A modern-day cleansing of the temple takes place as this author tracks down the major objections to and criticisms of the Christian faith. Many, perhaps most, of the great critics of Christianity have rejected it largely on moral grounds. What Dean Cupitt planned was a study of these moral criticisms with an evaluation of how strong they yare. What emerges from his study is a picture of how confused and complex the Christian tradition is. Christianity has lost moral authority, he discovers, not only by teaching the wrong moral principles, but also by teaching too many different ones. What is needed is a moral purge of the Christian tradition itself. Dean Cupitt suggests some of the lines such a purge should take: The harsh old anthropomorphic story theology must go.; Much in the ascetical tradition is simply morbid and should be end.; The doctrine of male supremacy that is causing much feminist finger-pointing today must be subdued.; A more genuinely liberal theology may be able to renounce physical and, even more importantly, psychological terrorism; but only if the old authoritarian imagery is discarded, imagery which suggests that the church, in its heart of hearts, would like to take the world back into the cruel past.; Christianity's alliance with the state led it to make a mistaken claim that it could underwrite or validate moral principles; in reality, it crowns them.; Theology must abandon the notion of a single, authoritative, orthodox faith, and there must be higher standards of intellectual honesty in church life. Moral criticism of the condition of contemporary religion is the first step in renewal, and Dean Cupitt's book is an excellent starting point for anyone seriously interested in the Christian faith and its future. -Publisher