In a Dark Wood: Journeys of Faith and Doubt

In a Dark Wood: Journeys of Faith and Doubt. Edited by Linda Jones and Sophie Stanes. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004. iii and 218 pages. Paper. $16.00.

This is a collection of first-person faith narratives taken from interviews by Jones and Stanes. They interview men and women, clergy and laity, Catholics and Protestants, with a Progressive rabbi thrown in for good measure. Though the group sounds quite diverse, it reads less so. This is partly because they are mostly British and upper class and partly because their story is framed by the interview process of the editors.

Editorial framing is what most distinguishes this book. Each two- to eight-page faith narrative is followed by verses of scripture and poetic and literary excerpts. Thus each faith story interprets and is interpreted by powerful literature. Implicitly, the book's beauty suggests that if "doubt is the new piety," it is also the new chic.

To be fair, the editors seem to want to lead us from denial: "There Is No God" (Section 1) through "Doubts on the Journey" to "The Phoenix of Faith." But therein lies the problem. By equating faith with certitude (p. x) and suggesting that doubt is the death of faith, the editors obscure the normal role of doubt in the life of faith. Doubt becomes this kind of problem only for moderns infected with Descartes' quest for a certainty beyond all doubt. Neither traditional Lutherans nor the average postmodern expects such certainty from the world or God. But for the remaining moderns who do, and in its absence believe that they are alone in the darkness of doubt, this book offers the good news "that you are not alone" (p. x), that others grope and cope in the same darkness. Doubtless that may be good news to some. But it isn't gospel. This book is best used by clergy seeking to exegete the thinking of the remaining modernists in their congregations.

Brent Laytham

North Park Theological Seminary

Chicago, Illinoi

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