How can Christianity touch the imagination of our contemporaries when ever fewer people in the West identify as religious? Timothy Radcliffe argues we must show how everything we believe is an invitation to live fully. God says: 'I put before you life and death: choose life'.Anyone who understands the beauty and messiness of human life - novelists, poets, filmmakers and so on - can be our allies, whether they believe or not. The challenge is not today's secularism but its banality. We accompany the disciples as they struggle to understand this strange man who heals, casts out demons and offers endless forgiveness. In the face of death, he teaches them what it means to be alive in God. Then he embraces all that afflicts and crushes humanity.Finally, Radcliffe explores what it means for us to be alive spiritually, physically, sacramentally, justly and prayerfully. The result is a compelling new understanding of the words of Jesus: 'I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.'

IMAGINATION1 Wingless and Three-Legged Chickens2 Choose LifeJOURNEYING3 The Transcendent Adventure4 A God for Our Aches and Pains5 Initial Skirmishes6 Growing Up7 Skin and ForgivenessTEACHING8 Teaching: The Dogmatic Imagination9 Impossible Friendships10 The Non-Violent Imagination11 At Home12 The Ecology of Faith13 AfflictionTHE RISEN LIFEIntroduction14 The Spiritual Life: Fresh Air15 The Bodily Life: Hallowing the Senses16 The Sacramental versus the Technocratic Imagination17 The Liturgical Imagination: God's Providence18 The Life of Prayer: The Poetry of HopeConclusionNotesAcknowledgementsBibliography