The rise of militant atheism in the West coupled with the resurgence of Islam has left many people confused as to the true nature of religion. As Bynum points out, "though religion contains theology, it is more than theology. It concerns ethics and morality, but is more than ethics and morality. It ponders cosmology and man's place in the totality of creation, but it is more than cosmology. Religion often involves ritual and veneration for tradition, but it is more than ritual and tradition. All of these things contain and support religion, but they are not religion; they constitute the forms of religion," only. Bynum makes the point that religious experience is at the heart of all religion and attempts to explain and describe the true nature of this experience. She also explores how the lack of religious understanding contributes to our present moral confusion and general societal decline. She believes that only through a revival of religious awareness will the Western world attain the necessary confidence to confront and contain Islam as well as to revive its civilization.
In a short book of the most lucid prose, Rebecca Bynum is not afraid to take on the largest questions of human existence and equally unafraid to give them deeply unfashionable answers.
—Theodore Dalrymple, author of Life at the Bottom and Threats of Pain and Ruin
This is a riveting, well-paced and lively debunking of moral relativism, atheism, appeasement of militant Islam, and the general drive to dilute spirituality and religion, while perversely amplifying societal and national guilt and shame. The atheist will only enjoy it if wobbling already in those convictions. The concerned, religiously undecided will find it stimulating and persuasive, and the intelligent Judeo-Christian will be uplifted. It is a rigorous argument and for any person interested in these questions, a very good read.
—Conrad Black, biographer of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Richard M. Nixon and author of A Matter of Principle, Flight of the Eagle and Rise to Greatness
Every thinking person knows that, for all our capacity to reason, we are enmeshed in mysteries beyond our comprehension. Rebecca Bynum’s fine new book, The Real Nature of Religion, undertakes to explain the inexplicable with an admirable mix of clarity, lucidity, learning, and wisdom.
—Myron Magnet, author of The Founders at Home and The Dream and the Nightmare
Rebecca Bynum is one of the few religious thinkers raising what is undoubtedly one of the most important, perhaps the most important question, of our time: Can the United States survive if its First Amendment liberties continue to shield an Islam whose objective is to become religiously and politically dominant in every sphere of human endeavor. Unlike too many of our political leaders, Ms. Bynum is widely read and sophisticated about both Islam and Christianity. She understands that Islam is a complex phenomenon that is too different from other religions to be simplistically classified. Islam requires, she argues, a category of its own that excludes First Amendment protection when it seeks a privileged place in the American religious landscape. If we continue on our present path, America as we know it will not long survive. It will go the way of countless other societies whose civilizations have succumbed to Islam.
—Richard L. Rubenstein, Lawton Distinguished Professor of Religion Emeritus, Distinguished Research Professor of Religion, University of Bridgeport and author of After Auschwitz
Rebecca Bynum’s work is a quietly philosophical meditation on the nature of religion, on the soul, faith and morality, and much much more. She clears away the superstitions that have grown up, like weeds, around the core beliefs, and which threaten to choke true religion. Religion must change, and cannot remain mired in the past. Bynum’s elegant essay is a courageous look at what she clearly believes in passionately, and an equally fervent plea for the continuous relevance of Christianity in these uncertain times.
—Ibn Warraq, author of Why I am Not a Muslim, Sir Walter Scott’s Crusades and Other Fantasies and Christmas in the Koran
--New English Review
