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Good Faith Book Club

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Formed in 2012, we now meet on the fourth Saturday in alternate months from 2pm to 4pm in The new Welcome Space which is through the glass doors at the front of the church in Buckingham Street. Our meeting months are January, March, May, July, September and November.

So 2019 dates are: January 26th, March 23rd May 25th, July 22nd, September 24th, November 26th.

The aim is to provide a forum for people to explore and discuss matters of faith and what they believe through the discussion of a book in a relaxed, convivial, non-threatening atmosphere.

Everyone is welcome to come along and express their views or just listen over a cup of tea or coffee. The group decides which book to read next. Various members have written the following summaries of our discussions.

Contact Peter Green the Club Secretary:
Tel. 01296 424653
Email: peterb.green@ntlworld.com.

The Road Less Travelled

This book produced one of the most interesting, stimulating discussions we have had so far in the meetings I have attended. For some of us, it was a re-visit of a book we had read some years ago and to others it was new, but we all agreed it had a lot to offer.One of the strongest parts of the book was where the author discussed science and spirituality. In response to this, we came to the conclusion that although science has explained over the years why many things happen, it has not answered the question "what for? " and it is the role of spirituality to fill this gap.Scott Peck's definition of original sin as laziness and thus the importance of work & effort resonated with most of the group and we also enjoyed considering his understandings of love & grace.We shared some criticism of his ideas, not agreeing with his seeing the spiritual as coming from the mind alone. This tied in with the perception that he was great at the "thinking stuff" but not so g

Good Without God

Humanism, as well as being described like the title of the book that eight of us discussed, namely Good without God, can also be described as Christianity Lite! Whilst, according to the book's author Greg Epstein, Humanist Chaplain at Harvard, humanists don't want the 'supernatural' virgin birth, miracles or resurrection, they do want and value much of what Christianity, and some other faiths, has to offer.These include the desire and need for an overriding motivation to want to be good. They also see the value of prayer and Epstein spends several pages suggesting alternatives to prayer for those who don't believe in God. In addition, he sees the value of ritual, positive action in and for the community, 'belonging' and regular meeting places for like-minded people. Indeed, he comments that, "being a good person in a vacuum is not a very satisfying experience." Although we all know people who are indeed good without any belief in God, it seeme

Consumer detox

The Good Faith Book Club met on the 12th of January at Aylesbury Methodist Church to discuss Mark Powley's Consumer Detox: Less Stuff, More Life, published by Zondervan in 2010. Several commented on the book's relevance to Epiphany and baptism and the need for each of us to be the people we are called to be in Christ, rather than become caught up in the desire for things, status, and multiple experiences that the world would have us seek and choose. The author, an Anglican clergy man, describes himself as a consumer, desiring to wean himself from the thrawls of consumerism. Writing simply and in short sentences and brief paragraphs, he leads his reader through the process of awareness and partial (but not complete) withdrawal.Comments from those at the meeting included that although many of us have heard it all before (the author is of a younger generation than most of the members of the Book Club), it never hurts to hear it again, and to be given a guideline to check h

The Spiral Staircase

We had all been reading an autobiographical book — "The Spiral Staircase" by Karen Armstrong. This was quite a change from the theological books we have read so far and one that seemed to have been very well-received. The book is the story of a life and a most unusual one. Karen became a Roman-Catholic nun as a teenager and became more and more aware that she did not fit in in her convent, having no experiences of the presence of God in any of the multifarious activities she took part in. She also experienced times of alienation and separation from all those around her, which often manifested themselves in physical symptoms that were looked on by her superiors as the results of a highly strung nature and an example of her own weakness. One of our group members was able to identify her medical condition early on in the book due to her nursing experiences and became very frustrated as doctors failed to help her.The book traces Karen's journey out of the convent, into stud

The People's Bible

Eight of us met and discussed Derek Wilson's The People's Bible: The Remarkable History of the King James Bible. The book took us on a journey which started in the Middle Ages when services were in Latin and religious ideas were mediated mainly through visual imagery such as stained glass windows, carvings, altar pieces or friezes. Old Testament stories and parables were confused with stories of Saints and folk lore and the parish clergy were astonishingly ill informed on the Bible's content. Believing the Church to be corrupted, John Wycliffe and his followers turned to The Bible for the basis of their religious ideas and were so energized by it they began a campaign for its translation into English for the benefit of all.The Catholic Church however believed that the content of the Bible was dangerous to the untrained mind and resisted all efforts to have it translated. The story twists and turns with the arrival of the printing press, Protestantism, the Counter Refo

The Happiness Secret

Eight people discussed The Happiness Secret: Finding true contentment by Anglican evangelist J. John. The thrust of the book was that the more we seek happiness, the less likely we are to find it. Instead, he advocated an indirect approach of seeking 'blessings' by following Christ's teachings in the Beatitudes of Matthew's gospel. Rather than the word 'happy' used by some translations of 'blessed' J. John prefers the meaning of 'Congratulations' or 'Good for you!'He then developed his own approach to this Sermon on the Mount. Being poor in spirit, mournful, meek, righteous, merciful, pure in heart, a peacemaker and unworried by persecution follows a logical progression to him. We need to recognise our failings in our spirituality and mourn our poor relationship with God before we can move on. It was rather like a tree needing these strong roots before it could grow and branch out. However, many found this analogy less than convincing,

Surprised By Hope

On Saturday 19th May, the recently-formed Good Faith Book Club held its second meeting at Aylesbury Methodist Church. Unfortunately, largely due to other priorities, only 5 members were able to be present, but several others had offered their thoughts on the book under discussion — 'Surprised by Hope' by Tom Wright, the recently-retired Bishop of Durham.Most members had difficulties with the book, which promoted Tom Wright's views on 'Life after Death' and 'The Second Coming'. This was partly because they had found the tone of the book very dismissive of any one who held different views, whom he described as muddled and unorthodox. He seemed sure that his own doctrine, which he called 'Life after life after death', had been the traditional one of the early church and the one which the Bible taught. He had little time for liberal thinkers or modern scholarship, but also criticised those who were waiting to be taken up to heaven in 'The Rapture&#

Rescuing The Bible From Fundamentalism

Nine people from across the Circuit attended our first Book Club meeting at Aylesbury to discuss John Spong's 'Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism'.The now retired American Episcopalian Bishop certainly knows and loves his Bible. He believes the growth of evangelical and fundamentalist Christian churches who insist on taking the Bible literally makes it easy for aggressive atheists to attack it and creates a crisis of faith for many. Coverage of the Archbishop of Canterbury's turbulent tenure trying to reconcile the seemingly irreconcilable liberal and literalist wings of the Anglican Church, showed this was not just an American issue.Spong gives numerous examples from all sections of the Old and New Testaments showing the problems of a literal interpretation and urging Christians to love Scripture for what it is — "a chronicle written by our ancestors in faith as they walked through history in the presence of God".Marilyn Dore's comments reflecte

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