Professor Daniel C. Maguire’s latest book, Christianity Without God: Moving beyond the Dogmas and Retrieving the Epic Moral Narrative, is an ambitious project that functions as both a primer on the logical and ethical failures of theism and as a reimaging of the biblical narrative to meet the great moral challenges of our day. As a theologian and former priest who teaches ethics at Marquette University, a Jesuit school, Maguire fills a critical gap in a body of atheist literature that has frequently demonstrated its authors’ limited understanding of religious texts.
Armed with a rigorous academic background in religion and the attendant understanding of the gravity of the God-loss, Maguire’s theological and pastoral training sets him apart from fellow atheists. By recognizing the poetic and ethical value of biblical stories in a more nuanced way than those scholars who offer only perfunctory nods to the Bible’s poetry, Maguire’s book offers a gentler welcome to atheism than its more dismissive predecessors. RD spoke with Maguire by phone about his latest book and the future of belief.
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