Author of A Beautiful Death
Writing about the fear of death, the quiet ways it shapes everything we chase, and the One who defeated it.
The first book · Refuge Press
The Tyranny of Survival & The Gospel of Jesus
Learning to die well, so that we can finally live.
Beneath our ambitions, our appearances, and even our religion runs a quieter engine: the fear of death.
In A Beautiful Death, Charles Curtis brings the apostle Paul's language of "the flesh" together with the insights of Ernest Becker to show how that fear shapes the way we live, in or outside the church. He traces how we build immortality projects, climb for status, nurse our wounds, and even turn church into a hiding place. Then he shows what Jesus offers in their place. It isn't a better strategy for survival. It's a death worth dying: a new birth from above, and an apprenticeship to the One who defeated death.
Set against the larger biblical story of the Divine Council and the powers that feed on our fear, as well as Dallas Willard's teachings on apprenticeship, this is a book about learning to die well so that we can finally live.
An incredibly radical, profound and refreshing book.
"A Beautiful Death: The Tyranny of Survival and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, is an incredibly radical, profound and refreshing book. Biblical truth, even if we miss it sometimes, is radical, profound and refreshing. I've been doing this "religious" thing for a very long time and am different because of this book. Read it and when your friends ask you what changed, give them a copy of this book and a Bible. They will 'rise up and call you blessed.'"
In conversation with
The quieter engine
Every one of these can be a good gift. Each one also gets drafted into the same work: proving we matter, and holding off the end a little longer.
Jesus doesn't hand us a better strategy for survival. He offers something stranger.
"…that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery."Hebrews 2:14–15 · ESV
The Cultural Refugee · on Substack
Some Christian writing is so academic it never touches a real life. Some is so driven by feeling it isn't anchored to anything. These essays try to hold both, bringing the Bible's teaching about life into everyday life. Many of the ideas in A Beautiful Death took shape here first.
Complete series
How the drive to survive quietly runs our counseling, our marketing, our pulpits, our careers and our marriages, and what it means to be set free from it.
Complete series
Christianity, Islam and the sword. Protection, vengeance and domination, and why the sword may protect a person but never decide for him.
Four parts
God never endorsed a form of government. He works within human cultures like leaven in dough, and that changes how a Christian thinks about citizenship and elections.
In progress
Perspective for Islam and the West: the caliphate's rise and decline, its heirs after 1924, and the origin of the name Palestine.
About
Charles C. Curtis is a business owner, writer, and lifelong student of Scripture whose work explores what it means to follow Jesus in a culture that no longer assumes the faith it inherited. He writes about the fear of death and the ways it quietly shapes what people chase: success, reputation, love, belonging, even religion.
He holds a Master of Biblical Studies from Redemption Seminary and writes The Cultural Refugee, a newsletter for Christians who feel "in but not of" a constantly changing society. He serves on the teaching team at Union Point Church in New Bern, North Carolina, where he also teaches The Path, a six-week discipleship course.
By trade, he is the Managing Member of Aegis Consulting Group, a regulatory consulting firm serving small rural telephone companies. He grew up in Oklahoma and finished high school in New Jersey.
A Beautiful Death is his first book, published by Refuge Press. He lives in New Bern with his wife, Stephanie, and their two kids.
Short bio for hosts and press
Charles C. Curtis is a business owner, writer, and lifelong student of Scripture. He holds a Master of Biblical Studies from Redemption Seminary, writes The Cultural Refugee on Substack, and serves on the teaching team at Union Point Church in New Bern, North Carolina. A Beautiful Death (Refuge Press) is his first book.
Speaking
Charles speaks to churches, small groups and retreats on the themes of the book and the essays.