Thanks very much, Johannes. Your comments are interesting to me since they come from a conservative, orthodox position (which is less frequently presented on this site than it used to be), and because they directly address issues which I am chewing over at the moment. Thanks too for your comments on Barth, which succinctly capture his lasting relevance.

I don’t think the issues which Tomlinson addresses are simply tolerance and inclusivity, in a latitudinarian Anglican sense. I think it’s that boundaries have often been placed where people are unnecessarily excluded (the example of the debate with the pagan group ‘Philoso-Forum’, and its leader Andy, is a good example. You’d have to read the book to see what this means). Rather more of what is happening in people’s lives outside the Christian faith would benefit from being weighed rather more thoughtfully and sympathetically by the Christian community than is often the case.

There is also an issue about the kind of spirituality which the church is offering to its adherents for their everyday lives. I understand Tomlinson to be targetting a dualism in which we have one kind of life being promoted in Christian gatherings, and something entirely different being experienced in everyday life. He has something to offer here. Linked to this, I found what Tomlinson had to say about Spirit and creation very helpful. Again, the Holy Spirit is sometimes experienced in rather exclusive relationship to the goings-on of our church meetings - which might be either bafflingly bizarre or borderline boring, depending on your churchmanship.

In practical terms, the church to which I belong is currently reviewing its experiences of running something called the Y-Course - rather similar to the Alpha Course. We decided that something less like a ‘course’, and something which explored issues to which all could make a valid contribution (instead of being given logical, ‘step-by-step’ Christian information which could then be discussed) would be a more helpful approach. This has raised wider issues of boundaries and inclusivity in our attitudes and practice as a community.

It’s not that Christian or biblical truths are to be diminished, but that they might be heard more clearly in more of a ‘give-and-take’ environment, where alternative perspectives could also be given more time of day. Of course, I am personally committed to the view that the Christian perspective (and I have to concede that for me, that means the evangelical perspective), is more rational and more profoundly penetrating than any other other. Here I probably differ from Tomlinson. But where I find Tomlinson’s view attractive is that he is able to interact with alternative viewpoints from his own in an affirming and respectful way, and able to engage in a certain amount of humorous self-criticism and self-deprecation. (The debate with ‘Philoso-Forum’ began with Tomlinson saying what he most disliked about ‘Christianity’, and the pagan leader, Andy, saying what he more disliked about ‘paganism’. This did a huge amount in helping both sides to listen to each other).

I am attracted to Tomlinson because his outlook seems to me to be more expansive than the narrower tendencies of evangelical spirituality, which have often been very suspicious of life and culture in general, and towards which it has frequently responded by setting up a parallel world of its own culture - inhabited by its preferred songs and musicians, meetings, conferences and activities. I think Tomlinson is giving us some principles which enable us to engage far more positively with contemporary culture and its spirituality.

Fundamentally though, despite what you say, Tomlinson’s theology is actually still very conservative, despite some tweeks here and there, and quite unlike the drift to broad Anglicanism which you sketch, which suggests a faith coming adrift from all moorings, rather than an exchange of one set of moorings for another.

P.S. You introduced the Wittgenstein - not me - and I don’t know why this comment is in italic format - but it seems to be connected with your Wittgenstein strap-line.