Mike Erre is not afraid of difficult questions: Why do people talk about God ‘hiding’ from us? Can we really figure out what faith means? Have we missed the point of Jesus’ teaching, and made Christianity into our God?

It’s a book that made me stop and think, which gave me encouragement that post-modern openness and questioning is acceptable even in some evangelical circles; that there’s much more to faith and God than many would have us believe. I found the brief anecdotes and forays into the author's life experiences to be interesting; I was particularly moved by brief mentions of his son, born with Down Syndrome, and evidently one of the lights of his life.

A lot of the underlying - albeit gentle - criticism in this book is against the materialist and rigidly modernist views held in some American mega-churches. We UK Christians usually have a lot more grey areas, where views like those of the author are discussed, and accepted, so these parts weren't so relevant to me.

The subtitle of ‘Astonished’ is: ‘Recapturing the wonder, awe and mystery of life with God’. While that’s a tall order, I would say that this book could help people on their way to doing exactly that, so long as they’re prepared to be open to the possibility that they might be wrong in some of their understanding about the nature of God and what it means to follow Jesus.

Recommended. ( )