The Language of God. By Francis Collins. Simon & Schuster. £8. 99

One of the benefits of Richard Dawkins’ dyspepsia about religion is that it has encouraged other scientists to share their own credo. Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome Project and one of the world’s foremost scientists, presents here his own evidence for belief. Growing up in a loving, freethinking family he was forced to examine his lack of faith when, as a doctor, a dying patient asked him what he believed. This simple question brought about an inner crisis; he read CS Lewis’s Mere Christianity and The Four Loves and concluded that self-sacrificing love could not be accounted for by selfish genes. Now he is an evangelical Christian, at ease with the glories of the natural world revealed by science and at ease with God. “Is mathematics, along with DNA, another language of God?” he asks.

For Collins, the Big Bang “approximately 14 billion years ago” cries out for a divine explanation – provided poetically by Genesis. His book will naturally annoy both creationists and Darwinists, the former because they believe the world came into being a mere 6-7 thousand years ago and the latter because he believes in “theistic evolution” – or, as he prefers to term it, “BioLogos.” He makes a “loving entreaty to the evangelical Christian church” not to cling to a literal interpretation of the Bible and neatly demolishes the flawed thinking behind Intelligent Design. For Collins, the God of the Bible is the God of the genome, to be worshipped in the cathedral or in the laboratory. He is a little shaky on the ethics of IVF but at least his book demonstrates that science cannot disprove faith.

Built On Love. By Denis and Valerie Riches. Family Publications. £10

The authors would be the first to agree that God often works in mysterious ways. Looking back at their life together in this joint autobiography, they must have reflected on how Providence has shaped it in ways they could not have foreseen. Marrying young in 1947, they had settled into a comfortable – and conventional - life filled with work, travel, friendships, music and raising a family. Then Valerie became a social worker. This was in the late 1960s and she received a stark introduction to the casualties of the sexual revolution. Appalled by what she saw she joined others who felt similarly and thus “The Responsible Society” (later renamed Family and Youth Concern) was born. Valerie has been deeply committed to its work for over 30 years, as the country has fallen further into an ethical morass.

On page 94 of the book there is a map of “The Web”; I have never seen more sinister cartography. Nothing to do with the internet it is a chart of all the pressure groups, trusts, committees and services dedicated to the culture of death. Valerie comments: “I hope in years to come…that someone will remember that once a small organisation existed which fought and warned of the dangers to come.” Denis supported her work and grace gradually led them into the Catholic Church in 1982. God found employment for Denis, too. Retired in 1988 he brought all his business acumen into Catholic publishing, as founder of Family Publications. He had proposed to Valerie while they listened to Panis Angelicus on the gramophone; it has subsequently become the leitmotif of their married life. Their story reflects the humour, energy and zeal with which they have been faithful to their apostolate.

The Fatima Guide. By Baron Lumiar. Fatima-Ophel Books. £10

Baron Lumiar calls this book “The essential companion for English-speaking pilgrims” and indeed it contains everything both necessary and useful to know: a history of the shrine and biographies of the three seers; information about all the holy sites to visit; details of other places of spiritual potency; a chapter of “peripheral attractions” that includes museums, cinemas and restaurants; and notes about possible accommodation.

Maps and colour photos on every page complete this excellent compilation. As Fatima’s message and popularity grow more widespread in this country, pilgrims will find such a Guide indispensable. Apart from any other useful reasons for learning English – and I daresay there are a few - it would be worth a reading fluency simply to access what it communicates, for Fatima is the supreme 20th century place “where heaven chose to speak to earth.”

© 2007 Francis Phillips

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