Author interview from the London Times-Clergy have a lot in common with journalists, which might explain why so many children of the cloth are to be found in my 'profession'. I use that word advisedly, to grace my hackery with a status some might feel it lacks. One of the things we perhaps have in common with clergy is the busyness of lives which stop us writing that best-selling novel, or Bible commentary. How many clergy quietly kick themselves when the Archbishop of Canterbury announces the latest Michael Ramsey prize for theological writing, as he just has to Richard Bauckham, that they haven't found the time to pen the epistle that would get them a nice reception at Lambeth Palace in the company of true grace?
Kicking myself is what I've been doing with John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge's book 'God is Back'. This book is of the moment, the zeitgeist, whatever. I was fortunate to have the chance to review it for The Times but why didn't I, couldn't I, write that book?
For a start, even had I thought of it, I could never have found the time within the daily turnover of religious news and the sheer pleasure of blogging - God could have invented blogs to reward me for the hard times - to do the sheer depth of research that these two authors have put in to their compelling 375 pages. But also, immersed for years in the doings of his representatives on earth, I have for years taken it as a given that God was back. It just never occurred to me for a moment that to millions of others, this thesis might come as something of a surprise. For me, as probably for a lot of you reading this, He never left.
What is particularly great about God is Back is that it is grounded in fact, a substance that can be in short supply in the competing doctrines of world religions, which is the matter of their work.
More here-
http://timescolumns.typepad.com/gledhill/2009/06/god-is-back-author-they-do-not-see-their-job-as-bums-on-seats.html
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