In some recent theological writing, imagination is presented as a power of the mind with crucial importance for religion, but one whose role has often suffered neglect. Its fuller acknowledgment has become a live issue today. ‘Theologians’, wrote Professor J. P. Mackey, ‘have recently taken to symbol and metaphor, poetry and story, with an enthusiasm which contrasts very strikingly with their all-but-recent avoidance of such matters’ (1986, p. 1). As well as relevant writings by Eliade and Ricoeur, there have been treatments of religious imagination by Professor John Mclntyre in his Faith, Theology and Imagination (1987) and in J. P. Mackey's composite volume entitled Religious Imagination.