"Scandalous Risks" by Susan Howatch

Very scandalous, indeed!  This, the 4th in the "Church of England" series, is a rather gripping story, this time emphasizing the certain and devastating effects of sin, whether the sin is acknowledged as sin or not.  It also interweaves, among other things, a debate involving liberal and conservative theologies, clearly showing the inadequacies and impossibility of dealing with sin without true repentance.  Justification by rationalization just doesn't cut it!  A rather tragic story overall.

Some of the memorable characters . . .:

Neville Aysgarth [a.k.a. the deluded one]

• "Adultery is prima facie wrong.  That we all know.  But if, for example, a married man found himself in a truly loving relationship with a woman who was not his wife, there would be no adultery because he would love that woman enough to abstain from any behavior which was morally wrong."

Lyle Ashworth

• " I know it's quite wrong for a bishop's wife to be so cynical, but at least I'm being entirely honest when I say that in my opinion a man in the grip of a grand passion can always work out a way to circumvent his moral beliefs.  He'd still hold those particular beliefs, of course, but he'd decide his case wasn't covered by the rules.  There's nothing like a grand passion for encouraging self-deception on an epic scale."

Venetia Flaxton

• "And as she talked on, telling him about her plans, it suddenly dawned on me not only that she was in love with him, but that the unsupervised stay in a beautiful house, the placing of herself against the ravishing backdrop of the Cathedral, the exact nature of the social event which would inevitably lure him from Oxford--all had been planned long before she left London.  It seemed I had met yet another slave to a one-sided grand passion.  No wonder we had discovered we were soul-mates."