Adrian Plass, writer in residence at Scargill House Conference Centre, in North Yorkshire, borrowed the name of H.G. Wells’ famous science fiction epic for his latest book.

War of the Worlds, though, has nothing to do with invaders from Mars terrorising the Earth and everything to do with the war Plass, one of today’s most successful Christian authors, says is going on in the Church.

The war, Plass postulates, is between two worlds — one where honesty is valued and the other where it is shunned.

“The war in individuals is a conflict between the world of inside and the world of outside,” Plass says in his introduction. “Jesus does not call people to deny what they feel and think and fear and yearn for. He tells them to tell the truth and discover a freedom that is more spectacularly satisfying because it deals with all that we are, instead of an edited version of ourselves.”

Like many of his 20 previous books, which have sold more than two million copies world wide, Plass tackles his subject matter with a series of anecdotes and poems. Some movingly real, others hilariously fictitious.

There are 12 chapters, each taking around five minutes to read, dealing with such diverse subjects as death, prayer, and entry into the outrageous, frightening, funny, no-man’s land of true Christian commitment.

Unauthorised fire, wasted weaknesses and the elephant in the room all get the Plass treatment, as do bringing the Bible alive, sacred cows and uniting our inner world with our public one.

The playful God, the bottom line - positive crucifixion and coming home round this paperback off.

As usual I found plenty to roar with laughter over — Frank Spencer, of Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em fame, interviewed as Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, is quite a laugh, although any reader under about 35 will probably struggle to understand what Plass is getting at.

And there’s plenty of heavier, serious, reading in here too. The chapter on positive crucifixion contains much to ponder on the cross which Plass says is over romanticised.

“There was nothing light or funny about that hideous instrument of death and torture. Crucifixion was unspeakably horrible. Perhaps we forget that.”