Published in the centenary year of C.S. Lewis's birth, "The Pilgrim Guide" offers a study of Lewis's witness to the truth of Christianity, especially in his works of fiction and popular anthologies.
Growing up in a New England college town -- his father, a conservationist, taught part time at the university -- David always wanted to write for a living, but expected to be writing about politics, not religion. He was fascinated by the ins and outs of electoral politics, but an interest in pursuing the fundamental questions led him to think much more seriously about God and Christianity, and to find Christian doctrine even more interesting than politics.
Asked to edit a small Episcopal magazine, he began writing on the subject as he could, and achieved some small fame in that very small pond. While working both freelance jobs and a part-time job at a public housing agency in Boston, in 1988 he was called to work at an Episcopal seminary near Pittsburgh, which completed his move from political to religious work.
He currently writes a biweekly column called "Catholic Sense" for The Pittsburgh Catholic, the diocesan newspaper of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, as well as columns for Lay Witness magazine and the Inside Catholic website. He also writes regularly for the National Catholic Register, Our Sunday Visitor, the New Oxford Review, and other Catholic publications. The Pilgrim's Guide: C. S. Lewis and the Art Witness (Eerdmans), a collection of scholarly and popular essays he edited, appeared in 1998, and his Knowing the Real Jesus (Servant), a kind of "Church Fathers for Dummies," in 2001. Richard John Neuhaus called the latter "A lesson in theology for those who are not theologians and a lesson in writing for those who are."
David, his wife, and their chidren were received into the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil in 2001, while he was still teaching at the Episcopal seminary. To his surprise, he was not sacked, partly because he taught writing and not theology, and partly because he edited the dean's writing. He left the seminary in 2003 to edit Touchstone, an ecumenical magazine that under his editorshop won the Associated Church Press's best journal award all five years it was a member. In 2008 he returned to writing and editing.
Married for 26 years, David and his wife have four children. Their eldest just graduated from college and is a Haverford Fellow working for a local foods group in Philadelphia, the second is a sophomore in college, and the youngest two, 16 and 11, are homeschooled and active in 4-H and local historical societies. The family have two dogs (both mutts from the Humane Society), two guinea pigs (one from the Humane Society), and three gerbils (store bought). They also spend some time protecting their chipmunks from the local cats.
They live north of Pittsburgh, which David refers to as "living in exile in the Midwest." This annoys the natives. They attend St. Joseph's Church in Coraopolis.
