An earnest and thought-provoking reevaluation of traditional religion.
Ward proposes a new religion based on reason in this nonfiction book.
In the 14th century B.C.E., Egyptian pharaoh Amenhotep IV challenged his civilization’s prior conception of God by introducing what many scholars believe to be the world’s first documented monotheistic religion. This religion, Atenism (named after the ancient Egyptian word for the sun), represented, per the author, “an extraordinary mutation in the evolution of God ideas.” Drawn to Atenism’s rejection of mythology in favor of a “direct observation of Nature” that recognized the sun’s integral role in sustaining life on Earth, Ward proposes a new version of the ancient faith as a solution to humanity’s current divisions. The book’s 34 chapters are divided into three sections. The early chapters offer a philosophical reframing of what is meant by the term “God,” which Ward posits has never been a fixed concept in any faith. Drawing heavily on Baruch Spinoza’s conception of a supreme being (“Whatever is, is in God, and nothing can be or be conceived without God”), the author argues for a new conceptualization of God as Nature (or, rather, “the totality of reality”), which is best understood through reason. Building on this reconceptualization of God, the book’s second part provides a detailed description of the tenets of Ward’s titular “New Atenism,” which blends Spinoza’s ideas with Atenism’s ancient emphasis on balance and human flourishing (defined not by wealth accumulation but by “knowledge, cooperation, and error correction”). The final section shifts from a philosophical focus to a practical discussion of how New Atenism can be applied to one’s daily life and how the religion can be spread by following the sociological frameworks that have always disseminated new faiths—from the formation of community networks to the propagation of teachings (which, in this case, include not only this book, but also a supplementary podcast). While the work offers intriguing ideas about the nature of God, the text’s timeline of religion—in which the “old team of specialist gods” evolved “by reason” into a monotheistic God—minimizes the histories of polytheistic faiths, from Hinduism to a myriad of Indigenous religions.
An earnest and thought-provoking reevaluation of traditional religion.Pub Date: March 17, 2026
ISBN: 9798234028556
Page Count: 271
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
This a book of earlier, philosophical essays concerned with the essential "absurdity" of life and the concept that- to overcome the strong tendency to suicide in every thoughtful man-one must accept life on its own terms with its values of revolt, liberty and passion. A dreary thesis- derived from and distorting the beliefs of the founders of existentialism, Jaspers, Heldegger and Kierkegaard, etc., the point of view seems peculiarly outmoded. It is based on the experience of war and the resistance, liberally laced with Andre Gide's excessive intellectualism. The younger existentialists such as Sartre and Camus, with their gift for the terse novel or intense drama, seem to have omitted from their philosophy all the deep religiosity which permeates the work of the great existentialist thinkers. This contributes to a basic lack of vitality in themselves, in these essays, and ten years after the war Camus seems unaware that the life force has healed old wounds... Largely for avant garde aesthetes and his special coterie.
Pub Date: Sept. 26, 1955
ISBN: 0679733736
Page Count: 228
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 19, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1955
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.
Memories and life lessons inspired by the author’s mother, who was murdered in 2021.
“Neither my mother nor I knew that her last text to me would be the words ‘Think you’ll be happy,’ ” Avant writes, "but it is fitting that she left me with a mantra for resiliency.” The author, a filmmaker and former U.S. Ambassador to the Bahamas, begins her first book on the night she learned her mother, Jacqueline Avant, had been fatally shot during a home invasion. “One of my first thoughts,” she writes, “was, ‘Oh God, please don’t let me hate this man. Give me the strength not to hate him.’ ” Daughter of Clarence Avant, known as the “Black Godfather” due to his work as a pioneering music executive, the author describes growing up “in a house that had a revolving door of famous people,” from Ella Fitzgerald to Muhammad Ali. “I don’t take for granted anything I have achieved in my life as a Black American woman,” writes Avant. “And I recognize my unique upbringing…..I was taught to honor our past and pay forward our fruits.” The book, which is occasionally repetitive, includes tributes to her mother from figures like Oprah Winfrey and Bill Clinton, but the narrative core is the author’s direct, faith-based, unwaveringly positive messages to readers—e.g., “I don’t want to carry the sadness and anger I have toward the man who did this to my mother…so I’m worshiping God amid the worst storm imaginable”; "Success and feeling good are contagious. I’m all about positive contagious vibrations!” Avant frequently quotes Bible verses, and the bulk of the text reflects the spirit of her daily prayer “that everything is in divine order.” Imploring readers to practice proactive behavior, she writes, “We have to always find the blessing, to be the blessing.”
Some of Avant’s mantras are overstated, but her book is magnanimous, inspiring, and relentlessly optimistic.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2023
ISBN: 9780063304413
Page Count: 288
Publisher: HarperOne
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2023
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