Featured books

'We need to live the so-called ordinary stuff of our lives in such a way that when we look back there are as few moments as possible when we failed to pay real attention, to share our thoughts freely with one another, to wonder at the sheer wonder of it all, because if we prepare well for our dreams and live them with courage, imagination and understanding, water can become wine . . . ' from Chapter 12 , 'March again: the sublime in the ridiculous'

'Rosemary Lain-Priestley invites us to accompany her on a year-long journey of reflection - a journey that encompasses not only the nitty-gritty of the everyday but also the biggest and most significant of global events. Anyone who yearns to live more deeply and reflectively will love this book, and appreciate the practical example it gives of the spiritual riches on offer to those adept at 'sifting the stuff of life'.' Dr Paula Gooder, author of The Meaning is in the Waiting

'If you're trying to put the different parts of your life together - secular and spiritual - this book may help you. Good holiday meditative reading.' Rabbi Lionel Blue

If religion is characterised by the recruitment of God to serve our agendas, and faith is about putting our agendas at the service of God, then clearly there is too much religion in the world, and not enough faith. The first eight chapters of this book apply this religion/faith dichotomy to some crucial areas of interest to those exploring what it might mean to be people of faith in a world saturated with religion. The remaining chapters address issues of crucial importance to the future of organised religion in general, and the role of the Church of England in particular. From mediaeval polyphony to Andrew Lloyd Webber the development of a given theme through a sequence of variations has proved attractive to composers anxious to demonstrate the sometimes surprising potential of a simple melody. "No Faith in Religion" is a modest attempt to do something similar with two concepts, religion and faith, which are usually seen as simply synonymous but which are in fact subtly different and subject to being interwoven in numerous complex and unexpected ways.

Reviewed by John Rees, Oxford in Modern Believing Jan 2010.

This is a brave book, full of hope and pervaded by the promise that insights from the Anglican past might yet carry us through the tumults of the Anglican present. Lorraine Cavanagh is chaplain at the University of Wales in Cardiff, and teaches at St Michael's College, Llandaff. She notes the 'participatory' element in Richard Hooker's teaching, and emphasises that Hooker 'takes tradition into the dynamic which informs history. This dynamic is the life of God manifested in Jesus Christ in whose ongoing life the Church is sacramentally transformed and in which it finds its true vocation.