The True Wilderness

by H.A. Williams

The True Wilderness has established itself as one of the spiritual classics of the 20th century. Given as sermons to Trinity College undergraduates in the years following the author's breakdown in the 1950's, it illustrates the dangers of bad religion and the debilitating effects of a false view of God. Williams goes on to show that the true God is experienced by people who have accepted themselves and other people. It is a plea for a positive, life-enhancing faith and its unsparing honesty is particularly suited to contemporary readers. H.A. Williams was born in 1919 and was Fellow and Dean of Trinity College, Cambridge until 1969 when he joined the Community of the Resurrection and Mirfield, Yorkshire. He is the author of Joy of God , True to Experience and True Resurrection (all published by Continuum).

Genres: Theology, Spirituality, Christianity

Paperback

First published March 1, 1965

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Back at the turn of the year I began thinking about books I would like to read or indeed re-read during Lent. This was a book I had read almost 30 years whilst studying theology at College. I had been blown away by it and had not read it completely through since the mid 80's though I have dipped into it from time to time. To a certain extent it rather confirms the adage about not revisiting the heroes of our youth. It was good but not mind-blowing, it gave me moments of recognition and challenge but also a number of feelings of over stated hype and high-blown rhetoric which grated.

Williams is a deeply thought man and argues cogently for a radical rethink of the Church and its approach to the world. His embrace of Freud and his use of his pushing back boundaries of the mind and the subconscious was interesting and his call for the Church to be open to the wealth of wisdom and insight coming at us from the scientific adventure is sincere and, to me at least, a no-brainer. How could I do anything but embrace the wisdom of the 21st Century? His challenge to make sure Christ is enabled to be at work in a reasoned and appropriate way in our world was a wonderful air punching moment for me in 1984 and, though perhaps less cool for me to do it now I still wanted to.

'In the middle of the 20th Century the Redeemer meets our needs as they are felt and understood by us. If the ministers of His Church preach a fourth century or a sixteenth-century, or a nineteenth-century Christ, then when people ask for bread they are given a stone'

but I sometimes found his arguments a little flimsy. By that i mean he has a tendency to say things a lot and this seems to convince him that we too will be convinced.

He is very much on the liberal wing of the Church of England and in this way, because I am too, though I am of the catholic variety, i am always conscious of the need to seek to bring people along with the arguments. To inspire and to challenge certainly but to do so bearing in mind that not everyone will be as quick-witted or courageous or comfortable or ready for momentous change and transformation as you think you may be and they ought to be. It is the weak, the vulnerable and the voiceless that we are called, and by 'we' I mean all of us, to protect and enable to become the people they are meant to be. And I wonder whether we might not sometimes have a too simplistic and definitive description of which people constitute those groups.

There are a number of brilliant approaches to faith and God that he shares with us. Obvious to me but that is my above point, I share his vision but he does not try to find ways of saying it other than drumming it into people, this smacks of bullying and I never like that.

He talks at length of the need for people to accept and luxuriate in the person they are at the deepest level. He totally rejects the idea of people having to suppress or repress or change the essence of themselves to be acceptable to God.

' But the idea that we somehow do God honour by the constant denigration of ourselves is as absurd as the idea that the way to compliment a parent is to tell them how horrible their children are

Now as a young gay catholic i recall this being momentous but I was open to it, many others stuggle and to berate or belittle them because they are not as ready or open or liberal or liberated or whatever badge you are going to grant yourself is unhelpful. He uses the wonderful quote from St Augustine that Christ's command to love God is not obeyed if it is obeyed as a command. Now this is clever and could make your head ache as you try to unpick it but people live in fear and worry and confusion and that is not because religion makes those things, though it cannot be denied that sometimes it does, but it is also because at the deepest level we are those things. Each of us have to unpick and unravel and reweave our own tapestry and that is the thing, it will be our own. Williams sings from the hymnsheet of individuality but it sometimes seems a little like 'You are all to be individual but you have to do it in this way'.

The supreme gift this book gives though for me is Williams presents a Christ who is real man as well as God. He uses Christ's cry on the cross 'My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?' as the agony it may well have been. So many commentators talk of how it is the opening line of the psalm which ends in glorious technicolour as a great hymn of faith in a loving and triumphant God. However Williams gives us the God/man who was petrified, begged to escape this horror and yet still was prepared to do it and even on the Cross He wondered and wondered. This was, in 1984, the moment I met the God who has encouraged me ever since, because He wholly understands my mess, my fears, my lack of faith because He has been there before me and stands with me still. Re-reading and in part being disappointed by the new encounter, that insight of Williams still shines out like the wonderful light it has always been for me and for that reason I love this book.

[AJ Nolan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous collection of sermons, most of which reflecting on the struggles within ourselves, and God's place in that, in which coming closer to God is only possible through love and acceptance of self and others. I found each one of sermons to be beautifully written, and each one seemed to be written specifically to me, whether writing about the purpose of pain, or the dangers of bad religion.

If I was going to recommend a book for any Christian this year, read this.

Or, in fact, any non-Christian this year who are curious why somebody of intelligence would be Christian, who thinks Christians are represented by the fundamentalists as portrayed on TV, read this book from the 1950s, that lucidly show that the vast majority of Christians do not conflate faith with science, that believe in evolution, because it isn't a matter of belief, it is science, but seek out faith and religion because it articulates that something more that is beyond the realm of science, that dwells in the world of art, metaphor, and love. God created all because God is all, and you can put that in scientific language, or in the language of many different religions, but for Christians, it is the path of Jesus that leads us closest to our most whole, loving and best selves.

[Brian Robbins · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a book worth reading slowly, one section at a time. Whether I can underline any more of the text when I return to it is debatable.

The clarity & concision? conciseness? of his style are admirable.

Some of his conclusions were like having light bulbs turned on. Some where contentious - very contentious - but he argued them with a gentle passion which was delightful.

Nothing else will do but a re-read in the near future.

[Mmmrrrlll · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an astounding book! H. A. Williams suffered a nervous breakdown in his thirties and emerged a fiercely honest and self-revealing preacher. Please read on, if the word "preacher" puts you off: he was an Anglican priest, an intellectual among intellectuals at Cambridge who fearlessly followed the inner truth that resides in all of us. He became a monk at age fifty and created eloquent, intelligent, faithful writings throughout it all. I highly recommend this book.

[Ade Bailey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good collection of sermons. The fault as ever is that they can make us feel too good in our wretched state, a bit like feeling good after seeing a television documentary about something unpleasant that humans are doing to other humans. Not enough emphasis on the commandment to love and what this may mean in practice, too content to leave the listener to work out their own salvation. Still, a very clear exposition of central doctrines, entertaining wordplay to blow away misconceptions (somewhere surely there must be a source of these misconceptions and an authority to be certain that they are thus?). Not the writer's fault, of course, but so clear are the parameters and contours of the bestiary he lays out that some poor souls will adopt it as their own personal revelation and thus btpass the fire of seeking their own salvation. In other words, replace the error of scriptural literalism with a literalism manufactured in the same world that gives us romantic novels.