Wakeman–one of the first women ordained a priest in the Anglican Church– candidly, commonsensically discusses one great predicament of the contemporary Christian church. Moderate Christianity is dying because churches are unwilling to consider their beliefs honestly and openly. She persuasively argues that to survive beyond the next generation, Christianity must find ways compatible with a twenty-first-century sensibility to express old truths. Much of her discussion is seen from her Irish perspective as rector of a parish in County Cork, yet it applies to Christianity in the broadest sense. For example, she lists the reasons so many people are leaving the institutional church to practice a faith that chooses from one religion what it can’t get from another; clerical scandals, ecclesiastical authoritarianism, and competition for free time are all factors. Many will be disturbed by her conclusions, especially her rational interpretations of such Christian basics as the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, and the Trinity, but this is a brave book that asks what the meaning of truth is and dares to venture answers. June Sawyers
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“Wakeman is compassionate yet pulls no punches, profound yet avoids theological stuffiness, accessible yet refuses to play to the church-bashing gallery.”