He does a decent job of telling how others have made the journey through skepticism to faith, and of explaining the process and the potential rewards and dangers. He is great at dropping the memorable quote or anecdote to illustrate a point. He is obviously quite widely read but I sometimes wondered how deep his knowledge goes.
Unfortunately, the book was not all that I had hoped it would be. I was looking forward to an objective look at the process of being a "seeker." While the book does explain that process it became quickly apparent that the author also had another objective--to steer the seeker towards a particular "meaning of life," that of the Christian faith.
At the beginning of Part Two, Guinness states that there are three leading families of faith in the modern world: the Eastern family (including Hinduism, Buddhism and New Age), the Western family (including naturalism, atheism and secular humanism), and the Biblical family (Judaism, Christianity and Islam). He then writes a chapter on each of the families in which he "endeavored to portray them straightforwardly and accurately."
I found the chapter on eastern faith (Buddhism & Hinduism) to be woefully inadequate. The author's childhood in China and his studies under a Hindu guru (length of time studying not mentioned) are trotted out as if they make him an authority on eastern religion. However, he only gives a cursory and in my opinion inaccurate picture of Buddhism and Hinduism today.
The same can be said for his chapter on secular humanism. He highlights two writers, Bertrand Russell and Albert Camus, as the archetypal secular humanists. Both Russell and Camus were relatively bleak about mankind's future, so Guinness paints secularism as a pessimistic philosophy. Apparently for him there is no such thing as an optimistic humanist.
He then writes of the biblical family as being that family of faith that most closely mirrors the truth. Note that in this chapter he excludes any discussion of Islam (the second-largest religion in the world behind Christianity). The rest of the book (Parts Three & Four) is basically Christian apologetics. Not that there is anything wrong with apologetics, but I feel that some people will be mislead into buying this book because they think it may be an impartial guide in their search for meaning. Nowhere on the jacket or in the introduction is it stated that this book is meant to be a guide towards Christianity.
That being said, "Long Journey Home" is still a good book that asks penetrating questions and offers some useful insights for the seeker who needs some direction for starting his or her quest.
Guinness knows what he's writing about. Not just his search for the meaning to life, but in his search his reading of philosophy, literature, art and biography and other seekers is included herein.
This is profound and chock full of wonderful, deep statements of seekers.
He carefully, philosophically goes through each step of seeking. His background of being born in Buddhist China to his time with Hinduism, then his education under classical secular humanism at Oxford well qualify him as such a guide.
Just one salinet quote from this marvelous read is: "The secret of the search is not our 'great ascent' but 'the great descent'--of God toward us. Instead of the seeker finding love, love seeks out the seeker."
Highly recommended for thoughtful seekers, to be given ones we know and for those of us whom God has already sought out and now on the way to serve Him eternally.