Tuesday, 25 November 2008

Scandalous Risks

At the moment I'm reading 'Scandalous Risks' by Susan Howatch. This is the 4th in a series of books about the Church of England and follows a woman in the 1960s who falls in love with a married clergyman, against the background of the notorious 'Honest to God' book by Bishop Robinson.

I can't comment on Robinson's book, having not read it (yet!) but this book does a powerful demolition job on it and radical modern theology, reaffirming traditional Christian ideas of God and morality (especially sexual morality) as being important and useful, not just outdated ideas imposed from above for no reason. The confusion and excitement of the early-1960s comes across very powerfully and the characters are sympathetically portrayed.