Why Religion Matters: The Fate of the Human Spirit in an Age of Disbelief
Why Religion Mattersis a passionate, accessible, ambitious  manifesto written by one of the very few people qualified to address its titular  topic. Huston Smith is the grand old man of religious scholarship. Raised by  missionary parents in China, Smith went on to teach at M.I.T. and U.C. Berkeley,  among others, and hisWorld's  Religionshas long been the standard introductory textbook for college  religion courses. The subject ofWhy Religion Matters, Smith writes, "is  the importance of the religious dimension of human life--in individuals, in  societies, and in civilizations." Smith believes that the religious dimension of  human life has been devalued by the rise of modern science: we have now reached  a point at which "modern Westerners . . . forsaking clear thinking, have allowed  ourselves to become so obsessed with life's material underpinnings that we have  written science a blank check ... concerning what constitutes knowledge and  justified belief." In candid, direct style, Smith describes the evolution of  intellectual history from pre-modern to postmodern times, and the spiritual  sensibilities that have been shunted "by ourmisreadingof modern  science." In the book's final sections, Smith avoids the folly of predicting the  future, instead focusing on "features of the religious landscape that are  invariant" and therefore may serve as "a map that can orient us, wherever the  future may bring." This book is fresh, insightful, and important. It may prove  to be as influential in shifting readers' terms of religious understanding as  any of Smith's previous writings.--Paul Power