Thirty Years of Honesty: Honest to God Then and Now

In March 1993, the BBC radio programme Seeds of Faith broadcast five talks to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of Bishop John Robinson’s Honest to God, the best-known controversial theological best-seller of this century. The broadcasts led to many requests for publication of the texts, and this volume is the result. To put them in context, the book begins with an introduction by David Edwards, who as Editor and Managing Director of SCM Press in 1963 was responsible for the publication of Honest to God. Part One contains two brief articles by John Robinson about why he wrote the book and how he felt that the debate should be continued. Then come three contemporary reviews of the book, by David Jenkins, now Bishop of Durham; Alec Graham, now Bishop of Newcastle; and Gerald Downing, now Vicar of St Simon and St Jude, Bolton. Finally, there is a selection of women’s voices’, letters representing the reactions of women of varying ages and backgrounds to Honest to God. Part Two contains the 1993 broadcasts: The Flowering of Honesty’, by Eric James; ‘Life was Never the Same’, by Ruth Robinson; ‘A Loss of Nerve’, by John Bowden; ‘The Aweful Truth: Thoughts on the Last Things’, by Ruth Etchells; and Truth is Many-Eyed’, by Alan Race.