Long before I ever met Nicholas Lash I was a fan! It was Christmas 1977 and I had been given Voices of Authority by the local curate - ‘there were curates upon the earth in those days’ - as a Christmas present with the note: ‘a small book which I think you may enjoy reading!’ It was very short indeed (116 pages and just two and a half pages of notes), but how much was squeezed so eloquently into those pages. Quite apart from its content, it was a lesson that one could write cutting edge theology without cumbersome language and ostentatious displays of academic prowess. He could just say it all so simply, and yet he never retreated from the fact that faith is a matter of facing hard questions.