God Outside the Box
Richard Harries
9780281055227
192 pages
SPCK Group
Overview
Is the Church a box from which God has escaped? Are people finding spirituality and relating to God in ways that have nothing to do with the Church? Men and women today have strong values and beliefs about caring for animals and for the creation, about tolerance for others of different beliefs and customs, and about how we each may live mature and fulfilled lives. They often feel that the Church's moral teaching does not come up to their standards. Objections to the traditional Christian view of God and religion include: Christianity focuses on sin and guilt: God's an egomaniac - he's designed the world solely for his praise: God sentences people to everlasting punishment: religion keeps people immature: religion is stuck in the past: religion is divisive: the belief in a wise and loving creator is not compatible with the suffering and agony evident in the world. In 'God Outside the Box', Richard Harries takes seriously thoughts and criticisms such as these and answers them in detail. "Bishop Harries believes that "Christianity has within its treasure store enormous spiritual riches". His book has certainly helped to display some of those riches which modern society desperately needs." The Tablet.
Author Bio
Richard Harries FRSL
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Richard Harries is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and an Honorary Professor of Theology at King’s College, London. On his retirement as Bishop of Oxford (1987-2006) he was made a life peer (Barron Harries of Pentregarth). He is the author of many critically acclaimed books, most recently Hearing God in Poetry (SPCK, 2021), Seeing God in Art (SPCK, 2020), and Haunted by Christ: Modern writers and the struggle for faith (SPCK, 2018). Art and the Beauty of God (Continuum, 1993), was selected as book of the year by Anthony Burgess in The Observer.
