About This Book

““As a theologian in a Catholic liberal arts college, I have found it difficult to find texts that offer academic excellence in the analysis of the development of religion while maintaining a respectful demeanor that is supportive of religious faith. Michael Horace Barnes’’s The Enduring Quest for Meaning: Humans, Mystery, and the Story of Religion strikes the perfect balance. It both challenges and inspires.””

“”Michael Horace Barnes’’s The Enduring Quest for Meaning: Humans, Mystery, and the Story of Religion (the revised edition of Barnes’’s peerless textbook, In the Presence of Mystery [1984]), puts a much finer point to his exploration of ‘a supreme and awesome unity’ of the entire universe. I can think of no other work that will better accompany the reading of Pope Francis’’s critically important encyclical on ecology, Laudato si’, than this work. The coherence and timing are propitious and providential.””

“Michael Barnes’’s book, The Enduring Quest for Meaning, is written clearly and intelligibly, not assuming too much knowledge on the part of its readers. It introduces the academic study of religion in a fascinating, well-organized way that relates its topic to the lives of students, including footnotes to relevant academic sources and key chapters that make the book’’s story clear. The treatment of postmodernism is helpful to the understanding of religion in the twenty-first century.”

“The Enduring Quest for Meaning is a comprehensive and well-constructed introduction to religion as human response to mystery. It talks about a God that transcends the limits of particular religion’s’ titles or manner of relating to God or God’’s existence. The book is coherent, useful, and attractive: coherent because of its examples of how humans have understood Ultimate Reality; useful because of its footnotes and charts and summaries of terms; and attractive in the images that illustrate topics (a picture is frequently “worth a thousand words”).”

“At a time when many students question the value of religion, Michael Horace Barnes’’s The Enduring Quest for Meaning provides them with an engagingly written text that demonstrates why the religious quest not only endures but thrives. Barnes shows how human religiousness is grounded in our shared humanity. This book will appeal to students who are religious, as well as to those who are suspicious of religion. It integrates insights from multiple disciplines, including religious studies, theology, philosophy, history, psychology, sociology, and anthropology. Its rich examples from a wide variety of religious traditions provide concrete illustrations of the larger points being made and will spark student interest.”