Nathan Schneider on Robert Wright’s The Evolution of God:
It’s easy to focus, as many reviews have, on Wright’s theology of nonexistent god and triumphant moral progress that comes mainly in the concluding chapters. But the real meat and potatoes of the book is its meat and potatoes: a Wagnerian act of gnostic expose, slogging through verse after verse of ancient, holy writ, telling the story of Western religion as a political thriller—albeit enacted by deluded nothing-worshippers. The hefty 500-pager starts to feel like a breezy, concise charge through the most titillatingly inversionary historical-critical readings of Hebrew and Christian and Muslim scripture. It’s stuff that many people don’t know is out there and available for hanging one’s cosmic hat on: a vast anti-narrative provided by the wonders of modern scholarship.
Listen to Nathan’s conversation with Wright.