Steve read and liked Topher's review of God Is.: My Search for Faith in a Secular World:

"This is exactly the sort of woolly thinking that the 'new atheists' have a field day with. There is no sustained narrative or argument; the literary and historical references are thrown around without without explanation or analysis, and the book see...more This is exactly the sort of woolly thinking that the 'new atheists' have a field day with. There is no sustained narrative or argument; the literary and historical references are thrown around without without explanation or analysis, and the book seems to have been edited by a computer program during a rolling blackout. Many sentences are simply incomprehensible.

I found the theology, as I pieced it together, unconvincing. Richards seems to suggest that there is a universal experience of God which, when unacknowledged, leads to the forced conformity of totalitarianism or else to escapist consumerism. This uncritical reliance on a natural theology feels outdated to me, and irrelevant to the important discussion about living faithfully in a secular society.(less) "

Steve read and liked Frank Ewert's review of God Is.: My Search for Faith in a Secular World:

"The most surprising feature of this little book is that Richards (an award-winning Canadian novelist) refuses to reason with his readers. Sure, he toys with some simple philosophy and logic puzzles, but in the end he's more interested in his own memo...more The most surprising feature of this little book is that Richards (an award-winning Canadian novelist) refuses to reason with his readers. Sure, he toys with some simple philosophy and logic puzzles, but in the end he's more interested in his own memories, the fruits of his reading (from Girard to Tolstoy), and what he's tried to show in his novels.

This ought to make it a pretentious, forgettable book; instead, it's quite the opposite.

It seems that God Is. is written primarily for atheists, specifically those within the Canadian literary and intellectual arena. And Richards's arguments would no doubt make most of them publicly snigger. Yet, I suspect that this vulnerability works two ways: it's one thing to jeer at Richards's assertion that everyone needs faith in public. It's a whole 'nother deal to do the same in private, when you're alone.

I think that Richards knows this and deliberately wrote with that in mind. His book could be dismissed for frivolity, sentimentality, and simplicity, but those are the same reasons that the book makes so much sense.(less) "