Seeking Faith - Finding God

Often we turn to the Bible looking for 'off the shelf' answers. When confusion and doubt crowd in, we open its pages hoping to find simple answers to our complex situations.

John Rackley challenges this view, exploring what it means to be a disciple of Jesus, learning and following in his way. Rather than searching for easy answers, how can we develop a seeking and searching faith that ultimately strives to find God's heart of grace?

John Rackley has contributed to Pause for Thought on BBC Radio 2's Wake up to Wogan for over 15 years. A regular ecumenical retreat leader, he has ministered for over 30 years in local Baptist churches and writes and speaks regularly on spirituality and pastoral issues. He is currently based at Manvers Street Baptist Church, Bath and was President of Baptist Union 2003-4.

Not your usual 'bad guy turned good' stories but each of these men started off with no inclination to get involved with 'religion'. Each of them became aware that there was something missing in their lives, and each of them comes to be involved in a church. Their various journeys to this point make for absorbing reading. What came through to me very strongly was how important it is for Christians to meet people in the situation they are in with acceptance and understanding. In these stories that happened in many different ways and in many different places. As it says on the back of the book 'God knows you. In fact He is getting involved with you, intervening in your life even now.' He certainly did in the lives of these six men.

Reviewed by GoodBookStall

John Rackley's first book began, he tells us, as a column in The Baptist Times. The current editor encouraged him to turn his 'Rackley's Reflections' into a book which explores, in contemporary language and anecdotes, what it means to have faith today.

There are five groups of reflections: A Yearning Faith, a Gospel Place, Gospel Encounters, Faith Companions and Praying the Gospel; each is linked to the next by a short transitionary reflection. The reflections are, of their nature, more or less the same in length; each is headed with a biblical text and concludes with suggestions for Bible reading, prayer and discussion. Thus, they are ideally suited for study and discussion groups, as well as for personal use.

In his introduction, Rackley makes use of the language of travel and journey, seeking and searching. "I believe in a theology of the journey," he says. "I cannot find it in myself to write an ordered, systematic account of what I believe. I am constantly working at it, and do not fear going to the edge of my beliefs, raising questions and exploring new ideas." This makes for relevant and challenging study material, 'permitting' the exploration of personal faith issues.

The reflections are declaredly personal - there is much use of the first person singular, though this rarely becomes intrusive, and, in fact, may help the reader to earth the thought in her/his own experience. The anecdotes and illustrations are telling and sometimes uncomfortable: you will find yourself saying: "Oh yes, I know!"

In a powerful conclusion, Rackley declares that his reflections have been based on five convictions - these are thought-provoking and deceptively simple:

We need to see God.

We need to be completely honest about our struggles and questioning.

We need to live anything which we say we believe.

We need to be able to proclaim the Gospel as if we were in the presence of a dying child.

We need to recognize that the Gospel is an explicit challenge to all earthly authority

And his final sentence holds a particular challenge to us in the Irish context: "Christian influence is at best patchy but certainly no longer dominant in our society, and this is both a burden and an opportunity." An opportunity? Now there's a thought!

Reviewed by Gillian Kingston

From The Julian Meetings Magazine - April 2008

Seeking Faith, Finding God grew out of John Rackley's weekly column Rackley's Reflections in The Baptist Times. His aim in both the column and the book is to 'write something that will encourage the readers to look at the Bible with fresh eyes'. In his introduction he says 'The gospel, however, expects us to communicate what we believe with a view to convincing others of its authenticity. I believe this begins to happen when Christian people are ready to have seeking and searching faith themselves. If we are to communicate what we believe it must be as fellow travellers in these difficult and demanding times'.

The book is arranged in five sections on themes of 'A yearning faith; A Gospel place; Gospel encounters; Faith companions and Praying the Gospel'. Each reflection is about two pages long and ends with suggestions for reflection, prayer and discussion. A number of the reflections are 'imagination led'.

Here we find new light, new ways of coming at what is familiar in the Bible, new ways of looking and seeing. Some of it is startling. Not only do we look at things differently; to read the book is to be changed as there is so much here not just for reflection, but also for growth. It is a book I am grateful for. I particularly liked Paddington Station in Advent and Unfinished Symphonies.

Reviewed by Gail Ballinger

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