LAUSR

in faith communities. The concept of a caring, loving and nurturing relationship between a mother and her child is used frequently throughout the book as a model or metaphor of the pastoral care relationship that should and frequently does exist between individual members of a faith community or church. Whilst this is understandable given that historically the forming of caring relationships was often seen as the role of the mother, a better metaphor would be the caring and nurturing relationship between the child and both parents. Shurley appears to ignore the role of the father both as a reality and a metaphor, an omission which could be irritating at best and hurtful at worst. Some of the underlying concepts and explorations could do with simplifying to make the book more accessible for both busy pastoral care professionals and the families of those with a learning disability. Again, Shurley’s frequent use of the word ‘play’ in relation to spiritual and pastoral care of those with a learning disability could be argued to perpetuate the historical perception that those with a learning disability are little more than children in an adult’s body, although I accept the suggestion that everyone, no matter who they are or how old they are needs to ‘play’, to relax, to recreate. Such an inference, however, can only serve to further infantilise and prevent those with a learning disability from being taken seriously as equal partners, as both spiritual and pastoral care receivers and givers within a faith community context. Any future editions of this book may need to address these issues and at the very least justify and defend the use of the female pronoun to the neglect of the male and the concept of play as it relates to a possible infantilising of those with a learning disability. Overall, a well-written book that is to be recommended for use by all faith communities and their leaders and, indeed, anyone involved in an active ministry or service, particularly if that service involves people with disabilities.