Books, Arts & Manners: Churches v. God

Without God, without Creed: The Origins of Unbelief in America, by James Turner (Johns Hopkins, 316 pp., $26.50)

‘For over a thousand years Europeans had assumed the existence of God. Their faith might be orthodox or heretical, simple or complex, easy or troubled. . . . Yet failing to believe somehow in some sort of deity was not merely rare; it was a bizarre aberration,” writes James Turner, a professor of history at the University of Michigan. Today, this “bizarre aberration” is the dominant outlook in influential sectors of our society. From the organs of news gathering and reporting, to prime-time sitcoms, to university campuses and art galleries, to the halls of Congress and the chambers of our courts, principled unbelief is the lens through which our world and the events in it are seen and interpreted.

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Carl R. Schmahl

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Without God, without Creed: The Origins of Unbelief in America, by James Turner (Johns Hopkins, 316 pp., $26.50)

‘For over a thousand years Europeans had assumed the existence of God. Their faith might be orthodox or heretical, simple or complex, easy or troubled. . . . Yet failing to believe somehow in some sort of deity was not merely rare; it was a bizarre aberration,” writes James Turner, a professor of history at the University of Michigan. Today, this “bizarre aberration” is the dominant outlook in influential sectors of our society. From the organs of news gathering and reporting, to prime-time sitcoms, to university campuses and art galleries, to the halls of Congress and the chambers of our courts, principled unbelief is the lens through which our world and the events in it are seen and interpreted.