Loves Urgent Longings: Wrestling with belief in today’s church

Love's Urgent Longings is the story of a journey. A spiritual journey made over the past few years by Bishop Geoffrey Robinson. In seeking for answers to the urgent longings of the title he goes back to basics to encounter the spiritual, to consciously respond to the force of his deepest desires and to understand the ways that they move him towards higher goals.

This sounds like a very personal journey, and so it is. However it is also a journey that will resonate with a great many Catholics. Geoffrey Robinson asks questions that every thinking Catholic asks at some stage on the journey: Do I really belong in the church? Is there any realistic chance that it will ever change to become the kind of church I could give myself to without reservations? What do I do in the meantime? And questions that every thinking, searching spiritual person asks at some stage in their life: Who am I? Where do I come from? Where am I going? What is the purpose and meaning of my existence? Geoffrey Robinson's journey is your journey; it is our journey as a church and as believers. His questions are your questions.

Above all this is a positive story. Bishop Robinson is not trying to reject all that is past and, as he puts it 'construct a new building from the foundations up'. He does not wish to believe in nothing or become vaguely 'spiritual'. He says: 'If I must leave something behind, I want to do so only because I have found something of equal value to put in its place'.

Love's Urgent Longings is a journey, a story, a testament, both a personal one and a dialogue with and for those, both old and young, who are wrestling with belief in today's church.