Why read God's Funeral?

Book cover of God's Funeral: The Decline of Faith in Western Civilization

Book description

A magisterial, colorful narrative illuminating the central tragedy of the nineteenth century: that God (or man's faith in him) died, but the need to worship remained as a torment to those who thought they had buried Him. By the end of the nineteenth century, almost all the great writers, artists,…

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Why read it?

1 author picked God's Funeral as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Karl Giberson

Author

Faith journeys fascinate me. I love the dramatic tales of how we come to religious faith, or more commonly today, how we lose that faith. Our individual stories of loss are microcosms of the 19th-century loss of faith, which saw so many Europeans lose their belief in God but not their need for something transcendent to ground their understanding of reality.

I love the way A.N. Wilson tells this story as a sobering tale of loss rather than liberation. He dispels the notion that external forces like science are the full or even most important part of the story. Biblical…

From Karl's list on The best books on losing faith, changing beliefs, and the trauma of being terribly wrong.