By taking readers on an illuminating ramble through the history of the church, Robert Capon shows how we have lost this sense of astonishment by making Christianity into a religion that focuses on requirements and restrictions rather than on the Good News, and by turning the church, which should be a body of believers, into an institution that emphasizes its corporate functions to the detriment of its gospel message. After exploring all the ways in whcih the church has mis-embodied itself over the centuries, Capon explains how the church today might re-create itself. The key, according to Capon, is recovering the gift of astonishment with which it began.