Lost Icons: Reflections on Cultural Bereavement - Softcover

"The latest installment from perhaps the greatest living Christian theologian; everything he has written is worth reading, twice."David S. Cunningham, Professor of Theology and Ethics, Seabury-Western Theological Seminary (David S. Cunningham)

"A remarkable addition to his very diverse writings."—Fergus Kerr, The Tablet (Fergus Kerr The American Spectator)

"Rowan Williams has written a fascinating book, one that itself shows 'iconic' qualities in helping us to see the enterprise culture of our times and the attitudes it stimulates in a new light."—Bishop Paul Richardson, The Church of England Newspaper (Bishop Paul Richardson Church Of England Newspaper)

"It is an important book, full of insights, by a shrewd and independent thinker, making contact with the thinking of our secular culture which is criticized in devastating fashion."—Rt. Revd. Hugh Montefiore, Church Times (Rt. Revd. Hugh Montefiore Church Times)

"A thoughtful and passionate book."—Scientific and Medical Network (Scientific and Medical Network)

"This remarkable book is a sustained meditation on the confusions and alienations of modern selfhood, the subject of free choice, whose autonomy we most want to protect, and whose control by others we most want to unmask. With deft insight and economy of expression, Williams makes us aware of what it means to be a bodily creature, whose identity is remade in time, and is essentially interwoven with those of others. The self is a perpetual question, whose answer cannot lie simply within; to lose sight of this is to lose touch with the essential anchor points of the human condition, the grounds of spontaneous sociality, the possibility of remorse. The philosophy of the subject, political theory, and the understanding of our secular age, are all subtly shifted onto a new axis by this penetrating and original essay."—Professor Charles Taylor, McGill University (Professor Charles Taylor)

"There is nothing remotely sentimental in these clear-sighted, closely argued pages, in which Archbishop Williams pleads, with wisdom, compassion and cool articulate anger, for the recovery of habits of self-understanding in grave danger of becoming unavailable: for childhood, friendship and remorse, as aspects of identity fashioned and discovered over time"—Professor Nicholas Lash, University of Cambridge (Professor Nicholas Lash)

"Those who are already familiar with the writings of Rowan Williams will know of his gift of taking the ordinary stuff of human experience and opening it up to show how it can carry us into the mystery of God incarnate. They will not be surprised to discover that in this new book he once again enlightens us."—The Most Revd. Frank T. Griswold, Presiding Bishop and Primate of the Episcopal Church, USA (The Most Revd. Frank T. Griswold)

"Lost Icons is a reading of our culture which will help us to negotiate a way forward that is more deeply appreciative of those iconic resources which are intrinsic to human welfare and sense. It is especially thought provoking for those who are aware that the vicissitudes of culture are related to and must be understood in terms of presuppositions, beliefs, and losses of belief which lie, often unrecognized, deep below the surface."—Murray Rae, author of The Gospel and Our Culture (Murray Rae)

"In this profound book, Rowan Williams offers one of the finest and most penetrating critiques of contemporary culture I have read. Doing justice to a work of this magnitude is impossible- it is a book that needs to be digested at length."—Mark D. Chapman, author of Modern Believing (Mark D. Chapman)