If religion is characterised by the recruitment of God to serve our agendas, and faith is about putting our agendas at the service of God, then clearly there is too much religion in the world, and not enough faith.

The first eight chapters of this book apply this religion/faith dichotomy to some crucial areas of interest to those exploring what it might mean to be people of faith in a world saturated with religion. The remaining chapters address issues of crucial importance to the future of organised religion in general, and the role of the Church of England in particular.

From mediaeval polyphony to Andrew Lloyd Webber the development of a given theme through a sequence of variations has proved attractive to composers anxious to demonstrate the sometimes surprising potential of a simple melody. This book is a modest attempt to do something similar with two concepts, religion and faith, which are usually seen as simply synonymous but which are in fact subtly different and subject to being interwoven in numerous complex and unexpected ways.