Categories: uncategorized
Date: 01 September 2006 06:53:53
Sometimes a book can be like a film in that the sequal lets you down, and I have to say that Church Leavers Faith journeys five years on by Alan Jamieson, Jenny McIntosh & Adrienne Thompson comes in to that category. I had gone to Greenbelt knowing that it was just out & with it as one of the 3 books I was going to buy, but after reading it I wished I had borrowed a copy from somewhere later, rather than buying it.
It isn't that there isn't stuff to learn from it, but even appreciating the problems with producing anything from that type of research & the time demands which were upon the writers it ends up being lightweight in places & just an exercise in playing with woolly statistics. There is a real feeling of anti-climax with the book. I think there may be two reasons for this: (i) the fact Churchless Faith was such a seminal book; for many people (myself included) it was probably the Christian book of the generation - explaining what we were experiencing was more normal than heretical & so we expected the follow up to be equally mind blowing & (ii) we were aware that Alan Jamieson had joined up with Jenny McIntosh for this one & so expected much more about Spirited Exchanges within in it.
All that said though, if you can borrow a copy it is worth the read - just to find out a few snippets of what happened next.