Hello my friend.

You and I have had many conversations in this last decade, for we share significant interests – not least an enjoyment of ‘popular science’. Yet I have so far been unable to explain how and why it is that I see no conflict between science and my Christian faith; or, to make that point more strongly, why it is that I consider my Christian faith to include and perfect science – to be a more sophisticated and complete understanding than science could ever offer.

For you, things are different. You find it impossible to believe the sorts of things that (you think) Christians are required to believe, even though you are not hostile to religions in general. You enjoy debating religious questions, many of your best friends are Christians, and yet you cannot see a way to accept Christianity without at the same time surrendering your intellectual integrity. For surely Christianity is historically discredited – a threadbare stitching together of superstition and supernatural nonsense, compromised by papal arrogance and protestant bigotry, implicated in wholesale slaughter and the denial of our deepest human values. Centrally, Christianity and so many Christians seem transparently unreasonable, both in belief and behaviour. You do not consider it an accident that Galileo was condemned, and deep down, I suspect you think that those Christians whom you respect are worthy of respect in so far as they are less whole-hearted in their faith; they are ‘liberal’ and accommodating to the modern world.

I do not deny that, as a Christian reflecting on Christian history, there is much cause for shame and repentance. Yet I would like to explain why I do not abandon my faith – to retell the story of Christian history in such a way that the causes of such evil are laid bare, leaving, in consequence, a clearer understanding of what Christianity actually is – and, moreover, a clearer understanding of science, that pattern of thinking with which Christianity has been struggling like Cain with Abel.

I can summarise our differences quite easily: you consider Christianity to be, at root, built around certain supernatural beliefs. I deny this – strongly – for I consider Christianity to be, at root, built around certain mystical practices, which bear fruit in a holy life. My hope that I can explain Christianity to you is founded on the belief that we would both recognise such a holy life when we saw it.

To justify these comments is the endeavour of the book that you hold in your hand. I have come to realise that I need this large canvas on which to paint my portrait of Christian faith. As a portrait it reflects my own understandings and emphases; it is a sketch, not an exhaustive analysis. I have deliberately tried to use broad and bold brushstrokes and not to become distracted by academic detail, for both practical and principled reasons. As will become clear, I do not believe that the academic method is appropriate in all forms of inquiry, indeed, it can be radically counter-productive. Nor is this book meant to be a ‘final answer’ to our questions – on the contrary, it is an invitation to conversation, a conversation at a deeper level than many of our favourite ‘popular science’ writers have shown themselves able to achieve. Perhaps one day I will have the opportunity to develop a more rigorous ‘summa’, but that is not in my hands – if it is God’s will, then he will ‘make it so’. In the meantime, I offer this brief essay to you, with my love and prayers.

The first two chapters of my book can be downloaded here

I’m going to write it on-line, in small chunks. Feeback welcome :o)