Heresy has shaped Christianity although churches do their best to ignore this fact. The history of efforts to stamp out heresy is one of appalling and gratuitous cruelty. Churches also shaped their doctrine to embrace, or to counter, heretical ideas. Roger Wilson started to explore the influence of heresy when he was recovering from treatment for advanced cancer. In this book he tracks heresies from the early years of the growing religion to the 17th century when the acceptance of Protestantism gave new purpose to those with divergent ideas. Among the many questions this investigation raised is where was the spirituality amid the cruelties committed in the name of Christianity? This challenged Roger's own beliefs. He describes himself as having faith but he saw religion today as being more about doctrine and packaging than about the personal spiritual relationship with a loving God. He needed something better. The second part of the book describes his journey, arriving at answers which established churches will doubtless describe as heretical.