NEW ATENISM

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.