The early twenty-first century doesn’t feel like a promising time for an optimistic book when we are faced with the challenges of climate change, the rise of fascism and the emptiness at the heart of our consumer society. But now looking back at his life and inspired by the struggle of so many women and men for a better world, Peter cannot believe that it has all been for nothing. There may be no way of knowing for certain that the world has some ultimate meaning and purpose, but finding reasons to believe changes everything. Peter identifies as a Christian agnostic. “I don’t know there is God but I believe in God.” In Not for Nothing Peter reveals an exultation in the meaningfulness of life, a trusting belief in the mystery behind the world to which we can give the different names of God, a celebration of the wonder of life in art and music, a trust that everything we love is not lost in death, a commitment to moral and political action, a sense of community in church worship stripped of stifling dogma, and the mysterious vocation for each of us to become sons and daughters of God. If that’s what it means to be a Christian agnostic, it’s certainly not for nothing. It means everything.
