malcolm chamberlain

Alan Jamieson, Jenny McIntosh and Adrienne Thompson's Church Leavers: Faith Journeys Five Years On is now published in the UK and can be ordered through SPCK 'here'. It's a valuable piece of research that revisits the stories of about half of the original church leavers in A Churchless Faith to see if the findings of that book still hold true. The biggest surprise is that, instead of there being a wholesale 'progression' through Jamieson's faith stages, he found that most of the respondents actually showed a stability of faith and a small number had moved to faith positions theoretically 'before' that of their previous one. It demonstrates that the faith journey outside the church is not necessarily a neat linear one and will come as a relief to some church leavers whose experience resonates with it.

The book also charts the development of Spirited Exchanges and the role of spiritual directors. To read what Alan Jamieson says about the book, see 'here' and 'here'.

Labels: churchless faith