About the Author

Like most other people in the UK my first exposure to religious teaching was as a child at school in lessons called ‘Scripture’ or simply ‘RE’.  These lessons continued throughout primary and secondary school, and for some of us by Christian family upbringing.  It was from these sources that I acquired a basic understanding of Western Christianity and learned about the stories of Jesus.  Often what we were taught was presented as being the literal truth and that Christianity was greatly superior to all other ‘heathen’ religions.  In school assemblies and at chapel, repeated singing of hymns such as ‘ … one church, one faith, one Lord!’ and ‘At the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow’ convinced me that Jesus was uniquely the Son of God and that there was only one religious truth, namely Christianity.

As I grew into early manhood, however, more and more questions entered my mind.  In this book I will try to show how I have tried to deal with some of these including how my ongoing quest has led me to explore not only what religious truth might mean in the multi faith societies of today, but also what it means to be a Christian in our increasingly glo balised world of the twenty first century.  Finally, at a time of growing fundamentalism in many Christian churches and of accelerating decline in attendances and membership in others I examine some of the sources of doubt and uncertainty.

As a mature student I studied for a Teacher’s Certificate after which I attended Liverpool University where I obtained an Honours Degree and a Masters Degree both in Economics.

Later in my career as a tutor in social sciences for the Open University I began to realise the very important influence that religious belief systems have on world affairs and I began to read widely about the different world faith traditions.

In the West we are sometimes exposed to opinions expressed by the more strident religious evangelists, but there is no compulsion to accept any of these and at the end of the day we choose ourselves what we want to believe.

Writing as a layman with no academic background in theology or philosophy frees me from modes of thinking that might otherwise be constrained by whatever the current orthodoxy or conventional wisdom of my own Christian faith dictates what these should be.  Hence the story of the book is presented here in a straightforward non-technical way unencumbered by the sometimes arcane language of academic theologians and philosophers.

However, as a layman, I have been constantly amazed by both the rigour and depth of theological research of those theologians whose works I have studied.  Even so, as I have struggled to understand some of what has been presented I have found myself increasingly in sympathy with George Pettison’s comment “that much theological debate seems to be conducted in a rarefied atmosphere far removed from real life, meaning the world in which millions of people struggle to survive on or below the poverty line; in which nations make war against nations; in which business functions in an atmosphere of ruthless glo bal competition; and in which individuals and families negotiate through the jungle of conflicting personal ambitions, passions, addictions and weaknesses.

Perhaps unsurprisingly my journey has thus far left me with more questions than answers.  Despite this I feel that I have been greatly enriched by the many texts I have studied and by many discussions I have been privileged to have had with Christians and with people of other faiths.  From these I have been encouraged to learn more about the beliefs of those who follow other faiths and to learn more about Christian belief and practice.

There have been many times during my journey when I have felt that my questions were leading me into a barren wilderness in which I was in grave danger of losing those values derived from my Christian upbringing by which I had hitherto tried to live – especially in relation to others.  Even now as I write, I have feelings of guilt that I may be in danger of denying my heritage and all the great wisdom it has to offer.

At such times I have been comforted by the words of Gunther Weber who wrote “ … only those who seek the truth have doubts …”  My thoughts and questionings are directed by the fundamental trust communicated to me by the Bible “that I cannot lose God if I seek the truth, even if some vessels in which past generations thought they could contain and preserve truth get broken.”