About the Name

In C.S. Lewis’s novel That Hideous Strength, St. Anne’s on the Hill was the center of the Christian resistance to the evil National Institute for Coordinated Experiments (N.I.C.E.), a demonic institution marked by technocratic state bureaucracy and anti-human scientific progress. 

The community of resistance at Saint Anne’s was characterized not primarily by militancy or political agitation but by order, joy, domestic harmony, and a fierce commitment to the “normal.” 

Today we find ourselves facing a new N.I.C.E. In the same spirit of resistance, we discover that we also need a new Saint Anne’s.

We aim to make New Saint Anne’s the center of a Christian culture of resistance in West Michigan — not primarily through political action but by courageously and joyfully restoring a public Christianity that recognizes all of Christ for all of life throughout the West Michigan lakeshore.

DEFINITIONS

• public Christianity: Not simply a private, personal belief but the whole of culture under the lordship of Jesus Christ; a thoroughly Christian culture.

• West Michigan: Primarily the Michigan counties of Muskegon, Ottawa, Allegan, and Kent. Roughly from South Haven to Muskegon and from Holland to Grand Rapids, and encompassing all the cities and townships in between