The 2000-year history of Christianity is a dramatic, intriguing, and often surprising story, told here by more than sixty specialists from ten countries. In this book, Philip Jenkins takes on the interpretations of Jesus Seminar scholars and provides historical and textual evidence to contradict them. Peter Ackroyd, The Life of Thomas More . Coles is a professor of psychiatry and medical humanities at Harvard. The Secular Mind is an intellectual ramble through the past few centuries.
Coles seeks to show how literary giants anticipated twentieth century secular culture.
The book is weaker as he looks to the future. Many of Coles' other books are worthy of note. The Call to Service examines community service and altruism, and contains plenty of sermon illustrations. Coles has spent a great deal of time studying the moral and spiritual growth of children. Two representative works are The Spiritual Life of Children and The Moral Intelligence of Children .