The sacred diary of Adrian Plass aged 45 and 3/4

THE FATHER TO THE MAN
By Adrian Plass
HarperCollins. 172 pages. £12.99
ISBN 0 551 03082 8

THE SACRED DIARY OF ADRIAN PLASS AGED 4 AND 3/4
By Adrian Plass
HarperCollins. 216 pages. £4.99
ISBN 0 551 03068 2

The editor approached me in a hush-hush sort of way at a heavyweight theological conference. 'Can you do these for me?' he whispered, passing me two volumes face down in a brown paper bag ... Hmmm.

The Father to the Man is a collection of seven short stories. The Sacred Diary is another volume in the spiritual-journal genre that has been so successful for Adrian Plass. He recounts the fictional ups and downs of himself, his family and his fellow Christians in a church set in a small town in the south of England.

As usual, Plass is strong on humour and pathos. This reviewer split his sides laughing at the Christmas circular newsletter ('Joshua has gained A grade GCSEs and nine spiritual gifts this year . . . please pray for his feelings of inadequacy'), and the reconstruction of what the disciples might have said on being asked to go out two-by-two ('Knoweth thou not what an scrip is? What an div!'). I shed a tear when the man who thought his faith was too weak found himself borne over to land safely on the other side.

As usual, I was in two minds about the boundary between humour and flippancy. I was also left feeling uneasy about the very low threshold of doctrinal expectation. In one story, the altar with its candlesticks seemed to represent some meaningful business with God, but then I don't think that I understood that one.

For me, enjoyable light reading. Neither should be used as theological source books. Of the two, the Diary was my favourite - on the other questions, let the reader decide.

Philip Wells

© Evangelicals Now - November 1997
Please consider supporting this ministry by subscribing.

• Request Free Sample

Main Articles

• Mission on our doorstep
  Ministry among Asians in Britain
• Using the Bible (Bulldog for November)
  The Bible must permeate all aspects of church life
• Standing in the gap in Washington
  The Promise Keepers
• Our own parliament
  Scottish devolution
• Watch your language
  Gender-related language in Scripture
• Minding my Ps and Qs
  On gender-related language in Scripture
• Church and Zeitgeist
  Lessons from the experience of the church in Germany in the 1930s
• The backslider's return
  Christian backsliding (with reference to Jonah 1 & 2)
• Why did Paul restrict the ministry of women?
• Post-abortion syndrome
  Interview with Grace Kirkham
• Mr Rotavator
  Meeting and witnessing to non-Christians on an allotment
• Brief lives: Mary Slessor
• The chicken sandwich that changed my life
  Guidance
• Evangelism on wheels
  Use of a bus as a means of Christian outreach
• How to save your homegroup
  Ideas for revitalising a housegroup

Other articles

• Is God good for women?
• Against empire
• One world, two minds
• A family tree - 1 Chronicles simply explained
• A window to heaven
• Hated without a cause?
• Evangelicals in Central Europe - SEN research paper
• The Lost World
• Evangelicalism in Britain 1935-1995
• In defence of miracles
• If only I could believe
• The way everlasting - A study in Psalm 139
• Keep a quiet heart
• The father to the man
• The sacred diary of Adrian Plass aged 45 and 3/4
• Facing depression
• The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church