Although Rowan Williams is sometimes accused of being “never knowingly understood”, this introduction to the basics of Christianity, emanating from his Holy Week talks to the people of his diocese in Canterbury Cathedral, is crisp and lucid. There are light touches of humour and irony, a striking freshness in the language, and tantalising hints of a vast hinterland of learning. The four chapters neatly alternate sacrament and word. First, Baptism. This should, Williams suggests, have a health warning attached: “If you take this step, if you go into the depths, it will be transfiguring, exhilarating, life-giving and very, very dangerous.”Then, secondly, the Bible: this is “what God wants you to hear. He wants you to hear law and poetry and history. He wants yo