“The gospels summon us to ­flourish,” writes Timothy Radcliffe, former master of the Dominicans, early on in this stimulating gallop through literature, liturgy and life.

Alive in God: A Christian Imagination
Timothy Radcliffe
(BLOOMSBURY CONTINUUM, 432 PP, £12.99)
Tablet bookshop price £10.99 • Tel 020 7799 4064

“The gospels summon us to ­flourish,” writes Timothy Radcliffe, former master of the Dominicans, early on in this stimulating gallop through literature, liturgy and life. When did you last read a book of Christian theology that accentuates the risky, the adventurous and the joyful in Christ’s astonishing message? It’s a book I’ve long been waiting for.

Timothy Radcliffe’s starting point is a question: how, in a largely post-Christian world, can believers engage the minds and imagin­ations of people, particularly the young, with a religion which has no meaning for them? Not necessarily to convert or even to convince them, but to challenge them to consider and debate something of vital intellectual and emotional power. Something which says yes to life and love.

It’s strange, on reflection, that so much discussion of Christianity is about guilt, sin, punishment and reparation. Think about some of the Bible’s greatest lines: “I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses.

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