic power of this book on the Psalms, lies in the fact that we are not in the end performing self-analysis. We are meditating on God himself. And, as Birkett sets out to show, it is only in the contemplation of God that other fears can begin to fall away.

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