Return from a distant country by Alister McGrath
Darton, Longman and Todd, 2021
(My Theology series) 92 pages £8.99 ISBN 978 1 913 657 406
It’s always a joy to read the limpid prose, careful thought and Alister McGrath’s compellingly presented arguments in favour of the Christian faith.
As a young man committed to Marxism as a world view explaining the way the world is and the way it ought to be, it wasn’t until he went up to Oxford in the early seventies that he met Christians who caused him to think seriously about alternative philosophies to Marxism – Christianity in particular. He had ‘a growing sense of the intellectual and imaginative depth of a rediscovered Christianity’.
This short book (only 92 pages) is in effect an ‘apologia pro vita sua’, an outline if his life and development as a scientist and theologian. His involvement with theology is carefully explained,
quoting people with whom he agrees or disagrees.
Prof McGrath is someone who works in the field of ideas – the way they change and develop as well as the factors that influence those changes.
This is a fascinating, instructive and satisfying read, revealing the wide sympathies of an excellent communicator.