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Between A Rock And A Hard Place
Public Theology In A Post-Secular Age
by Elaine Graham

Paperback
Price: £55.00
Publisher:SCM imprint of Hymns Ancient & Modern Ltd
Published:November 2013
ISBN:978-0-334-04598-4
It is really hard to know where to start with this book, but that's only because it is just so good! Each chapter is a strong, considered and insightful treatise on issues of real relevance and import in today's modern world, where faith intersects with society.
This book is definitely an academic work—the price tag at an amazingly steep £55 clearly demonstrates this—and can I say that it really is an injustice to have priced this book like that. This is a book that could easily have been sold into a much wider market had it been better priced.
Well written, with clear and thoughtful presentation, it is a work that reads well, and which engages with and 'talks' to it's audience—which is perfect given its subject is Pubic Theology!
For me each chapter kept getting better, but for topical reference then the chapter Crusades and Culture Wars was very strong, dealing, as it does, with Evangelical Identity Politics, and a brilliant consideration of how these work and how they have shifted in identification over time (although in some ways not at all!) was well worth the reading. Another thing that makes this book so strong of course is that is it britcentric and so totally culturally relevant in a way many other books on similar subjects sometimes aren't.
This book is well worth reading, the price tag may well put it beyond reach for many people so I would suggest perhaps it could be purchase for a parish library and then well and profitably borrowed by many.
Reviewer: Melanie Carroll (06/06/14)