{"product_id":"2940157160173","title":"Findings: Poets and the Crisis of Faith","description":"It is part of the innocence of poetry that it can testify to reality without trying to explain and systematize as the theologians must do. They look for truths which converge in a single system; while the poets claim the freedom to think, to question, and to record, boldly and unsystematically. Moreover their conclusions are tentative: \"I saw this, I felt this--take it or leave it!\"  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor myself, I have come into a phase where I find it very hard to read religious books (which is a statement about my own condition, not about the books); but after many years I am now able to read poetry again. I cannot present modern poets in a chronological sequence expressing a general recovery of discovery of religious faith, as I did with the loss of faith--but only point to individuals who found their own way out of doubt and despair. I do not claim that poets must be right; they have ventured down many paths, and some proved to be dead ends. Where they found new insights, these have been explored by theologians too; and some poets such as Dante and Blake have expounded religious philosophies. Indeed Carol Murphy, a contemporary Friend, suggests that \"The deepest truths can be conveyed only in poetry, and Christian theology, truly seen, is not a set of dusty propositions, nor a dreamy fairy-tale, but the highest poetry, full of illuminating images and brilliant paradoxes.\"","brand":"Pendle Hill Publications","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47114968072432,"sku":"2940157160173","price":7.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940157160173_p0.jpg?v=1764092275","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940157160173","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}