God Revised: How Religion Must Evolve in a Scientific Age

Guengerich, the senior minister of the Unitarian Church of All Souls on Lexington Avenue in New York, offers a discursive meditation on how religion can fit into a scientific worldview. He rejects a supernatural, all-knowing God, yet still finds the need for a faith that gives life meaning. Firmly planted in the rationalist Unitarian Universalist camp, he takes readers on a tour of Western philosophical ideas, from Plato to Wittgenstein, with a sprinkling of modern-day explicators such as Karen Armstrong and Bart Ehrman, plus a handful of modern pop music lyrics. Guengerich is certainly learned, but his adamant rejection of traditional religion at times feels ironically prescriptive. “If you want to live a fulfilling life, you need to believe in a revised God,” he writes. That God, however, is difficult to define and must constantly be subjected to the latest scientific reasoning. Along the way, Guengerich shares sermons on political issues, from immigration to women’s rights to care for the environment. At a time when many younger people yearn for a more mystical religious experience, this volume may feel Eurocentric and dated. (May)