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Beyond belief? Barriers and bridges to faith todayBEYOND BELIEF? This booklet brings us the results of a helpful piece of research on contemporary attitudes to the church and the Christian faith. The London Institute of Contemporary Christianity interviewed five groups of eight people in November 2002, all of whom were carefully chosen agnostics. Three groups were from the London area and two groups from Nottingham. There was a mix of gender, ages and socio-economic backgrounds. If you want a snapshot of the attitudes of many of the people the church is seeking to reach, this is a very useful introduction. The first section of the booklet records the comments of people in the groups on what Christians would see as barriers to belief. Here the comments range over intellectual, cultural and ecclesiastical issues. It becomes clear that generally 'religion' is a dirty word, and much of the consumer mindset of modern people is expressed. 'The church should reflect what we want,' and 'instead of you being able to dip in/dip out, they are not that flexible.' Many old chestnuts about science and the Bible, and suffering emerge too. In the second section there is an exploration of points at which Christian faith might make positive contact with people. Perhaps the most telling material here came through as respondents articulated a strong sense of their anxiety about the perceived decay and breakdown of modern society. This led to many of them saying they thought there was a need for religion. In the last part of the booklet Mark Greene and Nick Spencer explore what the results might mean in showing a way forward for churches in coming years. There are some underlying attitudes in the researchers' comments with which I felt uneasy, but the booklet is very stimulating, and any church leadership thinking about vision for outreach would benefit by reading it. JEBJohn Benton© Evangelicals Now - January 2004 |