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Leaving Alexandria: A Memoir of Faith and Doubt
The acclaimed writer, respected thinker and outspoken former bishop Richard Holloway recounts a life defined by the biggest questions: Who am I? And what is God? At fourteen, Richard Holloway left his home in the Vale of Leven, north of Glasgow, and travelled hundreds of miles to be educated and trained for the priesthood by a religious order in an English monastery. By twenty-five he had been ordained and was working in the slums of Glasgow. Throughout the following forty years, Richard touched the lives of many people in the Church and in the wider community. But behind his confident public face lay a restless, unquiet heart and a constantly searching mind. Why is the Church, which claims to be the instrument of God's love, so prone to cruelty and condemnation? And how can a man live with the tension between public faith and private doubt? In his long-awaited memoir, Richard seeks to answer these questions and to explain how, after many crises of faith, he finally and painfully left the Church. It is a wise, poetic and fiercely honest book.
358 pages, Hardcover
First published February 27, 2012
About the author
Richard Holloway
75 books143 followersRichard Holloway is a Scottish writer, broadcaster and cleric. He was the Bishop of Edinburgh from 1986 to 2000 and Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church from 1992 to 2000.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 103 reviews
March 27, 2024
Given that for the past twenty years I have been an atheist, and am now hesitantly exploring to see if I can find a path into some sort of faith, this was perhaps not the right book to read.
It's a haunting memoir, beautifully written, by someone who has lost his faith....and he had a long way to fall, having once been Bishop of Edinburgh and also Primus of the Episcopalian Church of Scotland. It traces his journey from a passion for religion and the monastic life, to his eventual disillusion both with the church and with himself and his aspirations. He was particularly upset about the approach of conservative Christians towards biblical concepts which he feels are completely out of kilter with 21st century ideas, eg attitudes towards toward gay people and the inequality of women (as shown in the struggles for the ordination for women.) He sees the Bible more as a great work of art, full of wonderful ideas and stories, but not to be interpreted literally. In fact he thinks that ethics should be completely separate from religion.
He looks coolly at the aspects of his childhood which filled him with a desire to join the Church - mostly the myths of the movies he and his mother where so addicted to. Heroes coming in at the end with noble stoicism, to win the day for those who need help. He felt this really set the scene for his interest in religion. He was also much enchanted with the colour and theatre of the Church. Eventually he joined a college/monastic order which took in 14 year old schoolboys, with the intention of training them for a clerical life, and his time there with them was very happy.
He also talks about the difficulties of being a young man with burgeoning sexuality, and how condemning the Church is of these natural feelings. Later on he talks about his awareness of how church congregations are falling, and being concerned about his livelihood. He also talks about the difficulty of accepting the idea of a loving or omniscient God in a world where things like the Jewish holocaust happened. There are many things about religion and the Church that atheists and agnostics question from the outside, and it was interesting to hear these things being discussed by someone who has been on the inside.
Interestingly, he remains sympathetic to his yearnings for the transcendental, and at the time of writing this book he continued to seek solace by attending services in his old church.
In many ways I think I would have done better to read one of his earlier books, written when he was a liberal minded, active priest - but even so - I would have known about the eventual ending of his career.
I am going to continue with my tentative proddings, and I think in spite of the outcome of Holloway's story, his experiences and insights have been helpful to me.
It's a haunting memoir, beautifully written, by someone who has lost his faith....and he had a long way to fall, having once been Bishop of Edinburgh and also Primus of the Episcopalian Church of Scotland. It traces his journey from a passion for religion and the monastic life, to his eventual disillusion both with the church and with himself and his aspirations. He was particularly upset about the approach of conservative Christians towards biblical concepts which he feels are completely out of kilter with 21st century ideas, eg attitudes towards toward gay people and the inequality of women (as shown in the struggles for the ordination for women.) He sees the Bible more as a great work of art, full of wonderful ideas and stories, but not to be interpreted literally. In fact he thinks that ethics should be completely separate from religion.
He looks coolly at the aspects of his childhood which filled him with a desire to join the Church - mostly the myths of the movies he and his mother where so addicted to. Heroes coming in at the end with noble stoicism, to win the day for those who need help. He felt this really set the scene for his interest in religion. He was also much enchanted with the colour and theatre of the Church. Eventually he joined a college/monastic order which took in 14 year old schoolboys, with the intention of training them for a clerical life, and his time there with them was very happy.
He also talks about the difficulties of being a young man with burgeoning sexuality, and how condemning the Church is of these natural feelings. Later on he talks about his awareness of how church congregations are falling, and being concerned about his livelihood. He also talks about the difficulty of accepting the idea of a loving or omniscient God in a world where things like the Jewish holocaust happened. There are many things about religion and the Church that atheists and agnostics question from the outside, and it was interesting to hear these things being discussed by someone who has been on the inside.
Interestingly, he remains sympathetic to his yearnings for the transcendental, and at the time of writing this book he continued to seek solace by attending services in his old church.
In many ways I think I would have done better to read one of his earlier books, written when he was a liberal minded, active priest - but even so - I would have known about the eventual ending of his career.
I am going to continue with my tentative proddings, and I think in spite of the outcome of Holloway's story, his experiences and insights have been helpful to me.
October 6, 2013
A former Bishop of Edinburgh, Holloway is often harsh on himself in this brutally honest memoir. The higher he rose in the Anglican Church – through parish priest positions in a slum area of Glasgow and in Boston, and eventually to the bishopric – the more piercing his doubts about Christianity became. Sainthood seemed an ever more cruelly mocking fantasy to someone who was drifting away from the certainties of orthodoxy. Again and again he confesses that as a churchman he was playing a role he was unsuited for, and a mask of confidence hid his incompetence and falsity. You want to comfort him, to remind him that he is as human as the rest of us, and that all of us are acting our parts for much of the time.
There is great wisdom here – for anyone, Christian or atheist. Holloway is committed to ethical behaviour and to compassion towards the poor and outcast, but he no longer thinks human goodness needs to be motivated by religion. There are regrets and sadness in his story, but there is also beauty – the beauty of a life unfolding. As with the best memoirs, the reader is delighted to follow Holloway along all the winding paths of his life story: from a Scottish council estate to the monastic atmosphere of Kelham Hall, where he trained for the priesthood; to Ghana and Boston and back to Scotland; and from the heights of influence down into a sort of disgrace.
One of the most remarkable elements of the book is its frank discussion of sexuality, and particularly how prudish and paranoid reactions to sex have made it an issue far out of proportion to its true importance in Christian morality. Holloway is especially sensitive to the experience of gay people. He recounts an early crush he had on a fellow student at Kelham Hall; though he felt no physical lust, he craved the boy’s company and approval. They went on a holiday together through Devon and Cornwall. At one guest house they had to share a double bed; his friend suggested they sleep either side of the sheet, a discreet gesture Holloway didn’t understand but went along with anyway. When they met again decades later at a church event, in a moment alone the man remembered to Holloway, “We were in love.” “Yes,” Holloway simply replied.
I love the quiet humility of that moment: the bold admission and the twinge of bittersweet regret, not to mention the rare moment of connection when two people realize that feelings they thought were theirs alone were reciprocated all along. Holloway is married and has three children; he is not homosexual. And yet he can imagine what it would be to love a man, because he once came so close to it himself. He can experience true compassion for gay people because he can literally ‘feel with’ them what they are going through. If only such empathy motivated everyone acting in the name of the Church today.
There is great wisdom here – for anyone, Christian or atheist. Holloway is committed to ethical behaviour and to compassion towards the poor and outcast, but he no longer thinks human goodness needs to be motivated by religion. There are regrets and sadness in his story, but there is also beauty – the beauty of a life unfolding. As with the best memoirs, the reader is delighted to follow Holloway along all the winding paths of his life story: from a Scottish council estate to the monastic atmosphere of Kelham Hall, where he trained for the priesthood; to Ghana and Boston and back to Scotland; and from the heights of influence down into a sort of disgrace.
One of the most remarkable elements of the book is its frank discussion of sexuality, and particularly how prudish and paranoid reactions to sex have made it an issue far out of proportion to its true importance in Christian morality. Holloway is especially sensitive to the experience of gay people. He recounts an early crush he had on a fellow student at Kelham Hall; though he felt no physical lust, he craved the boy’s company and approval. They went on a holiday together through Devon and Cornwall. At one guest house they had to share a double bed; his friend suggested they sleep either side of the sheet, a discreet gesture Holloway didn’t understand but went along with anyway. When they met again decades later at a church event, in a moment alone the man remembered to Holloway, “We were in love.” “Yes,” Holloway simply replied.
I love the quiet humility of that moment: the bold admission and the twinge of bittersweet regret, not to mention the rare moment of connection when two people realize that feelings they thought were theirs alone were reciprocated all along. Holloway is married and has three children; he is not homosexual. And yet he can imagine what it would be to love a man, because he once came so close to it himself. He can experience true compassion for gay people because he can literally ‘feel with’ them what they are going through. If only such empathy motivated everyone acting in the name of the Church today.
July 1, 2014
First, full disclosure: I am a religious neophyte, raised an atheist in a religious vacuum, later becoming a hopeful believer in a failed experiment, and now agnostic--and I use the term tentatively, aware of all I know I don’t know. Except that I do. I do know, when it comes to what resonates within.
And what I know from reading this wonderfully well-written, honest book is that on many topics Richard Holloway speaks for me.
It is a hugely entertaining memoir, and an informative one, so informative it often left me tangled like a kite in the countless branches of organized religion's genealogical tree.
But from that tree he sure hung a lot of revelations (pun not intended). The biggest source of division among Christians? See pg. 287. The shame that lurks behind the church's opposition to change, such as the ordination of women and acceptance of homosexuality? See pg. 322. Religion's chief mistake? See pg. 343. (Never let it be said that I include spoilers in my reviews.)
I learned about Akedia, or "The Doom," a phenomenon surely as familiar to writers' communities as religious ones; how evangelists pimp for God (my term); how the opposite of faith is not doubt but certainty, and why believing and atheism are hypotheses and not about certainty (he says believing is fragile, insane and lovely all at once in the way it requires a leap of faith); the value of confession, even for nonbelievers; and the reason nonbelievers can sing Christmas carols about the coming of God in human form with impunity (it has to do with "God in his cradle lies," where the cradle is a metaphor for our imagination, for hope). It’s a relief about the carols: I’d always felt a bit duplicitous about that one.
Several themes repeat, like the old nut about fate: "…the roads choose us and what they unfold before us is not the person we want to be, but the person we already are, the person time slowly discloses to us. Also, how we hate in others that within ourselves we do not "pity." (A jarring word for me; I prefer empathy.) And, the need to live practically and spiritually with paradox, a favourite theme of mine. "Living with the unanswerable question is the key to our humanity," he says, and he shares cringe-worthy examples of how religion's attempt to answer the unanswerable or defend the status quo has resulted in inexcusable acts of inhumanity. I would never work for an organization that exercised hate crimes against women and gays: why would I look twice at the church?
But he is fair and objective, also sharing stories about the church at its best. He captures what I think I was feeling in Italy's churches, their "strange power over those who visit." It's because in those cool, dark, mystical places, we are hearing the echoes of generations who spilled their grief, secrets and tears there. The church hears all, "absorbed them into the mercy of their silence...this is grace."
It's a book of ideas, really, some rendered through his determination to be transparent, to understand himself—a courageous journey toward self-awareness. It surges into resonant territory for me when he shares his view that it is fiction and poetry, not religion, that help people transcend sorrow and suffering. Literature gives us "the power to endure and not be defeated." Does that mean great writers and philosophers are the true spiritual leaders of our time?
Ultimately, his appeal is to leave God out of moral disputes, especially given how many times we have misinterpreted biblical code. Let's debate issues "on good human grounds," he says, coming back to the need to pivot on the moral authority not of institutions, but of individuals and their need for mercy. God wanting something done a certain way gives you religious but not moral information, he argues.
In a quote about someone else, but one that is really about himself, he says, "He understood the paradox of grace: that through their very flaws, troubled men could become instruments of grace for others but never for themselves." It comes from a verse in the gospels: "They saved others, themselves they cannot save."
I think Holloway’s memoir is an instrument of understanding and grace for believers, nonbelievers and the perpetually unsure, alike.
And what I know from reading this wonderfully well-written, honest book is that on many topics Richard Holloway speaks for me.
It is a hugely entertaining memoir, and an informative one, so informative it often left me tangled like a kite in the countless branches of organized religion's genealogical tree.
But from that tree he sure hung a lot of revelations (pun not intended). The biggest source of division among Christians? See pg. 287. The shame that lurks behind the church's opposition to change, such as the ordination of women and acceptance of homosexuality? See pg. 322. Religion's chief mistake? See pg. 343. (Never let it be said that I include spoilers in my reviews.)
I learned about Akedia, or "The Doom," a phenomenon surely as familiar to writers' communities as religious ones; how evangelists pimp for God (my term); how the opposite of faith is not doubt but certainty, and why believing and atheism are hypotheses and not about certainty (he says believing is fragile, insane and lovely all at once in the way it requires a leap of faith); the value of confession, even for nonbelievers; and the reason nonbelievers can sing Christmas carols about the coming of God in human form with impunity (it has to do with "God in his cradle lies," where the cradle is a metaphor for our imagination, for hope). It’s a relief about the carols: I’d always felt a bit duplicitous about that one.
Several themes repeat, like the old nut about fate: "…the roads choose us and what they unfold before us is not the person we want to be, but the person we already are, the person time slowly discloses to us. Also, how we hate in others that within ourselves we do not "pity." (A jarring word for me; I prefer empathy.) And, the need to live practically and spiritually with paradox, a favourite theme of mine. "Living with the unanswerable question is the key to our humanity," he says, and he shares cringe-worthy examples of how religion's attempt to answer the unanswerable or defend the status quo has resulted in inexcusable acts of inhumanity. I would never work for an organization that exercised hate crimes against women and gays: why would I look twice at the church?
But he is fair and objective, also sharing stories about the church at its best. He captures what I think I was feeling in Italy's churches, their "strange power over those who visit." It's because in those cool, dark, mystical places, we are hearing the echoes of generations who spilled their grief, secrets and tears there. The church hears all, "absorbed them into the mercy of their silence...this is grace."
It's a book of ideas, really, some rendered through his determination to be transparent, to understand himself—a courageous journey toward self-awareness. It surges into resonant territory for me when he shares his view that it is fiction and poetry, not religion, that help people transcend sorrow and suffering. Literature gives us "the power to endure and not be defeated." Does that mean great writers and philosophers are the true spiritual leaders of our time?
Ultimately, his appeal is to leave God out of moral disputes, especially given how many times we have misinterpreted biblical code. Let's debate issues "on good human grounds," he says, coming back to the need to pivot on the moral authority not of institutions, but of individuals and their need for mercy. God wanting something done a certain way gives you religious but not moral information, he argues.
In a quote about someone else, but one that is really about himself, he says, "He understood the paradox of grace: that through their very flaws, troubled men could become instruments of grace for others but never for themselves." It comes from a verse in the gospels: "They saved others, themselves they cannot save."
I think Holloway’s memoir is an instrument of understanding and grace for believers, nonbelievers and the perpetually unsure, alike.
October 6, 2012
I remember what I said when Richard Holloway resigned his position in the Church. I was dismissive. Since then I have read some of his most recent works as I've negotiated my own withdrawal from organised Religion. I was very keen to read this memoir because I had unanswered questions of Richard Holloway, so having read it, I am pleased to say that my questions (most of them) are answered. I found the book satisfying, affirming, funny, courageous and moving; and would like to thank Richard for giving us the chance to read it. I count this book as a true blessing and I shall be re-reading it soon.
February 29, 2012
Like the man himself, Richard Holloway’s autobiography is candid, entertaining and delightfully unstuffy. The former bishop of Edinburgh traces a thoughtful path through the byways of his life, beginning with a modest upbringing in Dunbartonshire. It’s here that his lifelong love of the movies was ignited, and he ponders whether Hollywood inspired his search for heroic roles in his own life. Looking back, he suggests the search might have been misjudged. “The tough lesson life teaches is the difference between who you would want to be and who you actually are.“ Holloway’s restless, open mind propelled him out of the monastic life and into the wider world, from the Gorbals to Ghana, Edinburgh to America. Peppered with prose and poetry, the book underlines a profound love of literature. Holloway’s own writing style is elegant and lucid, particularly when addressing religion. Repelled by the supreme convictions of conservative evangelists, Holloway much prefers the quiet, doubting souls who seek to ameliorate the human condition. His support for the homeless and drug addicts, for gay marriage and women priests, has attracted hostility inside and beyond his church. But to his many admirers, Holloway will always be on the side of the angels.
November 9, 2014
This is a haunting and evocative appraisal of one man's spiritual journey, but it a also a reflection on modern Christianity. Although I come from a very different Christian tradition to Holloway's, I found much to identify with here, and reading the book was at times a painful experience because of that.
It is also unexpectedly (unintentionally perhaps) an apology for poetry; scarcely a page goes by without Holloway quoting one poet or other, finding that poems can express ideas where prose is woefully inadequate. As a lover of poetry, I appreciated this touch, and indeed found new poets to explore among more familiar names. As Holloway says, "neither [fiction or poetry] sought to explain, only to express, to give voice to the earth's anger and sorrow."
Unsurprisingly then, Holloway identifies most strongly with the narrative power of the gospel, rejecting the more dogmatic approach of much Christian teaching today. Maybe the two can go together, or maybe as Holloway himself found, the two approaches live in perpetual opposition.
It is also unexpectedly (unintentionally perhaps) an apology for poetry; scarcely a page goes by without Holloway quoting one poet or other, finding that poems can express ideas where prose is woefully inadequate. As a lover of poetry, I appreciated this touch, and indeed found new poets to explore among more familiar names. As Holloway says, "neither [fiction or poetry] sought to explain, only to express, to give voice to the earth's anger and sorrow."
Unsurprisingly then, Holloway identifies most strongly with the narrative power of the gospel, rejecting the more dogmatic approach of much Christian teaching today. Maybe the two can go together, or maybe as Holloway himself found, the two approaches live in perpetual opposition.
August 22, 2013
A smashing, honest book - both in his own self-deprecating self-criticism and also in his searingly acceptant view of what he actually believes. Takes big balls to do this and Holloway obviously has them. I'm just so relieved I haven't had to go through all this agony of dealing with church authorities who often seem more interested in what ceremony should be followed on which saint's day or what colour your vest should be on the third Sunday after advent. Holloway honestly reveals a hankering after this sort of panto - but contrasts it with the work of sitting with the dying and defending the oppressed. Good guy - he shouldn't beat himself up so much!
August 8, 2012
As a person who has had a drastic change in my spiritual direction since my childhood, I found this to be an interesting memoir of an individual who struggled with doubt throughout his religious education and his calling as a priest and then Bishop. His insight in to the positive attributes of Christianity and his conclusions regarding his inability to stay within the confines of an organized religion that defeats these attributes by its dogmatic, hypocritical structure, rang true to me on many levels. I don't usually highlight when I read, but I found so much of his commentary so close to my own reasons for leaving my former faith that I found his writing and reasoning required notation for future reference and reading.
I would recommend this book to anyone who can read with an open mind and not take offense to his statements of doubt. However, that being said, I live in the Bible Belt of the United States and I think that many here would have issues with much of his writing. Open mindedness is not embraced here when it comes to the doctrines of the Church (or on many issues for that matter, sadly).
Thank you, Richard Holloway, for sharing your deepest emotions in this well written memoir.
I would recommend this book to anyone who can read with an open mind and not take offense to his statements of doubt. However, that being said, I live in the Bible Belt of the United States and I think that many here would have issues with much of his writing. Open mindedness is not embraced here when it comes to the doctrines of the Church (or on many issues for that matter, sadly).
Thank you, Richard Holloway, for sharing your deepest emotions in this well written memoir.
April 13, 2013
Richard Holloway does not just write; he paints with the quill, a quill that is handled by wisdom that few of us could ever hope to obtain. In the end, I disagree with Holloway on some very weighty issues, but I was continually romanced by his words. His interpretation of the parable of the Good Samaritan alone is worth reading his book, but he drops knowledge and beauty on almost every page. This man officiated in a homosexual wedding in the early 1970s -- He was way ahead of the curve!
I listened to this book and hearing it in his Scottish tongue was an added bonus. By the end I was fantasizing about sharing dinner with him in a country cottage lit by oil lamp. He would methodically smoke his pipe while I would sip on a glass of Scotch whisky, and I would then pour out the contents of my soul to his listening ear, an ear that has most likely absorbed the existential frustrations of thousands.
I listened to this book and hearing it in his Scottish tongue was an added bonus. By the end I was fantasizing about sharing dinner with him in a country cottage lit by oil lamp. He would methodically smoke his pipe while I would sip on a glass of Scotch whisky, and I would then pour out the contents of my soul to his listening ear, an ear that has most likely absorbed the existential frustrations of thousands.
August 2, 2013
What a surprisingly brilliant account of a human life. It is utterly rich in wisdom born of reflection on the things that makes us the complex, contradictory creatures we are. Compulsive reading, and on many pages there are lines you want to paint up on the wall least you forget... the irony is of course that as the regular quotes from Nietzsche indicate, the author distrusts the absolute quality of words and ideas, and their lack of flexibility... but even so... there is a lifetime of wisdom generously shared with total honesty about human failings we all share.
June 24, 2014
Highly recommended to anybody who has given any thought at all to your own spiritual journey in this world.
March 3, 2019
Holloway's prose is very readable and this memoir is a memorable one - wise and full of wry, sometimes mischievous humour. The author is a former Anglican Bishop of Edinburgh who once wore, in my view, a badge of honour in that the Daily Mail dubbed him, 'Britain's barmiest Bishop'.
A churchman reviled on all sides at various points in his long career may just, to my mind, be doing something right. The humour is striking. Not many former Bishops would include this observation on being insulted by a fellow bishop who was virulently opposed to gay marriage and women's ordination in a lavatory, "I resisted the impulse to deck him and left him to go on pissing his wormwood and gall into the Queen's urinal".
However, it's the book's quiet, questioning wisdom and Holloway's struggle with faith and doubt that will stay with me. That and his doubtful, radical interpretation of scripture and how it relates to a life which led him to champion the fight against injustices against women and gays in the Anglican church and beyond. The book is packed with references to poems and books which enrich it greatly and illuminate Holloway's thinking.
If I have a criticism it is that the author is a little too apologetic, too regretful of his perceived 'mistakes'. He constantly berates himself and calls his own judgments into question - whilst this may be laudable to some extent, it gets a little wearisome. This self criticism is something that I've noticed in clergy of all backgrounds over the years, it must be very tiring for them!
However, this is an insignificant criticism - I thoroughly recommend this book and have been personally enriched by it.
A churchman reviled on all sides at various points in his long career may just, to my mind, be doing something right. The humour is striking. Not many former Bishops would include this observation on being insulted by a fellow bishop who was virulently opposed to gay marriage and women's ordination in a lavatory, "I resisted the impulse to deck him and left him to go on pissing his wormwood and gall into the Queen's urinal".
However, it's the book's quiet, questioning wisdom and Holloway's struggle with faith and doubt that will stay with me. That and his doubtful, radical interpretation of scripture and how it relates to a life which led him to champion the fight against injustices against women and gays in the Anglican church and beyond. The book is packed with references to poems and books which enrich it greatly and illuminate Holloway's thinking.
If I have a criticism it is that the author is a little too apologetic, too regretful of his perceived 'mistakes'. He constantly berates himself and calls his own judgments into question - whilst this may be laudable to some extent, it gets a little wearisome. This self criticism is something that I've noticed in clergy of all backgrounds over the years, it must be very tiring for them!
However, this is an insignificant criticism - I thoroughly recommend this book and have been personally enriched by it.
May 27, 2014
I felt I should have likedthis book more. Richard Holloway is a respected public figure in Scotland, an excellent writer and philosopher, so what was the problem? I think part of it was my expectations of an autobiography even though it is clearly labelled a Memoir of Faith and Doubt. There was too much religion and not enough family, but again the clue is in the title.
I enjoyed the earlier parts of book where the young working class boy left the safety of the Vale to enter a monastery. But it was there that his doubts began and from here I never got to grips with Holloway's motivation or ambition.
I found many of the episodes repetitive and became frustrated by his need to disrupt his family to meet his ambitions. I am sure that there was some measure of consultation between family members but this was not shown - the family appeared secondary. I think the book would have been more enjoyable and more powerful had it been written as an autobiography and still included the career (doubts and all)
I enjoyed the earlier parts of book where the young working class boy left the safety of the Vale to enter a monastery. But it was there that his doubts began and from here I never got to grips with Holloway's motivation or ambition.
I found many of the episodes repetitive and became frustrated by his need to disrupt his family to meet his ambitions. I am sure that there was some measure of consultation between family members but this was not shown - the family appeared secondary. I think the book would have been more enjoyable and more powerful had it been written as an autobiography and still included the career (doubts and all)
March 16, 2013
Richard Holloway is a significant person to read and his journey away from Christianity is an important and interesting one. But I found this autobiography fairly average except where he specifically analyses and critiques contemporary Christianity and the issues it faces - including his engagement with those issues. I was pretty bored with what seemed to me an endless commentary on place names, streets, buildings, towns, etc. Clearly Holloway connects with the places and people of his life but I didn't find his writing at all engaging. Worth reading, I think, because of who Holloway is and his influence on Anglicanism and his recent writings on morality without God (which I am yet to read). So check it out, but for me, I was hoping for a much more subversive and engaging piece of writing.
May 2, 2014
Surprised myself with how much I loved this. Holloway's passages about the theatre and romance of religion really struck home with me and those are the things I miss, even after more than 25 years of atheism (I suspect if I was his age contemporary and had been born into Catholicism rather than a weak and listless 70's CofE family atmosphere, I'd have gone the same way as him). It's powerful writing and the journey he takes through his loss of faith is human, humbling and very recognisable. I will certainly look for more of his writing. He's the kind of man I'd love to buy a nice glass of the good stuff and listen to for hours.
May 31, 2015
Not perfect, but very good. I may write more later.
October 23, 2024
This is a fascinating autobiography and can be read with profit and enjoyment whatever the reader’s faith, or lack thereof. I think it is beautifully written, and even though the author is brutally honest about his own flaws, I liked him better at the end than I did at the beginning. For I did once know him, although he wouldn’t remember me.
I arrived in Oxford in 1982, from a school whose daily chapel services were of the low church muscular evangelical variety of Anglicanism. I started attending St Mary Magdalen’s church, because – as I now see – it was in every respect the exact opposite of the kind of Anglicanism I experienced at school. The vicar was Father Charles, a diminutive perpetually cassock clad figure, who often had me for lunch. He lived with his mother and her nurse, and was a great cook. (“Oh Father Charles!” I recall a fellow guest saying – an old lady smelling of incense – “Your Moules Marinieres are so good – you are such a show off!”). Father Charles was succeeded by Richard Holloway. He invited me for lunch too – and they were also jolly affairs – but…
Holloway wasn’t much liked at Oxford by many of us because although we loved his brilliant and thought provoking sermons, we could see he lacked patience with the whole ethos of High Anglicanism in general (and “Saint Mary Mags” in particular). He was, I see from this book, working through his own issues, and coming to the realisation that the whole Oxford Movement thing was essentially a reactionary nostalgia for a kind of Anglicanism which never really existed. I have come to the same conclusion myself, but in those days I was on a very different page from Holloway. I was, effectively, still at the stage he had been at, when he was himself a teenager. I didn’t like his politics, and I was outraged later on, when he became Bishop of Edinburgh, and described those opposed to the ordination of women as “miserable buggers and mean minded sods”. Amusingly colourful language, but really not a wise choice of words for a bishop – who is meant to be a focus of unity.
I was startled to read of his voyage down the Thames which included a ritual throwing in the river of his (bio degradable) mitre. Even more shocking was that he persuaded the Archbishop of Canterbury to join him (this was the disastrous George Carey). This is a typical action for Holloway and encapsulates so much of what his life has been like: it shocks, and amuses, and makes you realise he is making a serious point (an Old Testament prophet might have made a similar gesture); but it also marks another stage in his own journey, where the boat moves on, the mitre sinks, and there is a sad and moving blend of nostalgia and yearning. When he returns to Kelham – the boarding school he had attended, as a very idealistic 14 year old, to train for the priesthood – it is to a very different place, in a very different time. This is almost unbearably poignant. And do we not all yearn for the transcendent, even if we can no longer believe? And do we not all think on the beauty and the sorrow of lost years and lost loves?
I arrived in Oxford in 1982, from a school whose daily chapel services were of the low church muscular evangelical variety of Anglicanism. I started attending St Mary Magdalen’s church, because – as I now see – it was in every respect the exact opposite of the kind of Anglicanism I experienced at school. The vicar was Father Charles, a diminutive perpetually cassock clad figure, who often had me for lunch. He lived with his mother and her nurse, and was a great cook. (“Oh Father Charles!” I recall a fellow guest saying – an old lady smelling of incense – “Your Moules Marinieres are so good – you are such a show off!”). Father Charles was succeeded by Richard Holloway. He invited me for lunch too – and they were also jolly affairs – but…
Holloway wasn’t much liked at Oxford by many of us because although we loved his brilliant and thought provoking sermons, we could see he lacked patience with the whole ethos of High Anglicanism in general (and “Saint Mary Mags” in particular). He was, I see from this book, working through his own issues, and coming to the realisation that the whole Oxford Movement thing was essentially a reactionary nostalgia for a kind of Anglicanism which never really existed. I have come to the same conclusion myself, but in those days I was on a very different page from Holloway. I was, effectively, still at the stage he had been at, when he was himself a teenager. I didn’t like his politics, and I was outraged later on, when he became Bishop of Edinburgh, and described those opposed to the ordination of women as “miserable buggers and mean minded sods”. Amusingly colourful language, but really not a wise choice of words for a bishop – who is meant to be a focus of unity.
I was startled to read of his voyage down the Thames which included a ritual throwing in the river of his (bio degradable) mitre. Even more shocking was that he persuaded the Archbishop of Canterbury to join him (this was the disastrous George Carey). This is a typical action for Holloway and encapsulates so much of what his life has been like: it shocks, and amuses, and makes you realise he is making a serious point (an Old Testament prophet might have made a similar gesture); but it also marks another stage in his own journey, where the boat moves on, the mitre sinks, and there is a sad and moving blend of nostalgia and yearning. When he returns to Kelham – the boarding school he had attended, as a very idealistic 14 year old, to train for the priesthood – it is to a very different place, in a very different time. This is almost unbearably poignant. And do we not all yearn for the transcendent, even if we can no longer believe? And do we not all think on the beauty and the sorrow of lost years and lost loves?
July 20, 2024
As far as I remember, I was always curious why people choose to join priesthood, what keeps them there and, more importantly, why a few choose to leave. Of course, everyone has their own reasons but it was interesting to follow the path of Richard Holloway who was Bishop of Edinburgh between 1986 and 2000.
Sometimes what we are taught doesn't sit right with us but we brush this feeling aside, try to convince ourselves that all is as it should be, negotiate with ourselves and try to balance it all out. But sometimes, after years of reflectionary work and external circumstances, we can no longer negotiate. Although I lost the train of thought in some more philosophical places of this book, R. Holloway's reflections on Church and religion as an institution which is often disconnected from the every day life and current needs of the people made sense to me.
The added bonus was to read about the places that are so familiar to me now, Glasgow and Gorbals, Edinburgh and the Pentlands. It all happened here, so close!
Sometimes what we are taught doesn't sit right with us but we brush this feeling aside, try to convince ourselves that all is as it should be, negotiate with ourselves and try to balance it all out. But sometimes, after years of reflectionary work and external circumstances, we can no longer negotiate. Although I lost the train of thought in some more philosophical places of this book, R. Holloway's reflections on Church and religion as an institution which is often disconnected from the every day life and current needs of the people made sense to me.
The added bonus was to read about the places that are so familiar to me now, Glasgow and Gorbals, Edinburgh and the Pentlands. It all happened here, so close!
December 25, 2025
Perhaps the most impactful book I have ever read - with luck arriving when I would feel it most! It seems I have recommended it everyone since putting it down.
January 4, 2017
Richard Holloway was the Bishop of Edinburgh, in the Scottish Episcopal Church, from 1986 to 2000.
One way to read this book is to take its main theme to be ‘does God exist?’. But this is too simplistic; the real theme is ‘how does a man of God (or any man) deal with his doubts about the existence of God?’. Or, more broadly, he is trying to find out who he was. Many of us know that struggle. The author points out that theists and atheists have more in common with each other than they do with agnostics; the analogy is with the chess board being black and white, never grey.
Someone once told him, ‘Richard, the trouble with you is that you publish every thought you have’. Why did people write such books (he’s written 28)? Was it narcissism? Not in this case. Was it a way to apologize to those people he offended? No, at least not entirely. It was mostly to help him set his thoughts in order, a well-known path to self-knowledge. One conclusion was ‘being who we were, we were bound to act the way we did.’
Perhaps writing a book like this is cathartic, like a Confessional. He stands naked before his readership, just as Alan Ginsberg the American poet of the 1950s is said to have stood naked before his audience.
The book is certainly thought-provoking. We admired the fluency with which the author expressed his deepest feelings. However, we found it hard to understand why he accepted the post of Bishop when he was so unsure of his beliefs. He should have stepped back from the opportunity. Parishioners entrusted their spiritual welfare to him, and he may have let them down. Was he too self-indulgent? He was certainly politically naive. But wasn’t Jesus like that? Both Holloway and Jesus felt their place was with the poor, the sick, the outcasts who could not help themselves.
The book has humour, lots of it, particularly when writing about sexuality and intimate human encounters. The writing is sometimes poetic and profound. You do not have to be a Christian to be moved by this book; it is surely one of the most engaging books to have been written in 2012....
This is an extract from a review at http://monthlybookgroup.wordpress.com/. Our reviews are also to be found at http://monthlybookgroup.blogspot.com/
One way to read this book is to take its main theme to be ‘does God exist?’. But this is too simplistic; the real theme is ‘how does a man of God (or any man) deal with his doubts about the existence of God?’. Or, more broadly, he is trying to find out who he was. Many of us know that struggle. The author points out that theists and atheists have more in common with each other than they do with agnostics; the analogy is with the chess board being black and white, never grey.
Someone once told him, ‘Richard, the trouble with you is that you publish every thought you have’. Why did people write such books (he’s written 28)? Was it narcissism? Not in this case. Was it a way to apologize to those people he offended? No, at least not entirely. It was mostly to help him set his thoughts in order, a well-known path to self-knowledge. One conclusion was ‘being who we were, we were bound to act the way we did.’
Perhaps writing a book like this is cathartic, like a Confessional. He stands naked before his readership, just as Alan Ginsberg the American poet of the 1950s is said to have stood naked before his audience.
The book is certainly thought-provoking. We admired the fluency with which the author expressed his deepest feelings. However, we found it hard to understand why he accepted the post of Bishop when he was so unsure of his beliefs. He should have stepped back from the opportunity. Parishioners entrusted their spiritual welfare to him, and he may have let them down. Was he too self-indulgent? He was certainly politically naive. But wasn’t Jesus like that? Both Holloway and Jesus felt their place was with the poor, the sick, the outcasts who could not help themselves.
The book has humour, lots of it, particularly when writing about sexuality and intimate human encounters. The writing is sometimes poetic and profound. You do not have to be a Christian to be moved by this book; it is surely one of the most engaging books to have been written in 2012....
This is an extract from a review at http://monthlybookgroup.wordpress.com/. Our reviews are also to be found at http://monthlybookgroup.blogspot.com/
December 30, 2016
I guess I should review these books individually, but it’s my blog, I have god-like powers and can do anything I want. I asked Richard Holloway to sign my book, which is his autobiographical writing, when he visited Dalmuir library. He asked me what I wanted him to write in the flyleaf, I said that book you were talking about earlier, Andre Schwarz-Bart, The Last of the Just because I wanted to read it. I’m with the Society of Friends on this one, no kowtowing. No bended knee. Books are holy things. But what they mean that’s a mystery. Perhaps a blessed mystery.
A Little History of Religion has the merit of being little. There’s not a lot of love there, references to divine love, followed by divine genocide, but the common feature of both books is a movement from faith to doubt. Richard Holloway is a prolific author. He is a former Bishop of Edinburgh, Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church and Gresham Professor of Divinity. A theist believes in God. An atheist doesn’t believe in God. And an agnostic believe in both view. I’m a bit like that, only worse, or better, depending on your point of view. Richard Holloway’s autobiography, in particular, is a beautiful book because it is true. True to who he is now and compassionate towards who he was. Wisdom often takes a lifetime. Perhaps it never comes. And some religions that believe in the merits (and demerits) of reincarnation believes it may take lifetimes. I’m in no hurry to find out the truth.
The commonalities of both Holloway’s books are a belief not in doubt but in faith. The most dangerous kind of hate is certainty. The latest example is Trumpism, a back to the wall beleaguered party that triumphs against all the odds. This is combined with revanchist call for revenge against all those against them. Mary Queen of Scots for example had John Knox and his followers singing outside her window and shouting you’re getting it hen, as soon as we’ve got it. And they were right, but it took three blows of the axe, making her suffer first. She was going to hell anyway, or heaven, if you were a good Catholic. The Plains Indians danced their feet off, but the white man wasn’t covered in ash, although Holloway does acknowledge buffaloes did come back, not so the Indians. Of course, the Palestinians on the West Bank shouldn’t be there because God bequeathed that land to the Israelites and everybody else is an interloper, because God can’t be wrong and no international laws or treaties can make that right. The Promised Land means The Promised Land. Move pal. Or else. Just the same as Trump can’t be wrong because he is considered so right about making America great again. Anybody that have doubts is getting it. First on the hate list, China, second, Russia, next up the rest of the world. On bended knee we must come and return to a past that never existed to pay homage.
It’s not Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Mao or indeed Emperor Nero that provides the template for certainty among uncertainty but Nick Bostrom in his book Superintelligence. When the robots or whatever you want to call them figure out –very quickly – that the humans they are ostensibly serving aren’t very smart then they become gods. But even Gods have uncertainties, moments of doubt. These superintelligent robots will use all the earth and its distant stars capacities to reduce uncertainty to a point where it becomes absurd, in human terms, not that there will be any need for humans. But all religions are absurd, but they have a logic to them.
Holloway preaches a message of love. A parable he frequently uses is the parable of the blind man and the elephant. I attributed this to Rumi, but I may be wrong. Each clutches a trunk, an ear, a leg and describes what they feel and what they see. All are telling the truth of what they perceive. But when partial truth become the whole truth each sect goes to war over their vision and allows no dissent. A tusk can never be an ear, because God does not allow such things.
Note the righteousness of religion. It can never be wrong, because God cannot be wrong. A tautology that is rarely taught. Another parable Holloway is fond of is the Good Samaritan.
A man fell among thieves who left him naked and unconscious on a dangerous and deserted road. A priest came along followed by his assistant. They were good men who wanted to help, but their religion prevented it…Next along is a Samaritan, one of the races Jews were forbidden to associate with. His religion has the same prohibitions as theirs.
Both men are religious in their own one, but only one is compassionate as God is compassionate. And it’s a common refrain in Holloway’s writing, ‘the institution that claims to represent God can easily become God’s greatest enemy’. Amen to that.
Another parable Holloway favours is Matthew’s parable of workers in the vineyard all coming at different times and being paid the same rate of pay. God’s like that Holloway is saying and we don’t really understand Him (although He might be a She, but is never an It). If you don’t believe me, he says, read Job. According to scripture God gets into a bet with the devil and lots of bad things happen to Job, including losing his wife and family, all his wealth and suffering from endless and painful diseases. What makes it worse is ‘Job’s comforters’. They seem to have all the answers, but when God appears he’s not happy (God is never happy, or he doesn’t appear) and his standard stick is ‘my wrath is kindled against you and your two friends…’ I guess that means hell and everlasting damnation. But God is good to Job. He stops torturing him. And he gives him a new family and even greater wealth. Holloway is good at this bit. Basically, he’s saying what anyone with common sense would say, ‘fuck off, god, I liked my old family, even the smelly dog.’ And I’m with Holloway with this one if Abraham agreed to sacrifice his son, well, there’s something a bit sick about that.
Holloway’s call for a godless morality might be beyond us, for the very good reason we might not be here much longer. I don’t believe in the rapture. I believe in the apocalypse of greed and gross stupidity. Oh, well, I guess, our parents have been saying the same things for years. Things ain’t the way they used to be. I’m sure I’ll look good as a dead person. Go on, with your god-like powers, use that line from The Life of Brian. ‘We’re all individuals!’
Voice from the back of the crowd, ‘I’m not.’
A Little History of Religion has the merit of being little. There’s not a lot of love there, references to divine love, followed by divine genocide, but the common feature of both books is a movement from faith to doubt. Richard Holloway is a prolific author. He is a former Bishop of Edinburgh, Primus of the Scottish Episcopal Church and Gresham Professor of Divinity. A theist believes in God. An atheist doesn’t believe in God. And an agnostic believe in both view. I’m a bit like that, only worse, or better, depending on your point of view. Richard Holloway’s autobiography, in particular, is a beautiful book because it is true. True to who he is now and compassionate towards who he was. Wisdom often takes a lifetime. Perhaps it never comes. And some religions that believe in the merits (and demerits) of reincarnation believes it may take lifetimes. I’m in no hurry to find out the truth.
The commonalities of both Holloway’s books are a belief not in doubt but in faith. The most dangerous kind of hate is certainty. The latest example is Trumpism, a back to the wall beleaguered party that triumphs against all the odds. This is combined with revanchist call for revenge against all those against them. Mary Queen of Scots for example had John Knox and his followers singing outside her window and shouting you’re getting it hen, as soon as we’ve got it. And they were right, but it took three blows of the axe, making her suffer first. She was going to hell anyway, or heaven, if you were a good Catholic. The Plains Indians danced their feet off, but the white man wasn’t covered in ash, although Holloway does acknowledge buffaloes did come back, not so the Indians. Of course, the Palestinians on the West Bank shouldn’t be there because God bequeathed that land to the Israelites and everybody else is an interloper, because God can’t be wrong and no international laws or treaties can make that right. The Promised Land means The Promised Land. Move pal. Or else. Just the same as Trump can’t be wrong because he is considered so right about making America great again. Anybody that have doubts is getting it. First on the hate list, China, second, Russia, next up the rest of the world. On bended knee we must come and return to a past that never existed to pay homage.
It’s not Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Mao or indeed Emperor Nero that provides the template for certainty among uncertainty but Nick Bostrom in his book Superintelligence. When the robots or whatever you want to call them figure out –very quickly – that the humans they are ostensibly serving aren’t very smart then they become gods. But even Gods have uncertainties, moments of doubt. These superintelligent robots will use all the earth and its distant stars capacities to reduce uncertainty to a point where it becomes absurd, in human terms, not that there will be any need for humans. But all religions are absurd, but they have a logic to them.
Holloway preaches a message of love. A parable he frequently uses is the parable of the blind man and the elephant. I attributed this to Rumi, but I may be wrong. Each clutches a trunk, an ear, a leg and describes what they feel and what they see. All are telling the truth of what they perceive. But when partial truth become the whole truth each sect goes to war over their vision and allows no dissent. A tusk can never be an ear, because God does not allow such things.
Note the righteousness of religion. It can never be wrong, because God cannot be wrong. A tautology that is rarely taught. Another parable Holloway is fond of is the Good Samaritan.
A man fell among thieves who left him naked and unconscious on a dangerous and deserted road. A priest came along followed by his assistant. They were good men who wanted to help, but their religion prevented it…Next along is a Samaritan, one of the races Jews were forbidden to associate with. His religion has the same prohibitions as theirs.
Both men are religious in their own one, but only one is compassionate as God is compassionate. And it’s a common refrain in Holloway’s writing, ‘the institution that claims to represent God can easily become God’s greatest enemy’. Amen to that.
Another parable Holloway favours is Matthew’s parable of workers in the vineyard all coming at different times and being paid the same rate of pay. God’s like that Holloway is saying and we don’t really understand Him (although He might be a She, but is never an It). If you don’t believe me, he says, read Job. According to scripture God gets into a bet with the devil and lots of bad things happen to Job, including losing his wife and family, all his wealth and suffering from endless and painful diseases. What makes it worse is ‘Job’s comforters’. They seem to have all the answers, but when God appears he’s not happy (God is never happy, or he doesn’t appear) and his standard stick is ‘my wrath is kindled against you and your two friends…’ I guess that means hell and everlasting damnation. But God is good to Job. He stops torturing him. And he gives him a new family and even greater wealth. Holloway is good at this bit. Basically, he’s saying what anyone with common sense would say, ‘fuck off, god, I liked my old family, even the smelly dog.’ And I’m with Holloway with this one if Abraham agreed to sacrifice his son, well, there’s something a bit sick about that.
Holloway’s call for a godless morality might be beyond us, for the very good reason we might not be here much longer. I don’t believe in the rapture. I believe in the apocalypse of greed and gross stupidity. Oh, well, I guess, our parents have been saying the same things for years. Things ain’t the way they used to be. I’m sure I’ll look good as a dead person. Go on, with your god-like powers, use that line from The Life of Brian. ‘We’re all individuals!’
Voice from the back of the crowd, ‘I’m not.’
August 9, 2016
"It is the pain of our humanity to know that we are nothing that lasts, like the haar that blows down Jeffrey Street; yet to feel the pity of that because of the dreams we have dreamed, and dreams that sometimes seen to be higher and better than the universe that so indifferently spawns them." I found myself surprised by the similarities of feeling I experienced, over moral questions and the human condition, in this oddly comforting but simultaneously bleak -- and rich -- story of a doubting priest. Holloway's flirtation with the romance of religion is one I sympathize with although I "left Alexandria" well short of becoming a priest. And I've been looking for the "presence in absence" he so poetically describes most of my adult life. His love of literature as a flawed guide for flawed beings also touched a chord. And the courage of his conviction that morality had to come before the rules of any dogma made me proud such hearts strive to do good in the chaos of human confusion.
November 24, 2014
A fine book from an admirable clergyman (by the skin of his teeth) which recounts his journey from what seems to me to be a tenuous faith to doubt.
October 15, 2025
Richard Holloway war Primus der schottischen Methodistenkirche und Bischof von Edinburgh, Professor für Theologie in London, Mitglied der
Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (Behörde für menschliche Befruchtung und Embryologie), Vorsitzender des Scottish Arts Council und Gründer und vorsitzender von Sistema Scotland, einer Organisation die sich dafür einsetzt, das Leben von Kindern mit Hilfe von Musik zu verbessern.
Kann man so viel verschiedene Dinge in ein Leben packen? Richard Holloway scheint es zu können. Die Vielfalt seiner Aufgaben hat mich gleich angesprochen, als mir das Buch das erste Mal aufgefallen ist.
Die Erinnerungen beginnen mit einem Besuch in dem Kloster, in dem Richard Holloway seine Ausbildung bekam. Auf dem Friedhof liegen viele Menschen, die ihm auf seinem Weg begleitet haben. Das Kloster ist jetzt geschlossen, aber die Erinnerungen sind immer noch da.
Es ist eine interessante Geschichte, die er erzählt. Weder Vater noch Mutter waren besonders gläubige Menschen, aber sie haben ihre Kinder nach strengen moralischen Grundsätzen erzogen. Trotzdem war es eine glückliche Kindheit. Die Familie ging gemeinsam wandern und Richard ging regelmäßig mit seiner Mutter ins Kino.
Diese beiden Dinge spielten eine ganz besondere Rolle für ihn. Er beschrieb sie als die Suche nach etwas, dessen er sich damals noch nicht bewusst war. Offensichtlich hat er es gefunden.
Es ist nicht einfach für Richard Holloway. Zu den finanziellen Sorgen, die glücklicherweise durch ein Stiprndium gelöst werden, kommen jetzt die "fleischlichen Gelüste". Auch wenn er gegen die "Flut der Bilder", die sich in seine Gedanken einschleichen wollten, ankämpft ist er nicht immer erfolgreich und hinterfragt mehr als einmal seine Berufung. Von aussen sieht alles sehr unschuldig aus, aber er quält sich sehr. Dabei geht es ihm nicht darum, ob seine Berufswahl die richtige ist. Vielmehr fragt er sich, ob er der Richtige für diesen Beruf ist.
Um noch ein Klische zu erfüllen gibt es auch ein gewisses Interesse an einem Mitbruder den er sehr bewundert und mag. Aber während Richard nicht an mehr denkt, hat der andere vielleicht schon Hintergedanken. Die beiden teilen sich auf einer gemeinsamen Reise zwar ein Bett, aber nicht die Decke. Einer schläft darüber, der andere drunter. Ich musste lächeln als Richard sich fragte, was das Ganze soll.
Fürs Kloster ist Richard definitiv nicht gemacht, aber dafür für die Gemeindearbeit wo er als Anarchist gilt. Er traut schon in den 70er Jahren das erste homosexuelle Paar, hat nichts gegen ledige Mütter und ist überhaupt nicht so, wie man sich einen Priester vorstellt. Er ist sehr weltlich und hat immer wieder Zweifel. Erst der Mord an Robert Kennedy, den er in den USA erlebt, lässt ihn wieder zur Kirche zurück finden.
Manchmal vergesse ich fast dass es ein Geistlicher ist, der hier schreibt. Richards Leben ist sehr weltlich und das hat nicht nur mit der Tatsache zu tun, dass er mittlerweile eine Frau und drei Kinder hat. Er versteht seine Arbeit als Arbeit an den Menschen und nicht nur in der Kirche. Dass er sich, seinen Mitarbeitern und seiner Familie dazu viel zuviel zumutet, muss er im Lauf der Zeit lernen. Aber hier ist er konsequent: so sehr er seine Arbeit liebt, seine Familie geht vor. Da kommt wieder der Anarchist von früher durch.
Wie kann man seine Heimat verlassen, obwohl man sie so liebt? Richard bekommt eine Stelle in Boston angeboten und obwohl weder seine Frau, die immerhin Amerikanerin ist noch seine Kinder umziehen wollen, nimmt er an. Der Abschied von Schottland ist traurig und es fliessen viele Tränen.
In Boston kommt er das erste Mal mit AIDS in Berührung. Hier fällt mir seine enstpannte Art auf, wie er mit der Krankheit umgeht. In einer Zeit, in der man noch nicht wußte woher die Krankheit kommt, lädt er Kranke zum Essen mit seiner Familie ein. Er redet nie anders als herzlich über die Menschen und verurteilt allen Spott und Vorurteile. Ein bemerkenswerter Mensch.
Aber letztendlich geht die Reise nach Schottland zurück denn er bekommt die Stelle des Bischofs von Edinburgh angeboten.
Auch als Bischof ist Richard noch "Anarchist", was letztendlich dazu führte, dass er sein Amt aufgeben musste. Als ich darüber gelesen habe, konnte ich mich dunkel an etwas aus dieser Zeit erinnern, das damals in den Nachrichten war. Mit dem Amt gibt er aber noch viel mehr auf: Richard gesteht sich ein dass er zwar noch an Gott glaubt, aber nicht mehr an die Religion. Die kann für ihn noch vorhanden sein, aber mehr als Randerscheinung.
Es ist das Portrait eines sehr smpathischen Mannes, der sich nicht von seinem Weg hat abbringen lassen. Über manche Themen hätte ich gerne mehr gelesen, aber auch ohne das war das Buch sehr beeindruckend.
Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (Behörde für menschliche Befruchtung und Embryologie), Vorsitzender des Scottish Arts Council und Gründer und vorsitzender von Sistema Scotland, einer Organisation die sich dafür einsetzt, das Leben von Kindern mit Hilfe von Musik zu verbessern.
Kann man so viel verschiedene Dinge in ein Leben packen? Richard Holloway scheint es zu können. Die Vielfalt seiner Aufgaben hat mich gleich angesprochen, als mir das Buch das erste Mal aufgefallen ist.
Die Erinnerungen beginnen mit einem Besuch in dem Kloster, in dem Richard Holloway seine Ausbildung bekam. Auf dem Friedhof liegen viele Menschen, die ihm auf seinem Weg begleitet haben. Das Kloster ist jetzt geschlossen, aber die Erinnerungen sind immer noch da.
Es ist eine interessante Geschichte, die er erzählt. Weder Vater noch Mutter waren besonders gläubige Menschen, aber sie haben ihre Kinder nach strengen moralischen Grundsätzen erzogen. Trotzdem war es eine glückliche Kindheit. Die Familie ging gemeinsam wandern und Richard ging regelmäßig mit seiner Mutter ins Kino.
Diese beiden Dinge spielten eine ganz besondere Rolle für ihn. Er beschrieb sie als die Suche nach etwas, dessen er sich damals noch nicht bewusst war. Offensichtlich hat er es gefunden.
Es ist nicht einfach für Richard Holloway. Zu den finanziellen Sorgen, die glücklicherweise durch ein Stiprndium gelöst werden, kommen jetzt die "fleischlichen Gelüste". Auch wenn er gegen die "Flut der Bilder", die sich in seine Gedanken einschleichen wollten, ankämpft ist er nicht immer erfolgreich und hinterfragt mehr als einmal seine Berufung. Von aussen sieht alles sehr unschuldig aus, aber er quält sich sehr. Dabei geht es ihm nicht darum, ob seine Berufswahl die richtige ist. Vielmehr fragt er sich, ob er der Richtige für diesen Beruf ist.
Um noch ein Klische zu erfüllen gibt es auch ein gewisses Interesse an einem Mitbruder den er sehr bewundert und mag. Aber während Richard nicht an mehr denkt, hat der andere vielleicht schon Hintergedanken. Die beiden teilen sich auf einer gemeinsamen Reise zwar ein Bett, aber nicht die Decke. Einer schläft darüber, der andere drunter. Ich musste lächeln als Richard sich fragte, was das Ganze soll.
Fürs Kloster ist Richard definitiv nicht gemacht, aber dafür für die Gemeindearbeit wo er als Anarchist gilt. Er traut schon in den 70er Jahren das erste homosexuelle Paar, hat nichts gegen ledige Mütter und ist überhaupt nicht so, wie man sich einen Priester vorstellt. Er ist sehr weltlich und hat immer wieder Zweifel. Erst der Mord an Robert Kennedy, den er in den USA erlebt, lässt ihn wieder zur Kirche zurück finden.
Manchmal vergesse ich fast dass es ein Geistlicher ist, der hier schreibt. Richards Leben ist sehr weltlich und das hat nicht nur mit der Tatsache zu tun, dass er mittlerweile eine Frau und drei Kinder hat. Er versteht seine Arbeit als Arbeit an den Menschen und nicht nur in der Kirche. Dass er sich, seinen Mitarbeitern und seiner Familie dazu viel zuviel zumutet, muss er im Lauf der Zeit lernen. Aber hier ist er konsequent: so sehr er seine Arbeit liebt, seine Familie geht vor. Da kommt wieder der Anarchist von früher durch.
Wie kann man seine Heimat verlassen, obwohl man sie so liebt? Richard bekommt eine Stelle in Boston angeboten und obwohl weder seine Frau, die immerhin Amerikanerin ist noch seine Kinder umziehen wollen, nimmt er an. Der Abschied von Schottland ist traurig und es fliessen viele Tränen.
In Boston kommt er das erste Mal mit AIDS in Berührung. Hier fällt mir seine enstpannte Art auf, wie er mit der Krankheit umgeht. In einer Zeit, in der man noch nicht wußte woher die Krankheit kommt, lädt er Kranke zum Essen mit seiner Familie ein. Er redet nie anders als herzlich über die Menschen und verurteilt allen Spott und Vorurteile. Ein bemerkenswerter Mensch.
Aber letztendlich geht die Reise nach Schottland zurück denn er bekommt die Stelle des Bischofs von Edinburgh angeboten.
Auch als Bischof ist Richard noch "Anarchist", was letztendlich dazu führte, dass er sein Amt aufgeben musste. Als ich darüber gelesen habe, konnte ich mich dunkel an etwas aus dieser Zeit erinnern, das damals in den Nachrichten war. Mit dem Amt gibt er aber noch viel mehr auf: Richard gesteht sich ein dass er zwar noch an Gott glaubt, aber nicht mehr an die Religion. Die kann für ihn noch vorhanden sein, aber mehr als Randerscheinung.
Es ist das Portrait eines sehr smpathischen Mannes, der sich nicht von seinem Weg hat abbringen lassen. Über manche Themen hätte ich gerne mehr gelesen, aber auch ohne das war das Buch sehr beeindruckend.
March 16, 2024
Having come across Richard Holloway in Chasing Steeples, and identifying with some of his views( (lots of respect for Jesus, but he's not sure that God exists) I wanted to read more about him. He's an interesting character and started on his journey to Anglican priesthood at a place called Kelham Hall at the tender age of fourteen. He finishes that journey resigning being Bishop of Edinburgh when he was in his late sixties and the book is a kind of summary of what he was thinking about along the way.
Richard has apparently boundless energy but not much patience and is clearly a good organiser. He's been involved in countless good works, ministering to the poor, the needy and the marginalised and has written many many books. I thought this book got heavy-going in the middle with its detailed discussion of doctrine but the bits I really liked were the descriptions of being talked around on the ordination of women when he was working in America and the descriptions of the two Lambeth conferences he attended while he was Bishop of Edinburgh. I also enjoyed his descriptions of churches he's particularly attached to and (most of) the poetry that is scattered through the book. I identified with his liking for church music and the way it makes him feel and I liked the overview the book gives of the Anglican church in the second half of the twentieth century. I liked the sense that he was at peace with where he's ended up - a non-believing church attendee who is rooting for people who doubt and struggle with uncertainty.
Richard has apparently boundless energy but not much patience and is clearly a good organiser. He's been involved in countless good works, ministering to the poor, the needy and the marginalised and has written many many books. I thought this book got heavy-going in the middle with its detailed discussion of doctrine but the bits I really liked were the descriptions of being talked around on the ordination of women when he was working in America and the descriptions of the two Lambeth conferences he attended while he was Bishop of Edinburgh. I also enjoyed his descriptions of churches he's particularly attached to and (most of) the poetry that is scattered through the book. I identified with his liking for church music and the way it makes him feel and I liked the overview the book gives of the Anglican church in the second half of the twentieth century. I liked the sense that he was at peace with where he's ended up - a non-believing church attendee who is rooting for people who doubt and struggle with uncertainty.
March 22, 2023
I am not sure of the last time I read a book about Christianity that was so thought-provoking and profound. I marked so many passages in this volume for further perusal and reflection. In many small ways, Holloway's life, calling, and "fall" from religion mirror my own. But I am thankful he leaves a trail to follow for not completely abandoning faith or the church (though to many this trail would certainly lead to the "bad place"). He writes about the two sides of the coin, generally speaking, of Christianity and Christian history: the unconditional love and the unimaginable cruelty. He gives examples of each over the course of the entire book. Interwoven into this meditation on faith and doubt is the "memoir" of the title. Holloway is transparent and brutally honest about his outer and inner life, and he is open and vulnerable about his own mistakes, failings, and bad habits. He is a great and passionate writer, painting vivid pictures of rolling hills and ornate cathedrals, poetically describing the duality of faith, and draping the people he writes about with empathy. There is much to take away from this book, but the thing that comes to mind now is Holloway's musings on the "poetry of religion" and "religion as an art." For all the aspects of Christianity that trouble him and which he criticizes, there is a still a beauty in the story and some of its human characters that just will not let him go.
August 27, 2023
This is a book I'd wanted to read for a long time. Holloway is an enigma. A clergyman so lacking in faith that he had become - it is impossible to avoid the term - a hypocrite, long before he finally gave up on it. A bishop who, from his public utterances, seemed to have very little time for religion in general, and for Christianity in particular. He declares himself here to be agnostic, but he certainly seems here to lean towards the atheist end of agnosticism. I came to this book curious about the when and the how of his loss of faith. After reading this book, I'm not sure he ever really believed, so much as having been in love with a romanticised idea of the religious life.
At the same time, though, he is a thoughtful and humane man, who was clearly devoted to his flock and to his calling, even if he hardly believed in the one who called him to it. I feel like this cannot have been an easy book to write. Recollection of some of this must have been painful to the writer, and it is to his credit that he does not flinch from the task.
After reading this, I feel like I understand Holloway better. I respect his honesty and integrity, odd though it may seem to apply those terms to a man I've just called a hypocrite. Part of the enigma of the man is that both things are true. However, I can't help but wish that, for his own sake and also for the sake of the church he served, he had resolved his doubts earlier.
At the same time, though, he is a thoughtful and humane man, who was clearly devoted to his flock and to his calling, even if he hardly believed in the one who called him to it. I feel like this cannot have been an easy book to write. Recollection of some of this must have been painful to the writer, and it is to his credit that he does not flinch from the task.
After reading this, I feel like I understand Holloway better. I respect his honesty and integrity, odd though it may seem to apply those terms to a man I've just called a hypocrite. Part of the enigma of the man is that both things are true. However, I can't help but wish that, for his own sake and also for the sake of the church he served, he had resolved his doubts earlier.
January 23, 2023
A rare insight into the complexity of a man’s faith. This should be compulsory reading for anyone who perceived religion as synonymous with fundamentalism, The Bible with Creationism and so on.
The reflections feel genuine and captures something about the draw of the Christian faith for him. Even as an atheist, you can recognise the compelling nature of the Church for the author and perhaps for everyone in a small way; beauty, simplicity and hope. For the author, his faith is not a quilt of answers to life’s big questions to comfort himself, it is a framework through which he responds to life, for a time.
Holloway writes, on his preparations for planning and delivering an Easter service, “following Jesus up and down Gorbals stairs, and on and off the back of lorries in George square, was one thing; getting him (Jesus) out of the tomb where they had laid him after his crucifixion was another. One year, as Easter approached, I realised I wasn’t going to be able to pull it off this time.”
His references to the shift in Christianity from poetry to packaging, from a movement to an institution, from the man of Nazareth to the Godman of Christian orthodoxy (to use his own words), captures so much that isn’t talked about widely enough with regards to religion.
The reflections feel genuine and captures something about the draw of the Christian faith for him. Even as an atheist, you can recognise the compelling nature of the Church for the author and perhaps for everyone in a small way; beauty, simplicity and hope. For the author, his faith is not a quilt of answers to life’s big questions to comfort himself, it is a framework through which he responds to life, for a time.
Holloway writes, on his preparations for planning and delivering an Easter service, “following Jesus up and down Gorbals stairs, and on and off the back of lorries in George square, was one thing; getting him (Jesus) out of the tomb where they had laid him after his crucifixion was another. One year, as Easter approached, I realised I wasn’t going to be able to pull it off this time.”
His references to the shift in Christianity from poetry to packaging, from a movement to an institution, from the man of Nazareth to the Godman of Christian orthodoxy (to use his own words), captures so much that isn’t talked about widely enough with regards to religion.
October 18, 2019
The autobiography of Richard Holloway, one time Bishop of Edinburgh and Primus of the Episcopal Church of Scotland. He was born in 1933 in Alexandria, Dunbartonshire in Scotland, and age 14 (!) became a border at Kelham Theological College, destined for Holy Orders. Along the way he did missionary work in the Gorbals, was a Parish Priest in Edinburgh, Boston, and Oxford, and as Bishop was a noted thorn in the side of the Evangelical wing of the Anglican communion. In this book, Holloway explains his journey of faith, and how he moved to doubt totally the existence of God. As he said in his final chapter "I do not now expect to meet my maker". I found much in this book to be thought provoking and many of the arguments made echo my own concerns with some of the positions the Church adopts - notably on the ordination of women, and gay relationships. He makes the point that no loving God would want anyone to commit evil to show obedience to Him, and justifying such behaviour through the bible or any other human based authority cannot be right. The Church has made an appalling mess of religion and in consequence has put off generations who now lack any spiritual comfort. Well written and moving.
April 1, 2020
It was fascinating to read about how a wee boy from the tenements of Glasgow ended up becoming one of the top clergymen in Scotland and equally fascinating to hear about how he wrestled with his doubts, eventually becoming agnostic or 'post religionist' as he has sometimes referred to himself.
The book is a very readable account of Richard Holloway's early life, his time in college, working in Africa, in America, back in the poorer parts of Glasgow, and his support for sometimes controversial subjects, controversial for a clergyman anyway, such as LGBT rights. I was particularly interested to find out about the remarkable woman that was Lilias Graham, obviously a much loved and respected woman and a powerful advocate for improving the lives of the impoverished in the Gorbals despite her own well to do background.
What is clear is that this has been a life of questions and self doubt. I think it will be quite reassuring for many people to realise that anyone, no matter how confident they appear, no matter how high a position they have achieved in their working lives, can be plagued with self-doubt and confusion.
Leaving Alexandria is a very honest thought-provoking memoir, sharing thoughts and feelings which many people of faith, or indeed of no faith, will be able to identify with. A worthy addition to the Scottish Canons collection.
The book is a very readable account of Richard Holloway's early life, his time in college, working in Africa, in America, back in the poorer parts of Glasgow, and his support for sometimes controversial subjects, controversial for a clergyman anyway, such as LGBT rights. I was particularly interested to find out about the remarkable woman that was Lilias Graham, obviously a much loved and respected woman and a powerful advocate for improving the lives of the impoverished in the Gorbals despite her own well to do background.
What is clear is that this has been a life of questions and self doubt. I think it will be quite reassuring for many people to realise that anyone, no matter how confident they appear, no matter how high a position they have achieved in their working lives, can be plagued with self-doubt and confusion.
Leaving Alexandria is a very honest thought-provoking memoir, sharing thoughts and feelings which many people of faith, or indeed of no faith, will be able to identify with. A worthy addition to the Scottish Canons collection.
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