Hugh Montefiore – författare

Bishop Hugh Montefiore tackles the question of how the full range of Christian doctrine may be understood by people today. Writing in an accessible style, he addresses the questions posed by science and other modern disciplines.

At a time when there are often as many adults as young people preparing for confirmation, the concept of notes written in adult language, which the younger candidate can grow into, is particularly appropriate for today's needs.The growing number of adult study groups, working through mutual questioning within group discussions, will find it helpful to have these clear succinct notes about the content of Christian belief and practice.Few books have been more influential in confirmation preparation than Hugh Montefiore's 'Confirmation Notebook', written while he was vicar of the University Church in Cambridge.After five editions, with nineteen printings of the fifth edition alone, the notebook is now in a handy pocket-sized format that includes space at the end of each chapter for notes. Existing chapters have been updated and, in most cases, enlarged, while new chapters have been added on 'Common Worship', Christian festivals and fasts, Christian responsibilities, Christian behaviour, and the Christian view on sex and marriage.

Christianity has been marginalised, no longer considered a serious option for the high ground of contemporary debate. This book seeks to reclaim that high ground by showing the inadequacy of secularism. What is the standing of religious experience? Can love and marriage be adequately explained in secular terms? What values are needed in a technological society? Where can an adequate environmental ethic be found? In facing these vital questions the Christian religion makes an essential contribution.

This book by a distinguished Roman Catholic marital counsellor and senior consultant at the Central Middlesex Hospital, and the former Anglican Bishop of Birmingham, who was also Chairman of the Church of England's Board for Social Responsibility, arose out of the Margaret Harris lectures given in Dundee in 1988. It is probably the first time that a Roman Catholic and an Anglican have joined forces in this way, and the result is an important contribution to the discussion of sexual ethics today. After an introduction to sexual ethics, Hugh Montefiore contributes chapters on homosexuality, and abortion and infra vitro fertilization; Jack Dominian writes on masturbation and pre-marital sexual intercourse, and marriage and marital breakdown. Both speak as loyal and committed members of their respective churches, but believe that this loyalty and commitment requires them to look again at some of the human dilemmas experienced in these intimate questions of love and sex, sometimes leading them to conclusions which differ from the official teaching of their churches.

Studies in Biblical Theology 35