Gloriously maddening though this book will be to those who want humanism to have no connection to religion whatever, its purpose is both generous and hopeful: to demonstrate, to both Christians and post-Christians alike, how much better we understand each other than we think we do. * Francis Spufford * Theo Hobson is an exceptionally acute observer of the difficulties and opportunities created by our largely secular age. He can see the self-deceptions we are engaged in as regards our debts to religion - and, in this beautiful book, charts a wise course to a saner world. * Alain de Botton * With his usual crisp and rigorous analysis, Theo Hobson invites us to recognise that the core moral values of liberal modernity did not fall ready-made from a secular heaven but are the deposit of a long theological tradition. But - just as typically - he makes it clear that this is a challenge to contemporary religious complacency at least as much as to a smug and patronising secularity. A fine, provocative book. * Rowan Williams * [A] provocative and well-made [argument]. * Church Times * While there are countless differences, Hobson is nevertheless something of a Belloc for the modern age. * The Catholic Herald *