"Religion," this book begins, "is a mistrusted word now," and Nicholas Mosley, in this engaging meditation, seeks to repair that trust. Rather than trying to convince or compel the reader to accept his beliefs, he describes how religion functions in the modern world.

Elsewhere, Mosley has written, "There is a subject nowadays which is taboo in the way that sexuality was once taboo, which is to talk about life as if it had any meaning." In this book, he describes religion as the source of that meaning. Despair is the fashionable attitude, but it is one Mosley, here and in his many novels, rejects in favor of a cautious optimism. He writes not to persuade, but to explain a worldview that is refreshing for the hope and intelligence it contains.