Have you ever wondered, if you were born in a different country, whether you would have had a different religion? And if you had, whether you would feel the need to convert to Christianity? Alex Wright, publisher and theologian, sets out to reflect on the nature of spiritual truth. Like so many people today, he is uncomfortable staying within the protective wall of received Christian doctrine. A global economy points to a world outside the Christian enclave, and demands a bigger spiritual horizon. Alex explores spirituality from the ground up. He is an excellent theologian, and the ground he explores so intimately and so well is his own experience, an experience that, like that of so many people today, embraces a variety of truths, rather than a single truth.
It is quite wrong to call this book ‘secular theology’, as some have done. ‘Despite all the suffering and pain in this world,’ writes Alex, ‘... I have always accepted that there is a meaning at the heart of things, a fundamental sentience independent of creation itself which though invisible to our senses remains emotionally and psychologically discernable.’
This would probably be the starting point for very large numbers of people who come to our churches. They are uncomfortable with a Christianity that claims a single exclusive truth. Rather, they hold a number of 'truths' that do not fit neatly into any systematic theology. Alex takes four themes following the growth of awareness from childhood to mature adult: Self and World, Loss, Love, and Fulfilment. All are exquisitely explored from his own experience. In many ways, though I expect Alex would reject this, his theology is similar to that of Moltmann, who also reflects profoundly on the absence of God. ‘God can often seem far away and undetectable to prayer and contemplation. But perhaps it is as much in his absence as his presence that he shows to us his real face. In affliction and the endurance of adversity, God is with us.’
The journey that Alex takes us on is one of beauty and delight. Because it is so profoundly ‘his story’, and because the journey only really started for him when he was rejected by a Christian publishing house (and the anger and pain of that rejection is really the starting point of this exploration), one has the sense that the journey has only just begun. But, as he says, ‘True fulfilment may come over a period of many years, and should not be sought necessarily just in one location or within the confinement of a short period of ‘satisfactions’.
This is a book that anyone who wishes to explore their own faith more fully, and who also wishes to walk alongside others who are also on a journey of exploration, should read and treasure.
The Revd Richard Thomas is communications director for the Diocese of Oxford.
Meanings of Life, by Alex Wright is published by Darton, Longman & Todd and priced at £10.95 - Order Online
