Between Heaven and ‘L’

A.N. Wilson has had a tempestuous journey on the sea of faith. His first port of call was St Stephen’s House, in Oxford, the Anglo-Catholic seminary where he trained for ordination in the Church of England. He jumped ship at the end of his first year and travelled to the wilder shores of atheism, writing the polemical pamphlet Against Religion: Why We Should Try To Live Without It.

Unable to follow his own advice, he created a niche for himself as the biographer of influential Christians such as John Milton, Hilaire Belloc, Nikolai Tolstoy, C.S. Lewis and John Betjeman, while also penning studies of the life of Jesus and the mind of St Paul.

After all Wilson’s literary and spiritual journeys, his fans, of which I am one, cannot quite work out whether our hero is faithfully committed, divinely discontented or celestially confused in his relationship with God.

He calls himself a ‘wishy-washy Christian’. But as he writes in such vivid primary colours which no doubts or agnostic detergents can remove, this is a misnomer. Surely his latest book, a guide to the Bible, must reveal whether or not Wilson has at last been cornered by the Hound of Heaven?

The Book of the People is much richer fare than a conventional guide or commentary. It is more a surprise menu of idiosyncratic dishes created by a master chef. The meal titillates the palate and passes the Churchillian pudding test by having a strong theme. But will it feed the spiritually hungry?

Wilson is an author with a mission. He loves the Bible, and has immersed himself in Old Testament scholarship. He makes a serious attempt to persuade the general populace to follow Augustine of Hippo’s exhortation, Tolle, Lege — take up and read.