FRANK SCHAEFFER - Patience with God: Faith for people who don't like religion (or atheism) ****

Frank Schaeffer, whose book 'Crazy for God' I've recommended below, describes himself as a 'recovering evangelical' - a phrase I am already using to describe myself!

Brought up in a Christian evangelical milieu and having that evangelical world-view pervade your thinking makes it tough when you come to realise that you're no longer that certain of some of the certainties you've trotted out before.

In the first half of the book Schaeffer takes on both Christian fundamentalists and militant atheists like Richard Dawkins who, he believes, are as bad as each other. 'The problem is that neither religious fundamentalists nor Dawkins can explain any of what they claim they are explaining. Why? Because they are deep into the realm that Einstein was talking about: the realm “that our mind cannot grasp and this beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness.”'

In the second half he gives space for his own memories, recalling moments that led him to a middle path of 'hopeful uncertainty' based on love, tolerance and a humble acceptance of what one can never know. For him that's involved joining the Greek Orthodox church.

I found myself itching to be presented with a route map for a sensible, liberal middle ground - "So this is what I should believe." But of course that sort of prescription is what Frank Schaeffer has spent half his life rebelling against. So I was left with an inevitable sense of frustration - but that's my problem, not Frank's.