Organized religion does not adapt quickly to the times, but in Spiritscapes, author Mark Parent argues that such contemporary ideas as the New Age movement, the new physics, feminism, liberation theology, Gaia, and alternative medicine have all affected the church in varying degrees, and with positive and negative results.

Parent, a Baptist minister, also gives a glimpse of his own struggles with conventional religion, noting that he finds the contours of his own Christian faith increasingly “empty and sterile.” He seems to include himself among the many people whose lives, he says, are “as segmented as an orange, held together by the mere rind of one’s will.” I detected a spiritual crisis here and would have welcomed more details.

The book, best read and digested slowly, contains insights and ideas that beg to be discussed further. He criticizes the “God said it, the scripture recorded it, don’t question it” view of many organized religions, suggesting that to survive these religions will need to incorporate the more self-directed, individualistic approach of the New Age and feminist movements. The established churches, he says, need to allow questioning and debate and be willing to accept a greater variety of beliefs about God and spirituality.

In the final chapter, Parent sums up what directions North American and European religion might take and what sustenance they can provide for their spiritually hungry constituents. Parent concludes that the Christian of the future must be a mystic rather than a dogmatist and that churches will survive only by becoming less institutional.

The final sentence in Spiritscapes is a quotation from T.S. Eliot: “The end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” For a book that raises questions that don’t have clear answers, it’s a fitting finish.