The Quest for God: A Personal Pilgrimage

Rating:
Summary: Not merely food for thought, but a banquet.
Review: 'The Quest for God' needs at least two careful readings before judgment can be passed upon it. There is much of C. S. Lewis in it; that is, they share common views upon omnipresent and omnicompetent government, and the follies of those who would bring about Heaven on earth by legislation, but I would be the last man to declare that Mr Johnson either cribbed from Mr Lewis, or was influenced by him. Both men shared a British education; both men, in their respective fields, are (or were) historians of the first rank; both see more clearly than most the need for God and the consequences that devolve upon humanity when God is ignored. Although Mr Johnson has often been excoriated as a 'conservative', many of his views are what might be called 'progressive'. His meditations upon God, His nature, and His interaction with man are steeped in Catholic tradition and reflect his faith. This book is intensely personal, as the subtitle proclaims, and is guaranteed to offend the casual modern reader; I exhort the c. m. r. to read it twice, and see for himself the ineluctable logic behind Mr Johnson's arguments. He might learn something to his benefit.

Rating:
Summary: Catholic Catecism class?
Review: I love Paul Johnson. I love Paul Johnson's books. I just disliked this one. His impeccable credentials (Oxford) and his usual penchant for exhaustive scholarly research (The Intellectuals, History of the Jews, History of Christianity, etc.) were surprisingly absent. This book is thoroughly Catholic - not necessarily a bad thing mind you. It's just that the book title had nothing to do with the book. This was no "Quest", no grappling with doubt or faith or pain. Just a Catholic Catecism - a celebration of one man's faith, not the Quest or personal pilgrimage of a man searching for God. It appears that Johnson has found God, neatly and conveniently inside the cathedral. That's O.K. for him. I just was hoping he would help me turn over a few more stones.

Rating:
Summary: Militant anti-globalization, the New Religion?
Review: Johnson's belief comes down to this: "Conscience exists" and who else could have put it there but God? (p.3/66) "Without God death is horrific." (p.32) With God, death can be seen to have meaning, a purpose, and a hope. Humanists made their case against religion, peaking in the 1880s, offering an alternitive view. Prometheans viewed belief in religion, in theological religion as the "enemy of mankind". (p.19) Johnson states that environmentalism, racial politics, and the gay movement are modern claimants herein; as alternitives to religion, filling the vacumn in the hearts and souls of the members of these movements left by the waning within themselves of formal religion. (p.84) Society doesn't evince the restraints it once did as much anymore, consequently. Johnson laments this, arguing that only structured religion can impose these restraints in human appetities. (p.23) Persistance in prayer is the essence of supplication. (p.185) That's why churches and their spires were so big and tall amidst peoples communities. They were designed to instill awe in those same people as well as being erected to "show the glory of God". (p.75) But toward what end? Judism is about moral behavior too, the author admits, but since Jews reject Jesus he rejects their religion as an equel to his own. He respects others religions, he says, but nevertheless is in favor of converting everyone to Catholicism. People desire structure in their lives, Johnson states, but the Catholic church can only offer such structure if it adheres to strict historical religious doctrine: anti-abortion, maintaining celibacy for priests, etc. Although this, at least in part, has accounted for its decline, paradoxically. How to solve this conundrum, though, is not addressed by the author. In the meantime a fair number of people are embracing, in Johnson's view, seemingly alternitive religions such as those existing under the banner of anti-globalization, militant environmentalism, and other such causes. It used to be that those individuals inclined toward such strucure as offered by religious belief embraced fascism or marxism when conventional religions failed them in some way. Now such individuals embrace crusades against globalization and/or in support of militant environmentalist causes. Johnson acknowedges that fewer and fewer people in western countries practice their religion, but takes solace that "the number of those prepared to state their disbelief in God openly and specifically is minute." (p.2) It's as if people have had their thoughts of heaven stilled, in some measure, while retaining some of the fear that hell was seemingly designed to instill in individuals. Hence the attraction of utopian political systems, anti-globalization and militant environmentalist movements. It's not particularly rational to embrace such, but then again neither is religious belief inherently rational. But we have had increasingly more of the former (especially in Europe of late) owing to the perceived failure of ecclesiastical religion to remain as relevent as Mr. Johnson, among others, would desire it to be in our world of today. These issues I found more interesting than Mr. Johnson's particulars relating to his personal quest for God. Hence my giving this esteemed and most able historian only a 3 star rating.