The Beyond Within: a commentary on 'Through a Glass Darkly'

'The Beyond Within' is Derek Guiton's response to David Boulton's 'Through a Glass Darkly'. Thought-stirring and provocative, it offers a much-needed critique of the miltant strand within Quaker non-theism which advocates a future for Britain Yearly Meeting based on the form of atheism known as 'radical religious humanism'. The book amplifies three themes raised in Guiton's 'A Man that Looks on Glass' - inclusivity, transcendence and religious language. In so doing it answers the misconceptions and misreadings that frame so much of the argument in 'Through a Glass Darkly'. Affirming that for all Quakers transcendence and immanence are indivisible, 'The Beyond Within' underlines the importance of that very special attitude to the world we call 'mystical' which is at the heart of the Quaker experience and a necvessary element in our worship.