Christ & Creed Quarterly is a Christian magazine rooted in the Nicene faith of the undivided Church. It exists to publish serious, charitable, and readable Christian writing in theology, prayer, literature, humor, art, and culture.
“Quaker Joe” Dunne is publisher of Christ & Creed Quarterly. He is a happily married father of five. His Christian testimony is below:
I came to a saving faith in Jesus Christ when I was about 11 years old. Every Easter, my uncle would bring an old silent film of the Passion to our home. Somehow, the age of the film impressed on me its authenticity, and I remember him reading aloud the words written on the screen.
One day in math class, it all came together in my heart and mind: Jesus died for me.
Before that moment, Christianity had been a jumble of Easter, ritual, Christmas, church, meeting house, and other fragments of religious life. But from that day forward, I was blessed with a strong faith and a very real, consistent sense of the presence of God.
The only serious wrinkle came in July 2024, when I faced a sudden, life-threatening medical crisis. Lying in a hospital bed, I did not feel the presence of God. For the first time, I allowed myself to seriously consider the possibility that there was no God.
I knew, however, that I was experiencing something like the Dark Night of the Soul described by San Juan de la Cruz. I knew that the purest prayer and the truest act of faith may come when we turn to God even after every felt sign of Him has disappeared. So I prayed and kept praying, even though I could not feel His presence.
A few days later, my sense of God’s presence returned, as did my health. God spared me from a long Dark Night of the Soul. A day and a half was sufficient.
Both my conversion and my navigation through that test of faith came, in part, through Christian culture: the silent film of the Passion, and the poetry and spiritual wisdom of San Juan de la Cruz. That culture distills and communicates the lived experience of many people of true faith.
Christ & Creed Quarterly was created to help communicate the truth of Christ as found in the theology, prayers, art, poetry, and writings of the people of God.