The Atheist Convention promises to become a good institution. Although it inspires some polemic, it also invites deeper reflection on the different ways in which people account for the world. Leaving Alexandria, the recent autobiography of a former Anglican Archbishop of Edinburgh, more lately a media figure and agnostic, is exemplary in this respect.
Richard Holloway's life took him from the poor Clydeside village of Alexandria into an Anglican religious community, to ordination as an Anglican priest, to ministry in South Africa, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Boston, to consecration as Archbishop of Edinburgh and finally to resignation from his position, Church and Christian faith.
This is an honest and self-critical book that invites the reader to respond with the same honesty.
When he was 14, Holloway went from home to a rural school and seminary for impoverished boys who wished to become Anglican clergy. An Anglo-Catholic community, whose members were destined for the foreign missions, staffed the school. Its ethos was idealistic. Its ritual and symbolic structure were rich.
Holloway was attracted to these aspects of the life, but then had to deal with the tension he experienced between the idealism and beauty of the worship and his recognition of moral frailty.
He left at the end of his schooling, but joined the congregation after national service. His decision was made lightly: nothing seemed more worth doing. He lived with detachment, never unselfconscious, always observing himself living the part he played. In the hope of becoming fully involved and of belonging fully, he repeatedly sought out difficult fields of ministry. But he always felt himself an observer.
This sense of distance helped him to see the world through the eyes of others. He had a natural empathy for people who differed from him. In his writings he took seriously the perspective of religious unbelief.
It is not surprising then that Holloway privileged the concrete and personal needs of individuals over the general and principled arguments that buttress institutional stability. This priority often brought him into conflict within his church in areas such as marriage discipline, women's ordination and homosexuality.
When he was made a bishop and had to negotiate fierce conflicts in the Anglican communion and personal attack by opponents over these issues, his links with faith and the church were strained and broken.
The crisis led Holloway to recognise that he had not only entered but also now accepted the secular wisdom of his age. He came to the