REVIEW - The End of Religion

This is not a full review of Bruxy Cavey's amazing book, 'The End of Religion'. It's just a few comments and a brief extract. But I feel strongly prompted to write these words so if you are prompted to read them - here they are...

I forget where I bought the book, but I was intrigued by both the title and by the author's unusual name, so after an engaging and encouraging dip into the pages I went ahead and bought it. That was probably a year or two ago.

I really enjoyed this book - I mean really enjoyed it. For me there was refreshment on every page, I knew right away that the author sees Jesus much as I do. Bruxy Cavey understands that Jesus came to release us, not to bind us up with a thousand more dos and don'ts.

Recently I decided to give the book to a visiting friend. It encapsulates what he thinks too and if it refreshed me I think it will also refresh him.

Here's a little extract to whet your appetite for more. It comes from the introduction which is entitled 'The Holy Hand Grenade'.

I am convinced that the Bible holds clues to a way out of our slavish addiction to religious systems, while it simultaneously invites us into a direct connection with the Divine.

But isn't the Bible a book full of rules, regulations, rituals, and routines - the very stuff of religion? True, the many texts of the Bible, especially those of the Old Testament (that part written before Jesus), do contain laws and rituals, systems and institutions. But these religious ideas are not its starting point or its ending point.

The Bible begins by painting a picture of the ideal world - a world without religion, a garden where God and people live in naked intimacy. This was God's original intention for humankind. In the Bible it is only after people turn away from his ideal of mutual trust and intimacy that God gives them rules and routines, traditions and teachings - but this is not the end of the story.

The rules and rituals of the Bible are like a map that leads to a great treasure, though they are not the treasure itself. I think this is what the revered Jewish poet and philosopher Abraham Joshua Heschel is driving at when he says, 'Religion as an institution, the Temple as an ultimate end, or, in other words, religion for religion's sake, is idolatry.'

Religious people often tend to confuse the treasure map for the treasure.

If you want to buy the book you can get it from Amazon. But if you live anywhere near St Neots in Cambridgeshire I urge you to visit Cornerstone, have a coffee and a delicious bite to eat, and pick it up or order it while you're there.